The Black Orb Hovers Our Way

The Black Orb, by South Korean author Ewhan Kim, is a short, scary, and inventive quick read, an apocalyptic roller coaster with a great many twists and turns by a debut author that shows much promise.

The novel follows Jeong-su as he tries to navigate the chaos of the appearance of mysterious black orbs around the city, orbs that absorb anyone they come into contact with. Desperately trying to get home to his parents, it doesn’t take long for social order to collapse and the orbs, which multiply rapidly, absorb most of the people in the city.

I’ve read a lot of apocalyptic fiction in my time, the vast majority of which takes place in the United States, and it is refreshing to read a horror tale from somewhere else in the world. The orbs, which appear suddenly and without explanation, are more frightening by the fact that they are slow, silent, able to pass through walls, cross over water, and are impervious to the weapons of man.

 It doesn’t take long for Jeong-su to be one of the last living people in South Korea,

surviving sometimes by fluke, sometimes by force of will, and sometimes by cleverness. His search for his parents eventually takes a back seat to his desperate flight from the unstoppable orbs, leading him to a variety of other survivors, from a cult-like group of religious people holed up in an elementary school to a gang of prison escapees taking advantage of the collapse of society, to another young man, Jong-seok, the two of them eventually finding ways to trick the orbs and take refuge in a large department store. The book, though small, is full of twists, turns, unexpected deaths, and a thought-provoking if not entirely satisfying climax.

            The prose is at times simple, perhaps due to translation, and yet the simplicity and understated narration of the text add to the mystery of the plot. No one in the story ever knows what is going on outside other than their own attempts at

survival, and there is nothing but rumors about the situation outside of Korea (yep … the orbs are everywhere).  

            Jeong-su is at times a questionable protagonist. Not all that likable, at times even contemptible, this ultimately makes him an interesting character to follow through the apocalypse. We are accustomed to heroes of virtue in our stories, but there’s no guarantee that these are the people who will survive when everything breaks down.

            The ending may leave some readers wondering what the point of it all has been, but perhaps that was Kim’s authorial purpose to begin with. His author’s note at the end of the book offers some insight into his thinking along these lines.

             A quick, easy summer read, The Black Orb is spooky, fun, and page-turning. Give it a whirl.