If We Cannot Go at the Speed of Light by Kim Cho-yeop, trans. Anton Hur
Publication: April 28th, 2026
S&S/Saga Press
Hardcover. 192 pages.
Pre-order: Bookshop.org | Amazon
From Goodreads:
"From Korean science fiction author Kim Cho-yeop, a stunning and poignant collection of literary speculative fiction stories that explore the complexities of identity, love, death, and the search for life’s meaning, perfect for fans of Exhalation and The Paper Menagerie.
In If We Cannot Go at the Speed of Light, Korean science fiction superstar Kim Cho-yeop leads us to places we never thought we’d reach, imagining worlds galaxies away and unfamiliar lifeforms with near-dizzying humanity.
An elderly woman stranded in a defunct space station recounts her life story to a visitor as she waits for a vessel that may never arrive. A man comes across a company called Emotional Solids that sells emotions as material products—love as a piece of chocolate, sadness as a smooth stone, anger as a glass paperweight—and tries to understand why people would want to purchase any negative emotions. When an enigmatic artist reveals long-forgotten messages from beyond through her wildly original paintings portraying a planet from a time long before humanity formed, a team of researchers investigate if this planet truly existed and if so, how did this artist know of it? After a pregnant woman’s estranged mother dies suddenly, her avatar disappears from the library of lost souls where the digital minds of the deceased are stored—and the woman is forced, for the first time, to endeavor to understand her mother. In a future utopian society where gene selection has been made uniform and all those with imperfections are cast aside, one woman seeks the truth about the history of her isolated world. And when a young woman undertakes a never-before-accomplished journey through a wormhole, she must reckon with the legacy of her aunt, who vanished mysteriously days before she was meant to begin the same pilgrimage.
Traversing the bounds of imagination with an ethereal incisiveness, Kim Cho-yeop’s stories dismantle the borders between normal and abnormal, material and abstract, earthly and otherworldly. With unforgettable inventiveness and pathos, If We Cannot Go at the Speed of Light heralds the arrival of an essential voice in contemporary fiction."
October, 2026: Lee Turner doesn’t remember how or why he killed his college roommate. The details are blurred and bloody. All he knows is he has to flee New York and go to the one place that might offer refuge—his father’s new home in Japan, a house hidden by sword ferns and wild ginger. But something is terribly wrong with the house: no animals will come near it, the bedroom window isn't always a window, and a woman with a sword appears in the yard when night falls.
Those Who Are About to Die: A Day in the Life of a Roman Gladiator by Harry Sidebottom
Publication: April 14th, 2026
Knopf
Hardcover. 416 pages.
Pre-order: Bookshop.org | Amazon
From Goodreads:
"'A grippingly original way of making the alien world of the Roman Amphitheatre both accessible and comprehensible.' —Tom Holland, co-host of The Rest is History
What did a gladiator feel when he stepped out onto the sand of the Colosseum, his life in the balance? What ran through the minds of the masses there to witness his likely execution? And how did this bloodthirsty ritual come to exist in the first place?
In Those Who Are About to Die, Harry Sidebottom pulls us into the arena, and into the homes and forums of ancient Rome, taking the reader on an eye-opening, twenty-four-hour tour through Roman life at the height of the gladiatorial games, from the first century BC to the second century AD.
We follow the gladiators through the schools (ludi) where they trained, watch in awe as the massive event unfolds—from the gambling at the pre-festival dinner, to the dawn rush to get a seat in the arena, to the resounding music, the elaborate stage sets, and, yes, the public executions that served as lunch-break entertainment—and we unlearn all the bogus movie tropes (gladiators did not have ripped bods; they were kept fleshy so they’d bleed more).
Broken down by time of day—Vesper, Prima Vigilia, Secunda Vigilia, up through the following sunset (Solis Occasus)—Those Who Are About to Die offers illuminating insights into every aspect of Roman life and thought: their social mores and hierarchies, their feelings about death and sex and violence, and the myths and dreams that fueled the spectacle of the Games."
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