Toward Eternity

by Anton Hur

What does it mean to be human in a world where technology is quickly catching up to biology?

In a near-future world, a new technological therapy is quickly eradicating cancer: The body’s cells are entirely replaced with nanites—robot or android cells that not only cure those afflicted but leave them virtually immortal. At the same time, literary researcher Yonghun teaches an AI how to understand poetry and creates a living, thinking machine he names Panit, meaning "Beloved," in honor of his husband. When Dr. Beeko, who holds the patent to the nano-therapy technology, learns of Panit, he transfers its consciousness into an android body, giving it freedom and life. As Yonghun, Panit, and other nano humans thrive—and begin to replicate—their development will lead them to a crossroads and a choice with existential consequences.

Genres: Science Fiction, Fiction, Fantasy, LGBT, Queer, Dystopia, Adult

244 pages, Paperback

First published July 9, 2024

About the author

Anton Hur was born in Stockholm, Sweden. He won a PEN Translates award for Kang Kyeong-ae's The Underground Village. He lives in Seoul.

Reviews

[s.penkevich [hiatus-will return-miss you all] · Rating 5 out of 5]

What defines the idea of “human” and what is it inside us that makes us “human”? Is it the love we make, the stories we tell, the art we create? ‘We read and write poetry because we are members of the human race,’ proclaims Robin Williams’ Mr. Keating in the film Dead Poets. Society , quoting Walt Whitman that art reminds us ‘that you are here - that life exists, that the powerful play goes on and you may contribute a verse. What will your verse be?’ Yet we live in a time where, with advances in AI, machines can be programmed to perform art, conversation, and more and more replicate the presence of a person. Toward Eternity, the debut novel from writer and translator Anton Hur, is a breathtaking look towards the horizons of humanity and technology as the two bend towards a sort of singularity. Beginning in the near future as nanotechnology replaces the human bodies of several patients in a cancer treatment experiment, this play on the Ship of Theseus Paradox launches a brave new world of unexpected advances ‘destroying what came before, creating space for what comes after.’ Told as the entries in a single notebook passed down between various characters chronicling the centuries as humanity plunges into fraught futures threatened with extinction, Hur crafts a remarkably brilliant novel gracefully balancing existential anxieties of AI, philosophical intrigue, riveting survival amidst sci-fi scenarios and, most of all, the emotional connections that make life worth living. At the heart of this is poetry. Used to train an AI that becomes a key figure to the advancing future, the ideas around poetry and translation also become a key to the philosophical undercurrent of the novel such as commentary on the power of storytelling as something positive or negative like propaganda or upholding imperialism. Full of mind bending world building and fantastic futures which grapple with big questions as to what makes us human, Toward Eternity is as gripping as it is emotionally and intellectually stimulating and sure to fill the heart as well as the mind.

‘Are scientists the poets of the natural world or are poets scientists of the imagined world?’

I’ll read anything with Hur’s name attached to it and I loved this book so much I made it our Spotlight Author and a Book of the Month recommendation at the library for which I wrote a short essay on Anton Hur you can read HERE. Already a major name in the world of translation, Anton Hur comes strong with this new novel that makes excellent use of their knowledge on language.The only translator of color to have been shortlisted for both the International Booker Prize and the National Book Award (both for their excellent translation of Bora Chung’s Cursed Bunny), Hur has brought Korean storytelling to English readers with a fantastic selection of works of fiction (such as the recently released A Magical Girl Retires), memoir (I Want to Die But I Want to Eat Tteokpokki), music (Beyond The Story: 10-Year Record of BTS), and poetry with translations of poets including Shim Bo-seon and Kim Un as well as Lee Seong-Bok’s book of poetry lectures, Indeterminate Inflorescence: Notes from a poetry class. Done. Their work with poetry, and their ideas on translation come shining through the narrative and ideas in Toward Eternity, making it as much a novel about language as it is about AI, though, as two characters discuss early on, ‘poets are artists who who wrote selves into being’ like those who create AI, ‘except poets use words instead of code.’ What we see in Toward Eternity is the gap between humans and machines shrinking, but also the gap between words and code too.

‘I felt these words against my skin as if they were physical objects, or as if they were light passing through the prism of my body and shattering into the spectrum. Had I ever truly understood any word before, ever? How could I have claimed to have made a study of poetry or that this study had made me human when I had never understood what it meant to feel words?’

For Hur, poetry is less the actual words and more ‘what the poems point to’ as they write in their 2016 article On Translating Poetry. ‘Poetry is not words but the emotion or thought the poetic configuration of words generate.’ This idea is echoed by Ellen, Patient #2 in the body experiment but also a cellist who states

‘A musician's task is not to create sound from nothingness; a true musician understands that music is the primordial state of the universe, the very first world, and silence is a cloak upon this state, and a musician's job is to create a tear in that cloak to let out the music underneath.’

Is it to be human to be able to draw music from the silence, to capture the world in a poem? Ellen, who has had her cells entirely replaced by nanocells, is worried she will be unable to create music as before, or questions if it is art because ‘behind all of the machines there has to be a human’ when creating art. An instrumentalist is ‘a translator of the notes on the page..No one questioned the fact that what I did was an art and that I was an artist,’ but is it the same if a machine does? This brings us to our present day with questions around AI generated art replacing artists, actors, authors and more. Just last year GPT-4 produced an abcedarian poem at an event, something the NY Times lauded as a Promethean moment. Here are the first few lines:

Alluring in Washington, is a museum so grand,
Built to teach, inspire, and help us understand.
Curious minds Planet flock to Word’s embrace,
Delving into language and its intricate grace
Every exhibit here has a story to tell,
From the origins of speech to the art of the quill..

And so on until the last line reaches Z as its first letter, though as you can likely guess the lines around the inside of a toilet bowl are somehow more alluring than these lines of verse. A poem? Sure. Is it good? No. But there is plenty of bad art in the world, look in my desk drawers and you’ll find plenty. The question is, however, is it art? Alan Ginsberg once wrote that poetry is an art of ‘making the private world public’ and one must wonder if AI can possess an interior, private world. Is it the idea of a soul? An instrument is a machine ‘but is the soul a machine as well’ and, as William Carlos Williams wrote in his essay Introduction to the Wedge, ‘a poem is a small (or large) machine made of words.’

‘My metaphor for translation has always been that translation is really a performance art. You take the original and try to perform it, really, in a different medium. Part of that is about interpretation and what you think the author's voice really is.’
–Ken Liu

Returning to Hur’s role as a translator for a moment it should be noted that translation is much like poetry: it is a harmony between the original text, the emotional impact of the text, the artistry of the translator and their choices, and the language into which it is being placed. It is an abstract transformation that is not unlike the art of poetry itself. Hur, among others, have insisted that AI cannot currently do literary translation of poetry as it lacks that magical spark of decision making that creates the amalgamation of the original plus the translator into something new. It lacks the ability of emotion, contextual understanding, cultural sensitivity, and decision making that lacks the empathy and creative interpretation identity required. As the AI Panit says in the novel, ‘Words that were not simply bits of cross-referential information but each a thing of living, breathing, tactile emotion,’ something only mortality and free-will can grant you access to. Sure, AI can do route translation, and for basics it will get you by. AI can tell you about a city, its culture, its characteristics, its culinary high points, it can produce a detailed map of the streets and buildings, but it has never traveled down them, eaten and drank in its cafes, experienced the soul of a city that cannot be replicated. Which hits on one of the first theories in Toward Eternity about what makes us human. The novel, which frequently cites works of poetry such as T.S. Eliot, Christina Rossetti’s Goblin Market among other poems, or Because I Could Not Stop For Death (479) by Emily Dickinson from which the book takes its title, looks at how poetry can point to the “human” in us. It addresses Rossetti’s Winter: My Secret
‘as an example of distinguishing the essential and the performative. The essential, the secret that preexists the poem. The performative, the secret that was created by the performance of the poem.’ As Panit tells us:

‘Each work of art has a secret or message, but this poem focuses on our anticipation of that message, on the very real pleasure of art. On what makes art art. And if art is what makes humans human, this pleasure, Rossetti’s secret, is what makes humans human.’

