If We Cannot Go at the Speed of Light

I’ll admit, I went into this expecting something more overtly weird—maybe the kind of Korean speculative fiction that leans hard into body horror or dystopian satire. *If We Cannot Go at the Speed of Light* surprised me by being *quieter*, but in a way that made its oddities hit harder. The title story, about a woman waiting for a train that may never come, had me gripping my headphones, not because of plot twists, but because of how *real* the stagnation felt. Choyeop has a knack for making the mundane feel cosmic, and Escoda’s narration sells it—her pacing is deliberate, almost meditative, but never drags. When she delivers lines like *“The universe is expanding, but my apartment stays the same size,”* it lands like a joke and a lament at once. That said, this won’t be for everyone. A few stories (*cough* the one with the sentient vending machine) lean a little too hard into allegory without enough emotional payoff, and Escoda’s even-keeled delivery sometimes flattens moments that could use more urgency. The production is clean, though—no distracting edits or volume inconsistencies—just pure, uncluttered storytelling. What sticks with me most is how Choyeop treats loneliness not as a tragedy, but as a kind of physics problem: something to be measured, worked around, maybe even exploited. If you’ve ever stared at a ceiling fan at 3 a.m. and wondered how to build a rocket out of your regrets, this one’s for you.