The Floating World

March 15, 2025
Ren buried her past, Sunho's memory was stolen from him: Together they seek to solve the mysteries of who they are in this series opener set in an East Asian fantasy world. Ren's happy childhood ends when a demon attacks her adoptive family of itinerant performers, and she reveals her hidden powers while trying to protect them. Ren strikes out on her own, hoping to keep everyone safe from the pursuit she's long been dreading. A powerful general from Sareniya hires mercenaries to hunt her down, and among the hunters is former child soldier Sunho, who recalls nothing of his past except that he has--or had--a brother and possibly harbors a demon. Sunho lives in the grim, lightless Under World, a city of factories, worker housing, and gang-ridden slums; from its underside, miners extract mithril, a poisonous and valuable ore. Above lies the elegant, radiant Floating World, home of nobility. The teens meet when Ren saves Sunho's life, a debt he repays as they flee the general and his minions. Struggling to make sense of his newly awakened memories, Sunho needs Ren's help to contain his demonic energy, while she needs his strength to keep her safe. Tepid love story and confusing geography notwithstanding, the fast-paced plot is original and engaging. Incorporating concepts from diverse sources--Tolkien's mithril, Japanese Buddhism's Floating World, and the Korean folktale "The Woodcutter and the Celestial Maiden"--Oh makes them her own. Intriguing, bittersweet, and strongly paced.(Fantasy. 13-18)

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April 4, 2025

Gr 8 Up-The Korean folktale "The Woodcutter and the Celestial Maiden" meets a high-tech fantasy world powered by mithril. Ren, 16, is an impetuous acrobat with dangerous light magic. She should be keeping her magic hidden but can't help using it to aid herself and her adopted family as they travel to perform. When a demon attacks the village they're in, Ren uses her power to kill it and sets off into the mountains to confront the demon's origins and her own past. In the Under World, Sunho is an amnesiac ex-soldier taking odd jobs to raise enough money to go find his older brother and answers about what happened to him. He takes a mercenary job that could solve his problems-hunting a girl wielding silver light. Their alternating points of view eventually collide without Sunho realizing Ren is the one he's hunting. Oh's immersive worldbuilding is deep and easily digestible with scattered exposition balancing the fast-moving plot. The Under World beneath the Floating World is cloaked in darkness, with poisonous clouds and the city above keeping the districts in shadow-a concept both high in stakes and full of symbolism. Multiple mysteries keep the tension ever rising, making up for Sunho and Ren's somewhat stagnant emotional entanglements. Characters are coded Korean with additional diversity in the extended cast. VERDICT An interesting folklore-inspired fantasy with shades of Leigh Bardugo's Shadow and Bone and Final Fantasy. Recommended for larger collections. -Emmy Neal

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