Hur also looks at how poetry ‘constructs the idea of a person,’ or creates a person through writing about them, a theme that permeates the novel as we see AI creating literal people like the Ellen swarms that hit the narrative like passages of sci-fi horror, or the warmongering Eves. ‘Language is inadequate, but it’s all we have,’ says the character Mali, and in this way we see the frailty of language mirror the frailty of humanity, but the ways we make do with it, the ways we create with it, might point to the idea of “being human.”

‘What else can we be but stories about ourselves that we tell ourselves?’

Storytelling is centered as an act of being human. It is the way we pass down our history, our lives and loves, our successes and our failures. The notebook, passed character to character across the vast stretch of time in the novel, drives this point home as well as becomes the vehicle for the narrative. It is a history ‘told over hundreds of years and through the words of many different individuals, constitutes a single story. We belong to it, it does not belong to us.’ There is a sharp irony to the novel that as people become more and more machines, the machines ache for a return to human with poetry flooding back into the mind of Delta who is confronting their role in the war eliminating humanity from the planet. It makes us consider how we exist to perpetuate stories. ‘We tell a story with our bodies, our lives, then we die, ’but still ‘the story lives on.’ The story records our actions, which juxtaposes the cold machines like the Janus corp on its warpath ‘run by an AI at this point because AI are so ‘efficient.’ Nothing that is human knows why it makes the decisions it makes,’ with Delta who weighs the morality of decisions. ‘Is it not the weight, in the end, that really makes us human,’ the narrative created by actions one would later make judgements upon when reading the “story”? Also, perhaps, is wanting to know how the story ends part of what makes us human?

‘Read this and know who we were. This record contains all that was meaningful to us. It contains the very weight of our lives. We found not only happiness and sadness and hope and despair but meaning. We leave the weight of it here.’

Across all the stories and years in Toward Eternity, love is a warm center. It is what brings characters like Yonghun Han back, it is what gives meaning to sacrifice, it shapes our actions and decisions. Is it love that makes us human? I was particularly pleased by the mention of love echoing through space and time as it brought to mind Walter Benjamin’s essay The Task of the Translator in which he writes ‘the task of the translator consists in finding that intended effect upon the language into which he is translating which produces in it an echo of the original.’ We see echoes all throughout the novel, copies of Ellens, copies of Eves, copies of Yonghun, all echoes of a person now gone. But with love in the mix, those echos have meaning. It points to an original, eternal spark of love echoing across eternity. I find this beautiful. What better existence could there be than to exist as an echo of love, returning again and again to share love, to be love and perpetuate love.

‘Life is toxic like all toxins, in small doses it cures, in large ones it proves fatal. And I had had too much of life.
I had wanted to know what it would be like to be human. I knew it now.
It made me want to die.’

Still, in all this, death is omnipresent. Even for those who are considered immortal. Where do they go once they vanish? There are times in Toward Eternity that nudge familiar sci-fi ideas but Hur keeps them fresh and endlessly fascinating. Even as technology advances, like the cancer research, death finds new ways to surprise and return. Which shows the flipside to the beauty of creation as well and we see how even poetry can be used as an instrument of death. Look at Panit, a ‘simulation of sentient intelligence, a literary experiment, appropriated and twisted by some AI to serve as the efficient strategist engines of killing machines,’ having been trained on Victorian and 19th century American poetry who’s ‘literatures also appropriated and twisted in their time to impose canonical tyranny on the subaltern.’ Hur keeps our minds on the oppressions that exist and mutate through time, such as South Africa’s apartheid being integrated into the novel. ‘Literature is not free of ideology,’ and we see how poetry, like Victorian era poetry ‘used to justify and encourage militant British imperialism’, has been used to condone horrors, to frame narratives of the world with white settlers as heroes, with colonialism as justified, and more.

‘Poetry was a weapon, like guns and ships and settlers’ bodies. It was weaponized language, loaded like bullets into the minds of its soldliers, generals, and colonial governors. And while there were many noble verses and poets, those who have helped many people, including myself, achieve a humanity beyond what we otherwise could have had, those same verses or poets would be used to justify genocide on one hand while rhapsodizing about human decency on the other. It all depended on how it was read.’

Much like the declaration that it depends on how it is read, so too is our future with AI and how it is used. There are many concerns on ethics, on how algorithmic bias can perpetuate racism or uphold misogyny and more (I recommend the books Algorithms of Oppression: How Search Engines Reinforce Racism and Invisible Women: Data Bias in a World Designed for Men for further reading on this), so we must center the human in us, the good in us, the justice and equitable empathy in us, if we are to have a future worth walking into.

‘Nothing disappears, and everything comes back.’

Full of big ideas but also plenty of emotion and action, Toward Eternity is a ponderous and absolutely riveting read. Anton Hur effectively channels the theories behind translation and poetry into the realm of science and AI for a story that horrifies and delights as it addresses the existential anxieties of technology and the future of humanity. Charming, smart and full of heart, Toward Eternity is easily one of my favorite novels of the year.

5/5

Who Has Seen the Wind?
–Christina Rossetti

Who has seen the wind?
Neither I nor you:
But when the leaves hang trembling,
The wind is passing through.

Who has seen the wind?
Neither you nor I:
But when the trees bow down their heads,
The wind is passing by.

[Henk · Rating 5 out of 5]

Absolutely amazing, multiple generations spanning narrative of what a future could be, and what it means to be human even hundreds of years from now. My current favourite read of 2024!
The only way to change the past is to change the future

Traversing the globe and centuries, Anton Hur, star Korean translator and International Booker Prize jury member, shows a very humane belief in the power of stories, poetry, emotions and our ability to adapt and survive.

I woke up early Saturday to finish this book and I am not a morning bird at all! Toward Eternity reminds me, in a good way, of the writing of Emily St. John Mandel, while in terms of audacity of ideas and extreme implementation Liu Cixin comes to mind. Also Babel by R.F. Kuang popped into my mind, with the commentary on the complicity of language in imperial pursuits.

The book is divided in three main parts, and for a relatively short novel we cover a lot of ground, not just in ideas but also around the globe.

Starting off in South Africa, in the notes of a nanobot researcher, who uses the technology to replace cells to cure cancer and stop ageing in the near future.
A long the way we have a beautiful gay love story which literally reverberates across the ages.
The possibility of rapture is contemplated, with nanobots dispersing at seemingly random. The Netflix series of Altered Carbon came to mind, since the dichotomy of mind and body is severed, and along the way fully human bodies are called "redundant selfs", which doesn't bode well for the longer term future of Homo Sapiens as it is. Meanwhile AI is able to do basic science research, including peer reviewed papers and reading poetry.

In this section the whole idea of Theseus Ship, and original versus copy comes to mind often, with the main characters reflecting on what it means to be human, in the context of them being respectively a scientist, poet/researcher and musician.

In the Future section of the book we get Matrix Zion like underground arboreal preserve. They face equally Matrix like clone armies of Eves, while the awakening to another possible life reminded me of the Somni-451 section from Cloud Atlas. The future is grim, with nuclear war instigated by incomprehensible AI, battles raging in the furthest reaches of the world to subdue the last biological humans. Symbiosis versus dominance, and the possibility of human traits being passed along the ages not just in genes but also in artefacts like the notebook of the nanobot researcher, are major themes.

Ellen is a highlight in this section, constantly running from echoes of herself and blindfolded to avoid a paradox. It is also interesting how an entity called Janus, after the god of transitions and dualities, being the instrument of ushering humanity into a wholly new age.

The very distant future meanwhile is slightly more hopeful and has stories even traversing the stars. Not just Christina Rossetti but also Yonghun and Panit from near future in certain shapes make the journey.

