Jeong-su sees a black orb consume his neighbor. As more of these orbs begin appearing, he sets out to find his parents. This book had a lot of tension and great world-building, but I didn't like the ending. The characters were so complex and the exploration of catastrophe was great, so the unsatisfying ending really disappointed me.

2.5 stars

This publication of “The Black Orb” is an English translation of the 2009 novel, the title of which better translates to “The Orbs of Despair.” Jeong-su Kim is a successful office employee with an unfortunate smoking habit. While out buying cigarettes, he witnesses a mysterious black sphere absorb a person. The orb begins to multiply and spread everywhere, absorbing people as they go, leading first to the evacuation of Seoul, then a worldwide apocalypse. Jeong-su repeatedly attempts to track down his parents and learn what has become of them. Along the way he falls in with groups of people who are coping with the apocalypse in various ways: by forming a cult that believes it can control the orbs, by sacrificing others to the orbs, by attempting to find a location safe from orbs, and others.
This book is a fascinating exploration of human morality and ethics in the face of unavoidable crisis. There are so many implications here about individual responsibility and selfishness. Jeong-su himself is an interesting lens into these issues, as he has lived his entire adult life making reprehensible choices and claiming he had no actual choice in the matter. He is clearly not intended to be a moral character; in fact, he’s completely impossible to root for. Very few characters in this story actually appear to be worth saving. This is also clearly not meant to be a book that is enjoyable; it’s bleak, desolate, and gritty. While understanding the intentions behind the story, I still didn’t particularly like reading it. The prose felt very stilted and awkward, and sometimes I felt that the moral conundrums characters were presented with had too clear of an “answer” for the reader and not enough was left up to interpretation.

I received an ARC from the publisher in exchange for an honest review

The Black Orb by Ewhan Kim is a third person multi-POV Korean sci-fi horror. Jeong-su watches as his neighbor and several other people are swallowed up by a black orb that randomly appeared in the middle of Seoul. The orb cannot be destroyed and is able to multiply, slowly swallowing up the entire population of the world. As Jeong-su runs from them, he witnesses some of the worst of humanity and comes to terms with his own flaws.

This reminds me a lot of the works of Junji Ito: taking one specific element that feels almost absurdist and then giving it a horror spin in order to explore humanity and the ways we change under slow-moving, constant stress. If you’ve read Uzumaki, you’ll probably know what I mean. The orbs move at a walking pace so you can technically outrun them or use your car to drive away, but they don’t have to rest and they will eventually find you. The opening pages are quite vivid and I could see the imagery Ewhan Kim was conveying, which doesn’t happen often for me. The premise is simple and it's executed very well.

Over time, we get a pretty deep exploration of Jeong-su as a character and he has a lot more flaws than I initially thought, but he’s also running from orbs trying to kill him and people who will kill him. I spent a lot of time sympathizing with him as he tries to find his parents and he misses his ex-girlfriend, but by the end, he’d done enough things that I didn’t sympathize with him anymore. I can see how a reader might still feel bad for him, though, as the world is falling apart around him but he did so many of his worst actions before then.

The pacing is fairly slow though the book as a whole is a pretty fast read. Several chapters are quite long and serve to explore the new situation Jeong-su has found himself in, such as at a school where other people are living as a community. Usually, a horror will build-up to the horrific and spend its time creating the atmosphere, but, here, the supernatural/sci-fi horror is on page one and the atmosphere comes from how humanity is behaving.

Content warning for depictions of homophobia, abuse of power, cheating, murder, and mentions of sexual assault

I would recommend this to fans of sci-fi horror and Junji Ito and readers looking for an in depth character exploration that could change their entire opinion of the lead

I wanted to like THE BLACK ORB more than I did. Unfortunately, I wasn't sure what it intended to say, I didn't enjoy my reading experience, and I was left with a feeling of uncleanliness after finishing. So if that was the author's intention, then yay?

THE BLACK ORB follows Jeong-su Kim, a 30-something-year-old single manager leading a relatively dull life in an unspecified time in recent South Korea. One evening, he witnesses a 2-meter-tall floating black orb come out of nowhere, absorb any human it touches, and then go after the next closest human. As the black orbs continue to multiply and spread throughout the world, Jeong-su, along with everyone else, flees Seoul, ostensibly on a journey to find his parents. Along the way, he meets a religious cult, murderous thieves, and other humans of varying degrees of depravity, all the while trying to figure out what the heck is up with the orbs.

