The Floating World

The novel is built on chapters told by two heroes in turn. The first is Ren: a girl about to turn seventeen who travels east of the Haebaek Mountains with a travelling performance caravan. With her family she performs in masks: Aunt — her teacher and head of the household — the Big Uncle, her husband, a drummer, and the Little Uncle, Aunt's eighteen-year-old brother. Ren has a secret power of «Light»: she summons it and makes wind, and somersaults in the air, but Aunt has strictly forbidden it. In the first scene Ren breaks the ban again, and her punishment is not to take part in the performance at Gorye Village.

Ren's family relationships are the warmest side of this part. Aunt is stern and full of fear: «darkness can fall as fast as a breath», she says, it is not punishment but protection. The Big Uncle is soft in speech: he gives Ren a honey-and-cinnamon pancake, says «there is no harm in setting the feeling inside you free», and gives her a handmade paper umbrella. Ren keeps her mask like the one Aunt gave her when she ran to the valley ten years ago; the mask is her sense of safety. The writer draws these episodes in detail and warmly, while the plot moves slowly.

The second hero is Sunho: a seventeen-year-old mercenary in the ninth district of the Underworld, outside a mithril factory. The story's world has two layers: above, the «Floating World» (under Sareniya rule), and below, the Underworld full of smoke, darkness and mithril light. Mithril is the magical ore that keeps the world alive but is poisonous. The political background is given briefly: ten years ago the queen and heir died, General Iljin increased his military power, and the noble Council limited his right to mithril.

Sunho is introduced in the middle of a theft job: with two young smugglers, Yurhee and Tag, he enters the factory's warehouse. The work is described quietly and professionally: climbing hooks, explosive boxes, the guards' lantern light, the shift siren. Sunho has no memory: two years ago he woke up beside an old factory and remembers only his name, his brother Junho and the tattoo mark of the Sareniya army. The «Demon» in his chest makes him strong, able to see in the dark and heal fast, but he keeps it deep inside.

The author's style is fluent; short chapters and the changing point of view ease reading. The place name in each chapter heading (the Haebaek Mountains, the Ninth District) orients the reader immediately. The weakness is that in this part the characters are somewhat typical (the caring big uncle, the joking little uncle, the warrior seeking a lost brother), while the plot has not yet joined the two lines.

• Chapters alternate between Ren and Sunho and each heading gives the place (e.g. the Underworld, the Haebaek Mountains)
• Ren's masked performance scene gives the heroine's physical and character portrait vividly and visually
• The mithril factory, smoke and blue clouds build the hard life of the Underworld in brief description
• The author fills the world with details drawn from Korean culture such as words, names and food (honey-and-cinnamon pancake)