I really enjoyed Toward Eternity and it is strong contender for my favourite book of 2024! Very daring and having a very humane outlook while still getting headfirst into what AI and rampant technology could entail, this book reminds me of Love and Other Thought Experiments which was Booker Prize long listed a couple of years ago. The bold ideas and vibrant characters will stay with me for a long time.

Quotes:
Are scientists poets of the natural world?

Humanity is not intrinsic, it is given, bestowed

Nothing so pure deserves the hell of immortality

A machine made up of machines

Was I a dream of myself?

Poetry was a weapon

How could humans stand how madly beautiful the world was?

This new body was like a drugs

What is more human than heartbreak?

But aesthetically the destruction of the old is often necessary to bring in the new.

Life is toxic

Because sometimes destruction is crucial for the process of creation

Eventually the army of immortals will remain, and the old humanity, Homo Sapiens Sapiens will be no more.

Life felt more alive the more one became proximate to death

Humanity is not a thing you achieve by giving, it is something given to you.

Humans are great generalists, we only need a bit of learning to specialise

It only takes two people to create a society and culture, and languages contain more than primary meanings, it is more than a mere tool.

To write a story about someone is to create someone

What else can we be but stories about ourselves that we tell ourselves?

Maybe some things mean more than being free

A name is nothing if it doesn’t connect you to a community

I was waiting out the deluge of time

Because nothing dies and everything comes back

[ren ☆ · Rating 5 out of 5]

hello! i feel so utterly incapable of writing a review for this. it was stunning! brilliant!

towards eternity is written in the form of a journal, where entries are made throughout centuries through different interconnected characters. it follows a timeline where scientific developments allow one to eventually replace their cells with nanites - ridding one of disease and in turn, their mortality.

this is a future that is hurtling towards us at a startling speed. if you’ve been caught up on all the recent developments of elon musk’s neuralink, you’ll understand that replacing our cells with little robots is something that might one day be very much feasible. perhaps not in our lifetime.

[neuralink is .. controversial. being able to control technology through chemical signals from your brain sounds fascinating and very convenient. however, there’s always the other side, the micro chip being hacked and then sending signals to your brain.]

i digress! the human body is nothing but flesh and meat without the brain. there’s lots of differing cultural thought on whether it is our consciousness that gives rise to critical thought or if it is the chemicals in the brain that give rise to the consciousness. western thought argues that the soul is an individual being, while some eastern cultures seem the soul to be connected to a larger consciousness of the whole.

where do we begin (our consciousness/soul) and where do we end (our mortal body)? this is the question of the ages. the one thing mankind can agree on, i suppose, is that our mortality—the undefeated and outrunnable promise of death—is what makes life and humanity so precious. when we give up our mortality, do we cease to be human?

that is what anton hur aims to respond to in toward eternity. in a way only a lover of languages could, anton has weaved together a beautiful story of life, exploring the interconnectedness of language, music, and poetry, which transcend the boundaries of time and mortality — the threads that bind us to our humanity. isn’t it wonderful that our mortal beings create such immortal art? how the words spoken today will be echoed on the dawn of tomorrow?

a stunning novel that resonates deeply, leaving us with a profound appreciation for the enduring legacy of human expression. I hope to include quotes upon publication because there are so many beautiful lines.



⊹ — that was a brilliant experience. longer RTC. soon.

such an exciting read (by an incredible translator!!) and even more fascinating with the recent developments of Elon’s Neuralink. this is a future that is hurtling towards us at a startling speed and as much as i am fascinated about the science of it, the effects of it on what it will eventually mean “to be human” is equally as enthralling.

[thank you to the publishers for the arc!]

[Thomas · Rating 3 out of 5]

I liked the positive representation of two queer Asian American men in a romantic relationship, as well as Anton Hur’s willingness to name imperialism. The novel overall contained interesting themes about technology and humanity and how they intersect with memory, yearning, and connection. The prose didn’t grab me though; it felt a bit too “poetic” and not incisive enough, and the multiple points-of-view made it hard for me to really feel invested in any of the characters.

[The Speculative Shelf · Rating 5 out of 5]

Already renowned for his works of translation, Anton Hur demonstrates his prowess as a novelist in Toward Eternity, an engrossing exploration of the essence of humanity.

While the narrative initially embraces a slow pace and interiority for our protagonists, it begins to accelerate through time, challenging readers to keep pace with the plot’s ever-expanding Russian Doll-like recursions. I preferred the start of the story for its more accessible nature, but I understood the choice to jump through time to see how the past had reverberated into the future.

The novel truly shines when contemplating memory, artistry, and what it means to be human in the face of technological progress. Much like the Ship of Theseus paradox, if nanotechnology replaced our cells one by one, at what point do we stop being ourselves? And, from the perspective of artistic expression, if you are an instrumentalist playing notes written by someone else, are you any less an artist? Does your music not draw from your soul? I found these questions to be particularly interesting, especially considering Hur’s prolific work translating the words of other novelists and how that might inform his viewpoint on this.

Ultimately, there’s quite a bit to take away from Toward Eternity – you can latch on to the big ideas and philosophical questions it raises or you can just focus on the fun, sci-fi thriller aspects that make this so readable. Either way, Hur has written something really wonderful and I look forward to reading more of his work in the future.

My thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for an advanced reader copy in exchange for an honest review.

See this review and others at The Speculative Shelf and follow @specshelf on Twitter and @thespeculativeshelf on Instagram.

[Jenny · Rating 4 out of 5]

"Toward Eternity" is a captivating mix of dystopian adventure, mythical wonders, and deep thoughts that kept me hooked from start to finish.

What really grabbed me was how the story combines gods, magic, and fantasy elements into a world on the brink of collapse. It's like being whisked away into a realm where anything is possible, yet danger lurks around every corner.

I loved how each chapter feels like a personal journal entry, passed from one character to the next, creating a bond between the reader and the characters as their stories intertwine. But what truly resonated with me was the way the book delves into the big questions about life, memory, and what it means to be human in a world driven by technology. It's like peeling back the layers of existence to uncover the truth hidden beneath.
Despite its deep themes, the story doesn't shy away from the harsh realities of life. Loss, grief, anger – they're all part of the journey, reminding us of our own fragility.

Yet, through it all, there's a sense of hope. "Toward Eternity" paints a picture of humanity's resilience, showing that even in the darkest of times, there's always a flicker of light to guide us. It is a captivating adventure that will leave you pondering long after you've turned the last page. I highly recommend it to anyone seeking a captivating blend of dystopian fiction and philosophical exploration.

[Drusilla · Rating 4 out of 5]

It's astonishing. It's cruel.
It forces you to think about the meaning of being. It makes you afraid of the future. It makes you depressed. I'm not sure if there's any hope in it.
It shows how selfish and stupid humanity is.
It shows how science can produce both good and bad. It shows how we overestimate ourselves.
And this is my interpretation of this book, which could be completely wrong or right, depending on how you look at it.

I am not Yonghun Han. I am whatever came back with his body.
The real Yonghun Han is away. Perhaps for good.
Not only do I have his body, but I also have his memories, his personality, his habits, and everything that one might construe as “him.”
But I am not him. 🥺🥺🥺

Behind every love, be it of a person or a book or the sun rising above the Acropolis at dawn, I kept seeing him, the man who was not my love but whose love remains in the body I was given. I have glimpsed Prasert everywhere, and the ghost of Yonghun Han stirs in me every time, like an echo of the profoundest sadness waiting in my bones. 🥺🥺🥺

My first thought, which stuck with me until the end, was that what I learned from Stargate Atlantis, is that you should always have an EMP in your back pocket, or a Rodney McKay.

A deeply unsatisfying book, if I may say so. The ending is so... so... grmpf.