At first I was into this absurd story. THE BLACK ORB moves us quickly along in the plot, and the appearance of the black orbs bring out the worst in people. I felt there could've been some interesting commentary here about how quickly the thin veneer of civility in our lives tears the moment something apocalyptic occurs, how quickly social systems that are meant to protect us--the police, the military, the government--are revealed to protect no one in the face of danger.

However, the book's themes just never coalesced. Instead, Kim chose to introduce more and more absurd/unpleasant elements, especially in Jeong-su's character. It is clear from the beginning of the story that he is rather self-centered and individualistic--he doesn't have any close relationships with anyone, and his actions are more or less self-serving. However, later on there is a strong plotline that brings out his homophobia and toxic masculinity, and I just... don't know. Like, yes, there are people in the world who are clearly homophobic, but I felt that this aspect of Jeong-su's character was shoehorned into that moment of the story because the plot needed it to be there, rather than something that had been built up all along. Jeong-su's homophobia also constitutes a large part of the ending, and it all just felt... icky.

I guess what I'm trying to say here in my review is that a character can be homophobic and/or toxically masculine, but that has to kind of be consistent across the whole story and/or relevant to the book's themes. I couldn't figure out if THE BLACK ORB was trying to comment on the amoral, individualistic nature of contemporary South Korea, or specifically on Korea's problem with toxic masculinity. Either angle would have been fine, but the book's events seemed to go one way, while Jeong-su's thoughts and actions went the other.

Overall, I felt that THE BLACK ORB had the potential be a scathing indictment of the problems of individualistic capitalist societies, especially in the way we respond to tragedies, but the plot and the MC seemed to want to go a different way, leaving me uncertain as to what the book wanted to say to its audience.

This exciting tale follows Jeong-Su as he tries to avoid a mysterious, two-meter diameter, black orb. This orb moves about with no apparent method of locomotion, it passes through walls, following whomever is closest, slowly plodding along, and it absorbs anyone who touches it. With a solid mixture of horror, suspense, and the absurd, Jeong-Su travels across South Korea avoiding the menace while trying to reunite with his parents. Along the way, we see a variety of responses to the strange black orb by many different people Jeong-Su comes across showing the height of hope and the depths of depravity.

The story moves on at a good pace with a somewhat cinematic feel. There is an urgent feel to the writing which brings the reader right into the mindset of Jeong-Su. A thoroughly enjoyable read.

I know this was supposed to show humanity's lows when society breaks down while being a somewhat philosophical dive into the human psyche in moments of crisis, but it definitely didn't work out for me.

I'm the type of person who needs to root for something in the story, whether it's a plot point or a character, but there was honestly nothing to root for in this novel.

The MMC, Jeong-su, was a miserable bastard to deal with. I thought I'd garner some sympathy for him since he was on a quest to find his parents amidst an apocalypse created by giant killer metal balls. And doing all of that while suffering from his past and current experiences with toxic masculinity and hypermasculinity in the military and his civilian career.

But nothing about him was admirable. He's extremely selfish and homophobic and had zero redeemable qualities. He regularly beats up a younger man that he gets stuck with and doesn't feel remorse for any of it. No spoilers, but his situation with the younger man actually gets worse. And Jeong-su still doesn't feel any remorse for his actions.

With all that, I honestly didn't care if he lived or died. And at the end, I wondered if he was looking for his parents only because he was a man child and needed mommy and daddy's help.

Other than that, this pretty much had all the apocalyptic story tropes, such as a religious cult, a roving gang of murderers, martial law, etc. Nothing new and nothing all that interesting tbh.

Hell, I was even disappointed by the evil black orbs because they weren't fully explained at all. And I wasn't really feeling the black orbs as metaphors for society's ills and societal pressures. It reads like a stretch, but then again, I didn't study literature.

The beginning also read very comical, like the opening to a b movie. I was amused, and not in a good way.

I'm glad that I only wasted one day reading this book.

Thank you to MIRA and NetGalley for this arc.

Interesting work. Never read this author. Probably wouldn’t read this other than asked to. Outside my normal reads but wasn’t my favorite.