BOOK REVIEW | THE HEART OF THE NHAGA | LEE YOUNG DO

 

BOOK REVIEW | THE HEART OF THE NHAGA | LEE YOUNG DO

ABOUT THE BOOK

Discover the bestselling epic fantasy series from the grandmaster of Korean SFF, available for the first time in English by award-winning translator Anton Hur. A can't-miss for readers of the great classics and giants of fantasy, from J.R.R Tolkien to Ursula K. Le Guin

Three handles one.

The world is divided by the Line of Limit. To the north are the Tokkebifire people able to manipulate flames as both weapons and illusions; Rekon – giant birdmen with immense strength and warrior acumen; and the humans – as divided as the other races are unified. To the south are the Nhaga – a reptilian people who relinquish their hearts for immortality. For centuries, the races didn’t cross that line, but change is in the air. A Nhaga is being sent North…and a trio is being dispatched to make sure this agent from the South makes it out alive – one from each race.

But the illusion of a simple journey is quickly dispelled by the fact that the Tokkebi is merely a scholar, not an adventurer; the Rekon is deathly afraid of water; and the human hunts and eats Nhaga. And when the Nhaga they’re supposed to be escorting out of the Kiboren forest is murdered, the one sent in his place turns out to very much have a heart – meaning he’s quite vulnerable to the dangerous exodus.

The four must quickly forge an alliance and shed the distrust and prejudice that plagues them if they are to survive. And just as crucial, they must figure out what this mission is actually about, because unbeknownst to them, the very fate of the world might rest on this one Nhaga making it to the North intact.

A classic not to be missed, Heart of the Nhaga is epic fantasy at its best, translated into English for the first time ever by award-winning translator Anton Hur.

REVIEW 

SFF is a relatively new movement in South Korea with it finding its feet in the late 1990s along with the boom of the internet age. 

Whilst there is a history of SFF in the country, it was mainly an underground movement. However, with text based forums like HiTEL, SFF became more popular with Lee Young Do being at the forefront of the new science fiction and fantasy movement (fun fact: The Science Fiction Writers of the Republic of Korea was set up in 2017 and has 52 members) when he began serialising his Dragon Raja Series. 

Originally published in South Korea in 2003 as part of The Bird That Drinks Tears series, The Heart of the Nhaga has now been published in English for the first time by Harper Collins, translated by Anton Hur (Toward Eternity).

The book tells the story of Ryun Pei, a member of the reptilian Nhaga race, who suddenly finds himself caught up in events of epic proportions.

 

After running away from his heart extraction ceremony,  which is how the Nhaga have become virtually immortal, Ryun finds himself in the company of four strangers sent from the human church to rescue him. 

Tasked with escorting the Nhaga, three members of the other races take Ryun from the tropical jungles. There’s a Tokkebi who can wield fire, a bird like Rekon and a strange human who hunts and eats the Nhaga.

The Heart of the Nhaga is a strange book and is almost a throwback to 1970s SFF. It has an undertone of experimentation and much like those foundational books that shaped modern SFF it doesn’t care if the reader knows about the world or not. 

Structurally, the book is very episodic which affects the pacing quite a bit as the book peaks and troughs like the tides, which can make for an uneven read. And this tracks as the book was released originally in that format.

Whilst it is easy to recognise that this book had a tremendous impact  due to its highly imaginative world building and its original depiction of fantasy races, unfortunately the complex and intricately described world building can make the book a bit of a slog to be honest.

In addition to that, I never really connected with the characters and found it difficult to care about them, largely because they feel less like people inhabiting the world and more like devices used to move the plot forward.

If you like a book that has deep world building, political chess games and metaphysical themes, then this book might be for you. But for me, I found it like reading treacle.