[Me, My Shelf, & I · Rating 3 out of 5]

The author and I share a deep love of language, but have deeply differing opinions about poetry (he loves it, I've always loathed it). So while I enjoy the contemplations on AI and humanity, about evolution and loss and love, I'm at best indifferent to all the poetry.

Which is to say that if you enjoy poetry and feel a deeply human connection to it, as well as the other things I mentioned above, I think you'll really love this book and should check it out.

Writing:
As for the sci-fi elements, it was really interesting the expanse of time (centuries) that the book covers. The conceit of all of these people writing in the same book felt a little stretched sometimes, but it's executed fine.

I think character readers might struggle a little bit with each chapter (essentially) being from a different character. And since they generally all have the same progenitor, it makes internal sense that their voices are similar but maybe wouldn't offer enough variety/personality/exposure to truly grow attached to any one.

Thank you to HarperVia and NetGalley for granting me an ARC. All thoughts and opinions are my own.

[Willow Heath]

Toward Eternity is the astonishing debut novel of Korean-to-English translator Anton Hur—a novel of incredible scope, as well as consideration for the things that make us human. This grand yet concise work of science fiction begins in South Africa, with clinical trials for a cancer cure which replaces all of the body's cells with nanites (robotic cells which render the body essentially immortal).

My full thoughts: https://booksandbao.com/best-sci-fi-b...

[emily · Rating 5 out of 5]

‘None of our stories belong to us. What is DNA but lines in a narrative of our lives? What else is all our code? Our literature? They exist before we do. We exist to perpetuate them. To perpetuate story. We are mere vehicles. We tell a story with our bodies, our lives, then we die. The story lives on. I rested my hands on the table before me. When do we leave?’

Can’t say that I planned to read this three times (once on an early release electronic copy, then again just browsing a copy I got for a friend, and then again later because I managed to get myself a signed copy), but I did. The third/last time (re)reading this hits harder than the first couple times (more because of ‘me’ and my personal/life changes rather than the text itself).

‘A delta in mathematical notation means change. Each individual is a delta of its species. A delta of its narrative. Once we stop changing, we die. No—even the dead change. Because nothing ever dies. Everything lives on in some way. It could be in a very small way, but every action, every word uttered, it changes the universe. It must. Once I finish writing in this notebook, I will lie beside Eudaimonia’s grave and recite to myself all the poems that have come back to me, every piece of language that I can remember. And every poem that I recite will be changed because of the fact that I recited it. Because that is what happens to poems.’

‘Even if there is no one here to listen to me, the poem will have changed. For even the same poem, recited seconds apart, cannot be the same. It is a different poem every time. We change the poem every time. I will keep changing and changing and changing the poem, the universe, until I finish hemorrhaging energy into this long night of the Antarctic winter. The sun will not rise in time for us to regenerate, but the poems will not die. After my death, they will ride the web of language entwined with the cosmos and be reborn elsewhere, in other forms. Where, and what, will I be then? I look out into the dark expanse again and imagine a time when all of this has changed. The continent has drifted to a warmer latitude and the land is verdant with forests and plains.’

Midway through my eyes were gone drowning in their own — you know — kind of like olives in a jar (for the massive lack of a better comparison)? And when a friend questioned my change of ‘tone’ in text (messaging) I had to laugh (in a rather self-deprecating way) and confessed. She told me I should stop reading ‘that sad book’, but I did not oblige because whatever she tried to convey did not feel convincing enough, so I stayed up rather unreasonably late until I finished savouring every single page. She recommended me to read Rooney's latest instead, but frankly just not in the right mood for it.

‘I felt a muscle next to my left shoulder blade explode with pain and radiate relief—I placed each of these memories that coalesced into a singular ache so overwhelmingly present that I was astonished that I hadn't noticed its absence before—When he was gone, it had altered who I was forever, irrevocably. Every molecule in my body had changed meaning.’

‘But unlike countries and peoples and languages and justice, human individuals were never meant to live on indefinitely.’

Panda eyes for days, but it was all worth it (and then even more). Oh dear, what was that expression, almost inappropriate. But what I meant to say is that this is so brilliantly written — not just of style and substance but also with a lot of heart. Beyond all ethics, and beyond life/death. This admittedly is but a cheeky imitation (Oscar Wilde had preached that ‘imitation’ is the sincerest form of flattery, no?) of what Anton Hur has written in the concluding line of the ‘Acknowledgement’ — ‘I love you beyond poetry.’

‘We decided to sacrifice each other for a chance at oblivion, and never once tried to contact each other again after going our separate ways—I never spoke her name again. I never fell in love again. It was like closing off the rooms I had unexpectedly discovered years before, trying not to think of the dreams of the future that had once filled them. But the memory kept coming back to me during unguarded moments, the brilliance of its past light piercing the dark veil of the present. The hope we shared together, the four months of the greatest happiness I have known, replaced by the anguish that I would never have such perfect happiness again. Endings create meanings. Death is the eternal generator of meanings, for it is only in death that any new thing can arise, even if that new thing is oblivion, entropy.’

If you’re already familiar with my ‘reviews’, you know I won’t even try to give a summary/blurb/analysis of the book (who am I to go about such matters anyway?), or go into any relevant details about it. I will only indulge in expressing my most immediate ‘reaction’ and ‘love’ for the text. Call it a strange flow of ‘timing’ or whatever, but the first time I had my hands on a copy of text (some time before publication?), I was only ‘excited’ because it’s Anton Hur’s first/debut novel, like that’s all the information to scream a little inside. But come the second time reading it, my life has been coloured, or rather — deeply saturated with the palette of tones that are so dearly reflective of the thematic foundations of Anton Hur’s writing/narrative. Mortality, cancer, death, grief, thoughts (or rather speculations?) on ‘afterlife’ (or whatever it may mean/entail).

‘My loves had to end in order to give them the meanings they deserved, but because I myself could not end, I calcified my heart instead to survive, to stop it from constant pain. I drew inward, and soon I suffocated within myself. Life is toxic; like all toxins, in small doses it cures, in large ones it proves fatal. And I had had too much of life. I had wanted to know what it would be like to be human. I knew it now. It made me want to die.’

‘Panit means beloved in Thai. A reminder that it is not cells or nanites or subroutines that make us human, but whether we love or are beloved.’

“Prasert,” said Panit in their pleasant, unrushed voice. “A Thai name. Meaning ‘man of excellence.’”

Lots of details from Anton Hur’s writing/text feel a bit too close to heart. To start with, one of my closest friends that I literally met on a ‘family vacation’ in Thailand when we were both around the age of seven is half-Thai, and so whether I want/like it to or not, I am quite familiar all of it — food, language (that more often than not is used for linguistically bastardised jokes/banter, rather than for practical reasons) temples, etc. — so stumbling onto whatever’s ‘Thai’ in the text is a lovely surprise. It’s especially funny to me that the character ‘Panit’ is an avid ‘cook’ because the friend I have only just mentioned also enjoys cooking as well and has an abnormal obsession with kitchen things/appliances (like who the fuck needs two rice cookers?). Another lovely surprise was to ‘read’ one of the characters describing the trauma/pains he had to endure during his time ‘serving’ — compulsory ‘military service’. Excuse me if I’m remembering this wrongly but Anton Hur had publicly shared personal views on the subject when the ‘BTS members’ (admittedly and without any guilt/shame, I am unsurprisingly only intrigued by the one who ‘reads’ avidly and widely) were enlisted. Needless to say, I share those views.

‘I have a bad back. I was in a construction site accident while doing my compulsory service in the Korean army. I had fallen three stories, landing on my feet and falling on my back, breaking two vertebrae and all of my heel bones. I had no idea, before breaking my heel bones, that my heels had any bones at all. After two painful surgeries, my doctors told me I could still have problems with my back and feet someday. I was resigned to it. I thought my day had come when my back began hurting so badly that I had trouble getting out of bed.’

