Initially evoking the sterile chill of a dystopian sci-fi tale, with horse-riding jockey robots and humans replaced by automation, Cheon Seonran’s A Thousand Blues quickly reveals itself as something far richer: a thoughtful exploration of humanity’s uneasy coexistence with technology, as well as the contradictions of a society that both creates and undermines its own systems of care.
Author: Yousra Feriel Drioua
Set in an unmarked pawnshop tucked behind a ramen restaurant, Filipino author Samantha Sotto Yambao’s Water Moon revolves around clients who pawn their choices—sometimes ones they don’t even remember making. What is life, after all, if not a series of choices? The very act of pawning a choice leaves a void; choices—it turns out—are fragments of the clients’ souls, used to fuel the lives of those on the other side of the pawnshop.

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