This bit in Ars Technica about North Korean Sci Fi (yes, it’s a real thing) is great fun. The main themes of early North Korean sci-fi revolved around the lives and struggles of ordinary people who used science and technology to better themselves and the world. Plots of man taming nature were frequent in both North Korea and the Soviet Union, which had slogans like "Correcting nature's mistakes" and "Man, in transforming nature, transforms himself."
Are Western stories much different? There are a plethora of Anglo science fiction stories that have the people rising up to overthrow the corrupt oligarchs and corporations. Sadly I am now motivated to seek out North Korean Science Fiction and disprove my wife when she says I could not be a more pretentious wanker.
Really the only thing that makes a story about a calm and heroic North Korean diplomat jarring for a Western audience is our conscious and unconscious biases about North Korea. It's hard for us to square the circle of a heroic diplomat when our perception of his country is as an undemocratic tin pot dictatorship that needs to be overthrown. Ironically it's how North Koreans would probably view the same story with an American or British diplomat as the hero...
Please tell me the stolid diplomat kicked the offending diffused bomb out the door and said "get off the peoples plane". Although i guess it would be "benevolent leader's" and not "peoples"
Are Western stories much different? There are a plethora of Anglo science fiction stories that have the people rising up to overthrow the corrupt oligarchs and corporations. Sadly I am now motivated to seek out North Korean Science Fiction and disprove my wife when she says I could not be a more pretentious wanker.
Really the only thing that makes a story about a calm and heroic North Korean diplomat jarring for a Western audience is our conscious and unconscious biases about North Korea. It's hard for us to square the circle of a heroic diplomat when our perception of his country is as an undemocratic tin pot dictatorship that needs to be overthrown. Ironically it's how North Koreans would probably view the same story with an American or British diplomat as the hero...
This probably ties in with there are only 8 stories.
Please tell me the stolid diplomat kicked the offending diffused bomb out the door and said "get off the peoples plane". Although i guess it would be "benevolent leader's" and not "peoples"