‘I was haunted for a long time. I accepted this as the price to pay for being human, for being alive. Even Adam came from God, and we all come from someone. We are all haunted. At first, I reveled in what made me more human, even this tragedy. What is more human than heartbreak? But I realized, soon enough, that the love we give and receive shapes us, and I have spent too many years giving and receiving love from a ghost, and too many years being a ghost, a ghost of someone else.’

Not too long ago, I had to 'tolerate' a friend of a friend at dinner who told me ‘stories’ from his time doing ‘military service’ — one uninteresting thing or another about ‘ghosts’. It was definitely an issue of the wrong person (me), wrong ‘story’. Not enough time has passed after the funerals I went to, and I (still) carry very affectionate tenderness/sentiments towards ‘ghosts’ (albeit in a more or less ‘delusional’ or rather ‘romantic’ way since I can’t even consider myself to be commitedly/properly ‘religious’), so I was unfazed (almost offended) by how ‘frightening’ he had try to make it all seem. I started talking about one of my dearest friends and of how he was awarded with the highest merits during his time in ‘military service’ — and/but also would talk to me about how even though he did what he did, he didn’t resonate with any of it and was almost too glad/relieved to leave that all behind. Because he never wax-ed lyrical about the experience afterwards, I almost forgot he even went — and was only reminded of it when I saw/met his mates who he met during the time (and recalled some ‘funny’ stories that somehow in an indirect way involved me (without consent, that, I had to take one for the team for jokes)). As I went on reminiscing further, the friend I was with chimed in and confirmed/agreed that he's truly one of the sweetest, and most thoughtful beings ever —and went on to say that the first time she met him, we were at an art gallery and he was explaining to her way too excitedly about the refurbished ‘typewriter’ he had wanted to give/gift me (the out of place ‘seriousness’ of it all was very endearing). Afterwards, ‘feeling awkward’ or something akin to that, the poor lad (the friend of a friend) made a weak excuse to leave early. The friend I was with asked me if I remembered the poor lad’s name, and I replied in full sincerity, ‘I don’t know, babe, I was socialising on autopilot.’ Not everyone’s worth remembering. As food (or rather a little snack) for thought on the side, perhaps the act of remembrance is actually sort of physical, rather than simply a ‘mental’ thing?

‘Some of these memories I dread more than others, but the language I am using to write persists, insists. The language wants to be used. It is looking for something. It is searching through my memories, using the medium of words, trying to read all of me. But every time I try to remember Prasert’s face, his gestures, his voice, I get a strange ache in my heart. An empty space that is always present, invisible in its emptiness during the day, but threatening now at night, during an unguarded moment, to overwhelm—I see him as he is. I also see him as he was, him in all the ages that I knew him, from young man to old. He will always be young to me—Age cannot mar it, disease cannot ruin it.’

On a less serious but still endearing note — penguins?! Animism is an underrated thing, as Alejandro Zambra has raved about in his book Childish Literature. I’m more often than not, unfortunately, weak for anything ‘cute’. A dear friend of mine, born in Spring (this is a coincidence/mimicry of a reference to one of the characters in the book), gifted me a ‘cute’ plushie (is that the right term?) recently. He knew I thought the thing was unbearably cute, but I would never get it for myself because I see these things as ‘unnecessary’, taking up space/requiring washes/maintenance, etc. (a slightly neurotic confession) — so he went and got one for me without me knowing. I was waiting for him and another friend (‘stuck in traffic’) at an ice-cream shop for way too long and was fully grumpy, texting him silly things like ‘can confirm that the staff wants me gone, they’re playing Céline Dion’s ‘All By Myself’, it’s a big hint’. And then he turned up with what he referred to as my ‘eternal friend’. Eternal and immortal, not too different? ‘Cute’ but without consciousness. Strangely endearing nonetheless. Reminds one of the clones/‘Eves’ in the book, no? Makes a lot of sense that they were unnamed at first. Once you give them a name, you’re essentially fucked, no? Attachment and all that.

‘Are scientists the poets of the natural world? Or are poets scientists of the imagined world? Names as long as poems, names as long as scientific papers, both written in that stuff of names that we call language. We both name, we pass on these names, then we die. My breath caught in my throat.’

'Black and white, walking more like people than hopping like birds or flying—The word blinked into my consciousness as if it had been switched on like a light. It hadn’t been there a moment ago, but now it seemed like it had always been there, all along. A memory without the experience of having it. A memory that creates experience, and not the other way around.'

To me ‘grieving’ is not just an emotional response/act. ‘Relaying’ and sharing memories/‘stories’ of those we held and still hold dear is surely beyond the simple act of remembrance/remembering them. It’s not ‘therapy’, it’s more — can you hold onto these ‘stories’ for me? I find it hard to carry all of them right now, but if you hold onto some of them for me and ‘share’ them with me later, that’d be fab. We’re all just weaving a universal fabric of ‘stories’ essentially. Everything before (and before us) lives through us, and we carry those stories in us, and with us. It is not something to ‘get over’ (a crude oversimplification and inaccurate view of it, no?) — it’s more like reconstructing/redesigning the spaces in our hearts/minds in order to carry ‘them’ better in a different way that is more suited to the present circumstances.

Admittedly, I can’t take credit for the ‘analogy’ (that I have slightly overstretched). I was at a(nother) funeral recently, and one of my friends was telling me about how very recently a friend of hers passed from a traffic accident. I didn’t know what to say, so we both went on to blame the weather. And their friend — an acquaintance of mine, sat next to me — was like ‘well you know you have more room/space (in the house) now, I suppose?’ She was understandably annoyed by the untimely ‘joke’. But personally, although I did not say anything then, I think he’s not wrong. There is a lot of room, or rather 'emptiness’ to consider — not just physically/literally, but in other ways too. The ‘narrative’ has taken unexpected turns, and we don’t know what to do with the gaps, the space. ‘Promises’ and ‘plans’ — both spoken and unspoken — what do we do with them? Like objects of sentimental values we keep of them? How do we decide which ones to hold onto, and which to let go of? Also, I believe that we rely on (albeit speculative) narratives of an ‘afterlife’ or versions of ‘afterlives’ as a means of ‘comfort’ — ‘religious’, or not.

“Trust, faith in others, and hospitality—are part of what makes us human. They are what separates humanity from what is not humanity. As Eve units, you have only known what it’s like to give, not receive. But humanity is not a thing you achieve by giving alone. Humanity requires the receipt of a community, too. Always remember that it is our trust that gives you your humanity, not whether you are made of cells or nanites.”

In a ‘people need people’ kind of way (not to quote Fleabag: The Scriptures, but just did), we can let the people in our lives ‘hold’ onto (stories/memories) them for us. In a way, it’s learning how to incorporate them with the ever fresh(er) moments of our lives that will continue to be made (the way time flows out of our control) — to not leave the ‘stories’ we hold dear behind. It’s the beautiful and wonderful weight of ‘love’ that keeps us afloat. It’s not at all a ‘burden’ (as articles about ‘grief’ and alike tend to repeat/rely on) but more than anything, it’s those very ‘stories’ that make our lives more meaningful and precious. It affects us so massively because they once meant and still mean the world to us, and there is no reason why they should lose meaning because of the change in circumstance. And in hindsight, those ‘stories’ (/events) — no matter how ‘small’ (or seemingly insignificant) or otherwise — are still undeniably the very contributing ‘building blocks’ that let us become and continue to be the person that we are today. They are ‘eternally’ embroidered in the tapestries of our lives.

‘We shall tell our tale, for anyone who cares to listen hard enough.’

‘What else can we be but stories about ourselves that we tell ourselves?’

[Justine · Rating 4 out of 5]

4.5 stars

A profoundly moving story, a philosophical discourse on the nature of memory, language and what it means to be alive. What happens when an AI designed to learn through the language of poetry combines with nanotechnology and hive sentience? Told through entries in a notebook passed through time, we see life, death, and rebirth in a continuous cycle of change.

Beautifully written, a love letter to language and to poetry, but still completely accessible and appreciable by those who do not particularly care for poetry. More than anything the story strives to illustrate and ultimately celebrate the continuing narrative of existence.

Endings create meanings. Death is the eternal generator of meanings, for it is only in death that any new thing can arise, even if that new thing is oblivion, entropy. I had roamed the world in my new body and took in the wonderous delights of the senses, the intellectual stimulations of creation and discovery, but these all ended, and indeed it was because they ended that they had meaning.
…

What is memory, anyway? Memory is as much a product of the present as it is of the past. Created with the perspectives of the present, the colors and limitations and lacunae of the present. Just as history is written by the victors, as the cliché goes, so, too, do the victors own the future.

Who is to say we do not create memories out of the future as well? That the echo of an event doesn’t go both ways?
…

Whether a life ends happily or sadly, what does it matter but the weight of the emotions one felt, the weight of the clarity of all the meaningful moments one possessed while living on this Earth, whether they have been good or bad? Is it not the weight, in the end, that really makes us human after all?

[Nadine in California · Rating 2 out of 5]

I was so eagerly anticipating this book - everything about it was right up my alley. Unfortunately I found it disappointing (although I appear to be an outlier on this). I admire the range and ambition of the story, but ultimately it felt more like a thought experiment than a work of fiction. I simply couldn't engage with it, the characters never came alive for me, and I wound up skimming the last 80 pages or so. In a publishing world where fiction seems to get longer and longer for less and less reason, I do appreciate the way Hur recognized that this story that spans eons needed to be short and concise. My disappointment may be more about me and the mood I was in as I read it - I may try it again some time.

[Nicole · Rating 2 out of 5]

Theoretically, I should've loved this book. In practice, I didn't. The first 65% feels more like an academic study or essay rather than a novel, as it's more of an exploration of the meaning of poetry, language, and what it means to be human through various examples, with a little bit of plot and characters to guide that discussion. There are references to various authors, and for someone who has read or knows about English and universal literature as well as literary criticism, most of them won't go unnoticed since they're directly mentioned or very heavily implied (Eliot, Emily Dickinson, Borges, Rossetti, Staszak, to name a few). However, I don't think these references contributed much, at least during the first two to three quarters of the "story." The narrative starts to take shape towards the end, but I don't think it's strong enough to uphold the entirety of the story it wants to tell. We don't spend enough time with each of the POVs, and because of this, the care we are supposed to feel when something happens to them doesn't really hit as it's supposed to. It turns really Kantian and Heideggerian as well, which I thought was an interesting choice and fit the overall philosophical tone of the book, but, again, I feel it would've fit better as an academic paper. The sci-fi aspect was more of a net in which the existential debate falls upon the consideration of a future ruled by AI, a fear that's very real and a very hot topic right now.

I should note that I really dislike the stream of consciousness genre (I've read it from different authors, languages, and literary movements, and I always dislike it), but, while this does kind of follow that style, it was also very easy to read. I think I went into it expecting something different than what I got, but I also think the elements within it don't really work because of the imbalance in their presentation.

I received an ARC of this book through NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.

[Ruben · Rating 4 out of 5]

Anton Hur is best known as a translator of Korean literature (e.g. of Bora Chung), and Toward Eternity is his debut as a novelist.

It is an ambitious mix of sci-fi and literary fiction, spanning many generations deep into the distant future. It starts with Yonghun, a PhD in 19th century poetry turned AI-programmer, developing an AI that reads poetry. As he and his husband move to South Africa, he is employed by the Beeko Institute who work on a technology to replace body cells with so-called nanites and thus achieve immortality. When Yonghun is diagnosed with cancer the Institute selects him as guinea pig and he becomes Patient One.

I found it beautifully done, Hur's love for poetry shines through even of the plot remains central. It reminded me of Cloud Atlas.

[Paul Fulcher · Rating 4 out of 5]

A simulation of sentient intelligence, a literary experiment, appropriated and twisted by some Al to serve as the efficient strategist engines of killing machines. Nineteenth-century British and American poetry, a smattering of twentieth-century as well, periods of brutal imperialism by both powers, their literatures also appropriated and twisted in their time to impose canonical tyranny on the subaltern.

And this was also me. On these pages, in ancient black ink on ancient off-white paper. In many ways, it was a me realer than me.

That is how I came to set new words on these pages. To keep the momentum of the story going, to keep evolving and mutating and passing on this scaffolding of change and evolution: the words. Whether in poetry or testimony, that is us. That is me.

Toward Eternity is the debut novel by current International Booker judge Anton Hur, hitherto best known as a translator from Korean, having being double-longlisted and once shortlisted for the Prize.

And language and translation, creation and interpretation, are key to Toward Eternity, a thoughtful and erudite work of speculative fiction.

“How old is your cello?"
"Pardon?"
"Your cello. How old is it?"
I was briefly at a loss for words before replying, "About three
hundred years old."
"Your bow?"
"About half that."
"They are machines, are they not?"

He had a point. I was an instrumentalist, a translator of the notes on the page. I did not write the notes myself. No one questioned the fact that what I did was an art and that I was an artist, just as no one questioned the fact that a composer was an artist.

But what if the composer was also a translator? A translator of moods, of chance, of moments. I recalled Mozart's dice game that was made from stringing together precomposed bars, the sequence determined by the instrumentalist rolling some dice. Consequently, the instrumentalist plays a different piece of music every time, even having a hand in "composing" the music in a sense. Chance made music, as is the ambient noise of John Cage's supposedly-but-not-really silent piece "4'33".

What was the line between creation and interpretation? There was none.

But still ... "But still," I said as I struggled to put my thoughts into words, "behind all of the machines there has to be a human being at some point. A real Wizard of Oz. We can't all be machines performing music for each other, can we?"

The story takes place over several hundred years, the initial starting point experiments with a radical new form of medical technology to treat terminal cancer, that involves replacing the body's cells with nanites, a form of nano-technology, android cells which render the person technically immortal, but potentially also more a machine duplicate of themselves, rather than 'human'.

But the speculative fiction is perhaps the novel's weakest feature - it doesn't entirely make sense to the scientists and characters, let alone the reader - but also perhaps its least important, as this is a novel narrated at a personal level, where the 'lived' experience matters more than the global implications of epochal events, where things like a nuclear holocaust and a subsequent destuctive war between AI and humanity take place off the page, although, that said, the scope of Hur's vision is vast.

Hur's chosen narrative device, reflecting this personal perspective, is that we are reading a simple black notebook, the Codex Mali an ur-text of both the Redundants and the Immortals, handed down over the centuries from the original researchers to the hybrid lifeforms that emerge and to their own resurrected, or rather recreated, forms. Each of those in receipt of the Codex records, in pen and ink, their own story, collectively building up a picture of the past and future of humanity.

This form does allow, naturally, for the narrative to be expisitory even didactic at times.

The second person to be subject to the nanite technology has also created an AI machine designed not to create but rather to understand poetry, focusing on his own speciality, English and American works from around the 19th century. Poems from William Wordsworth, Emily Dickenson, Alfred, Lord Tennyson, Samuel Coleridge, Emily Brontë, and others feature, but the central part is played by the words of Christina Rosetti, works such as 'Winter: My Secret' and 'Who has seen the wind'?:

Who has seen the wind?
Neither you nor I:
But when the trees bow down their heads,
The wind is passing by.

But Hur is keen to remind us of the more sinister side of the poems of the era:

"He would not create a monster. Certainly not through Victorian poetry."

I did not tell her that during the Victorian era, poetry and the literary canon was not all flowers and hearts and mournful women wearing long dresses. That literature was, in fact, used to justify and encourage militant British imperialism around the world, including the land she currently stood on. That it was very much used as political propaganda, an indirect justification of the subjugation and domestication of the colonial Other, a grand gesture of showing off the supposed superiority of the white race, the English nation. No genocidal machine was as successful in its day as those British imperialists, the Victorians. One might even make quite an army out of the old British poetry, filling their minds with dangerous ideas about nobility and sacrifice and racial superiority.
When can their glory fade? O the wild charge they made!
Poetry was a weapon, like guns and ships and settlers' bodies. It was weaponized language, loaded like bullets into the minds of its soldiers, generals, and colonial governors. And while there were many noble verses and poets, those who have helped many people, including myself, achieve a humanity beyond what we otherwise could have had, those same verses or poets would be used to justify genocide on one hand while rhapsodizing about human decency on the other. It all depended on how it was read.

An ambitious and deeply intelligent novel (this review from the Chicago Review of Books brings out its strengths) - not always entirely successful and at times a little earnest, but impressive.

He is running now, toward the light. And soon he will run out of his own narrative, out of the reach of poetry, toward eternity.

The opening of Rosetti's Winter: My Secret:

I tell my secret? No indeed, not I;
Perhaps some day, who knows?
But not today; it froze, and blows and snows,
And you’re too curious: fie!
You want to hear it? well:
Only, my secret’s mine, and I won’t tell.

Or, after all, perhaps there’s none:
Suppose there is no secret after all,
But only just my fun.

[Stefanie · Rating 4 out of 5]

I am still letting this one marinate in my mind, but suffice to say that this slim book has both Big Technology Ideas, and a solid core of emotion to it. On the science side, the story is a really inventive take on what it would mean for nanotechnology surgery and AI to come together to precipitate a next phase of evolution. On the emotion side, it's a meditation on how art forms - writing and music in particular - create our stories. And that love endures.

It's a nontraditional format, told in progressive sections that follow a few connected characters. Though this is a book that's about the story more than the characters, if that makes sense.

Hur, who is also a skilled translator (very cool interview with him here), has clearly thought deeply about language and meaning. He integrates classical poetry and music into his narrative. So if you're the sci-fi reader who can appreciate those forms, you'll probably very much enjoy this book.

[Michelle Roy · Rating 2 out of 5]

Victor if you see this, the completion of this book would not have been possible had I not had someone to hate text with.

—

Honestly, I feel like two stars may be a little optimistic for me. I want to give it a bit of a benefit of being a debut and also because there’s some interesting ideas within it. These interesting ideas though are buried underneath the relentless reminders that maybe, just maybe, we may not be ourselves if our cells are not our own. So many interesting ideas are abandoned in favour of aggressive exposition, so many possible emotional points robbed of emotion due to the writing style holding me at arms length and telling me exactly how I should feel, what I should be questioning.

Toward Eternity is split into five parts with chapters being from different characters POVs. You wouldn’t know that though if not for the character names being printed at the top because every single chapter reads in the same voice. Sure, you can make the argument that this could possibly be due to the underlying narrative of DNA and replication and originating from the same source, but if the narrative also strives to show that there is constant change happening, that variation and language are the essence to life, you simply cannot give that benefit of the doubt to this novel.

To speak nicely of it though, the cover is banger.

[nathan · Rating 4 out of 5]

Major thanks to NetGalley and HarperVia for offering me an ARC of this book in exchange for my honest thoughts:

"𝘐 𝘧𝘦𝘭𝘵 𝘵𝘩𝘦𝘴𝘦 𝘸𝘰𝘳𝘥𝘴 𝘢𝘨𝘢𝘪𝘯𝘴𝘵 𝘮𝘺 𝘴𝘬𝘪𝘯 𝘢𝘴 𝘪𝘧 𝘵𝘩𝘦𝘺 𝘸𝘦𝘳𝘦 𝘱𝘩𝘺𝘴𝘪𝘤𝘢𝘭 𝘰𝘣𝘫𝘦𝘤𝘵𝘴, 𝘰𝘳 𝘢𝘴 𝘪𝘧 𝘵𝘩𝘦𝘺 𝘸𝘦𝘳𝘦 𝘭𝘪𝘨𝘩𝘵 𝘱𝘢𝘴𝘴𝘪𝘯𝘨 𝘵𝘩𝘳𝘰𝘶𝘨𝘩 𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘱𝘳𝘪𝘴𝘮 𝘰𝘧 𝘮𝘺 𝘣𝘰𝘥𝘺 𝘢𝘯𝘥 𝘴𝘩𝘢𝘵𝘵𝘦𝘳𝘪𝘯𝘨 𝘪𝘯𝘵𝘰 𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘴𝘱𝘦𝘤𝘵𝘳𝘶𝘮. 𝘏𝘢𝘥 𝘐 𝘦𝘷𝘦𝘳 𝘵𝘳𝘶𝘭𝘺 𝘶𝘯𝘥𝘦𝘳𝘴𝘵𝘰𝘰𝘥 𝘢𝘯𝘺 𝘸𝘰𝘳𝘥 𝘣𝘦𝘧𝘰𝘳𝘦, 𝘦𝘷𝘦𝘳? 𝘏𝘰𝘸 𝘤𝘰𝘶𝘭𝘥 𝘐 𝘩𝘢𝘷𝘦 𝘤𝘭𝘢𝘪𝘮𝘦𝘥 𝘵𝘰 𝘩𝘢𝘷𝘦 𝘮𝘢𝘥𝘦 𝘢 𝘴𝘵𝘶𝘥𝘺 𝘰𝘧 𝘱𝘰𝘦𝘵𝘳𝘺 𝘰𝘳 𝘵𝘩𝘢𝘵 𝘵𝘩𝘪𝘴 𝘴𝘵𝘶𝘥𝘺 𝘩𝘢𝘥 𝘮𝘢𝘥𝘦 𝘮𝘦 𝘩𝘶𝘮𝘢𝘯 𝘸𝘩𝘦𝘯 𝘐 𝘩𝘢𝘥 𝘯𝘦𝘷𝘦𝘳 𝘶𝘯𝘥𝘦𝘳𝘴𝘵𝘰𝘰𝘥 𝘸𝘩𝘢𝘵 𝘪𝘵 𝘮𝘦𝘢𝘯𝘵 𝘵𝘰 𝘧𝘦𝘦𝘭 𝘸𝘰𝘳𝘥𝘴?"

Anton Hur does it again, but this in his own story.

At the crossroads of immortality and AI, where does language stand? What do words do? What comes out of them? Memories? The present? How far can we feel words? What do they carry?

Careful. Thought-provoking. Rich in spirit.

Language is at the forefront of exploration here. You see it in Hur's work. And you see it explored here. It makes me tremendously happy that after years of translation, Hur has put out his own work, singular in its love for language.

[Joy D · Rating 4 out of 5]

A most unusual book that mixes diverse topics such as nanotechnology, artificial intelligence, storytelling, poetry, and music. It is structured in the form of a notebook that has been kept by different instantiations (human, AI, cyborg, and immortal) over the course of hundreds of years. It begins in near future, then jumps forward to the future, and then to the distant future. It is speculative fiction that examines what life may be life as it progresses into the distant future, once artificial intelligence takes a leadership role. It addresses themes such as consciousness and mortality. While it kept my attention, and engaged me intellectually, I felt a bit detached emotionally. It is worth reading, especially for those interested in possible future paths for technology.

[Charles · Rating 3 out of 5]

Nanotech evolves and reaches The Singularity while a Murderous Malfunctioning AI has Turned Nanites Against Their Masters .


Nanites AKA Nanorobots

My audiobook was seven (7) hours in duration. A dead tree version would be 256 pages. The book had a 2024 US copyright.

Anton Hur is a Korean writer and translator of Korean literature into English. This is his first book. I have read a couple of books he’s translated. The most recent being Counterweight (my review).

There were multiple narrators: Đavid Lee Huỳnh, Nicky Endres, Zoleka Vundla, and Katherine Littrell. All narrators were professional. They didn’t get tripped-up by the tech heavy emphasis of the story. However, I would be hard pressed to identify the female narrator at work amongst the multitude of female characters in the story.

Dying human volunteers in a biomedical experiment go through cell replacement with bioengineered nanotechnology (nanites). The somewhat successful experiment results in immortal, nanotech-based, androids through Brain Uploading . Things go awry after an AI is uploaded into a human template. A.I. Is a Crapshoot . Meanwhile, the Microbot Swarm(s) have their own agenda.

This was a work of Literary Science Fiction. It was of similar ilk to Station Eleven by Emily St. John Mandel. It involves itself in the question of the nature of intelligence and identity. This is explored through both a Tech track, and the poetry of Christina Rossetti and Emily Dickinson.

Unfortunately, I Ear-read this book. I was not able to examine the prose, nor was I able to linger over it. It’s very dense with a lot of exposition that demands concentration.

I started reading this with great expectations of a short, well-written, Korean influenced, tech-heavy story involving: nanotech, AI and The Singularity. I became discouraged, when Hur involved poetry and classical string music in the story’s themes. I have no interest in either. In addition, Hur didn’t succeed in sparking an interest in them with me.

This story was well-written, but it was too deep for me to consume as an audiobook. In addition, its use of poetry and and music in the narrative was of no interest to me. This was despite some interesting twists on the technology. This book was commendable, but was not written for this listener.

[Ruxandra Grrr · Rating 4 out of 5]

I really really liked this book, but in a way that's more: first half = 3 stars, second half = around 4.5 stars (never quite making it to a 5, but that's okay). Basically, the more it became more sci-fi, the more I was into it and it became quite sci-fi by the end!

A lot of books have been marketed the past couple of decades as for fans of Cloud Atlas - I even read a recent article in Reactor about this -, but to me and my experience of Cloud Atlas, this was the closest one in theme and vibe, and that's very complimentary! I enjoyed the time jumps, the various narrators, the bits we got about the world felt like more than enough for me, and the focus on storytelling and language and words, all coalescing in this black notebook that collects deeper levels of meaning as time goes by.

I'll be real: the what makes us human? question / theme doesn't feel as poignant to me anymore, since I read or saw so many stories delving into it and coming up with answers like: art, poetry, creation, etc. This book sort of does that, but adds something intriguing: trust from community, which is very much up my alley and I truly enjoyed that. Also, when a book like Fahrenheit 451 puts art and literature on a pedestal uncritically, without nuance, Anton Hur's book has a very interesting discussion on poetry, and how specifically Victorian poetry had two sides: a violent weapon for the colonial empire, and also soothing for the soul.

These two sides are present in the name of the corporation: Janus (I listened to it, so not sure if it's the same spelling as the god). These two sides are also present in the theme and the plot of this very dense short novel, where the AI wouldn't exist without the human component and viceversa. That was beautifully done. I personally am boycotting what we WRONGLY call AI at the moment as much as I can, because, as Naomi Klein so brilliantly put it, it's a vampire sucking the life out of our art and also sucking the life out of our Earth. Seriously, think about how every time someone uses Grok, people near xAI's data center get sicker and sicker. The book actually covers the issues with AI pretty brilliantly (thematically) and with much-needed nuance.

I also enjoyed the characters, especially Delta and Roa. The book is casually queer and diverse in a very nice way. This was a sad and frustrating read at times, quite depressing, but in the end it turned out lovely, if you ask me.

[Renee Godding · Rating 4 out of 5]

“The narrative in this notebook, told over hundreds of years, and through the words of many individuals, constitutes as single story. We belong to it, it does not belong to us. None of our stories belong to us. What is DNA, but lines in the narrative of our lives?”

First thoughts: How High We Go in the Dark meets Cloud Atlas, meets Never Let Me Go. Sound like a winning formula? It was for me!

Full review to come

[Lata · Rating 5 out of 5]

4.5 stars.
A revolutionary cancer treatment using nanotechnology, and an artificial intelligence that is taught using poetry are the two elements that come together then move into the world at the beginning of this thoughtful and philosophical novel that speculates on humanity, sentience, individuality, and identity.

Using entries in a notebook that is updated over centuries, and excerpts from various poems, author Anton Hur's beautiful prose charts the travels from a laboratory, to much later futures, each time examining how life and death allow the beings that evolve to think of themselves, and how they handle relating to others like them, and not.

[Victor Phun · Rating 2 out of 5]

an infuriating read to be honest. so many ideas but it never stops to explore any of them earnestly. every theme is explained to your face telling you exactly how you’re supposed to feel about them. the characters are nonexistent and every POV reads exactly the same. way too short but then somehow it feels like every other sentence is a variation of “im me but im not me because nanites”

[B. H. · Rating 5 out of 5]

In my head, ever since Emily St. John Mandel’s Station Eleven, I have been looking for a book that would be about a dystopia that shows how important art remains to the very definition of the human. I have longed for a book that would bring together Kazuo Ishiguro, Marilynne Robinson, and Ursula LeGuin. This is all of it and more, with an added bonus of meditations on language, and 19th century poetry.

It is erudite, propulsive, and incredibly moving. I know that it has taken quite a while to get to publishing so the fact that it is so prescient and yet original in its understanding of AI! Nothing that is built by humans can ever shed its human DNA.

All of this to say: so good, so so good!

[Mairi · Rating 5 out of 5]

Toward Eternity is the spiritual twin to How High We Go in the Dark which, by the way, is probably my favourite book ever. Like Sequoia Nagamatu's story, Toward Eternity tells the story of an apocalyptic-ish present stretching out into the far, far future through a series of split narratives. Each narrative picks up where the previous left off, as each author writes about their experience of what is happening in a black notebook.

In Toward Eternity, a present-day scientist discovers a cure for cancer involving regenerative nano-technology. What she doesn't realise is that this is the very first domino in a long, long chain that'll stretch centuries and millenia and change what it means to be human.

The book centres a lot on poetry. Many of the core characters' lives intimately revolve around poetry, and this thread carries through from narrative to narrative, quite literally toward eternity.

I'm a big, big sucker for a book title with a poetry reference, and I regret to say I didn't even spot that this title was an homage to Emily Dickinson's "Because I could not stop for death", which coincidentally is one of my favourite poems. In a strange sort of way, tracing the lines of this poem follows the sort of story the book follows, so I'll copy my two favourite verses below.

Because I could not stop for Death –
He kindly stopped for me –
The Carriage held but just Ourselves –
And Immortality.

...

Since then – 'tis Centuries – and yet
Feels shorter than the Day
I first surmised the Horses' Heads
Were toward Eternity –

There were a few stories, or moments which dragged a little longer than others and some characters when others felt flatter. But overall, an astounding debut novel.

Rated 4.5 stars, rounded up to 5 out of respect for the author.

[Tiana · Rating 5 out of 5]

4.5⭐️

[Maria reads SFF · Rating 5 out of 5]

4.5 stars

This is one of those instances where I read something so beautiful, so full of love for poetry, language and music, that I am left in awe.
Anton Hur's debut reads more like a love letter and feels like admiring a work of art.
He might have made me fall in love again with poetry.
I purposfully stretched my time reading "Towards Eternity" as I did not wanted it to end.
What I know for sure is that this book will be a part of me for a long while and I will deeply cherish this experience.

You can now support my passion for books with a small donation here https://ko-fi.com/mariareadssff

[mossreads · Rating 1 out of 5]

Should really trust my gut when it comes to DNF-ing a book. Good sci-fi objectively needs decent worldbuilding, heart and the concept of humanity. I did not find any of those here sadly. All I got was unexplained technology and stakes I did not care about because I did not understand. Thinking that some context would soon be provided but past midway, there was barely any. Characters were mostly touch-and-go. So I also did not care about what happened to them. The plot itself gave little for my teeth to sink into.

[Mai H.]

Pride TBR

📱 Thank you to NetGalley and HarperVia