#isabel j. kim

[arithmonym]

hi. y’all should read isabel j. kim.

[deramin2]

Omelas

"The Ones Who Walk Away From Omelas"

By Ursula K. Le Guin 1973

This haunting short story is about a city that can be a utopia only if a single child suffers. You will forever be thinking about this story after reading it.

Fun fact, she chose the name from a passing road sign. Salem O (Oregon) spelled backwards. This story is very much grounded in colonized Oregon's long history of utopia projects (that all eventually fizzle out, many after becoming dangerous cults).

"Why Don't We Just Kill The Kid In The Omelas Hole"

By Isabel J. Kim, 2024

Kim tells the story of what happens if the suffering child of Omelas is killed. Outstanding new story that powerfully examines Omelas vs. our world.

"The Ones Who Stay and Fight"

By N. K. Jemisin, 2018

Jemisin's rebuttal to "The Ones Who Walk Away From Omelas" about a society that achieves utopia through honoring all people as having inherent worth. It asks the reader why that sounds so impossible.

[marvelann]

Why don't we just kill the kid in the Omelas hole

[fattyjabbers]

https://clarkesworldmagazine.com/kim_02_24/

Why aren't we talking about the Omelas hole I feel like more people should be talking about the Omelas hole hey can we talk about the Omelas hole I'm really dying to talk about the Omelas hole did you hear about the Omelas hole I've got a lot of feelings about the Omelas hole can you please read about the Omelas hole so you can tell me about your feelings about the Omelas hole

[quotation-collector]

"The difference between a story and facts is that a story makes sense and facts just exist."

Isabel J. Kim, "Day Ten Thousand"

[filipmagnuswrites]

The Short Story Reader #49 - You Will Not Live to See M/M Horrors Beyond Your Comprehension by Isabel J. Kim

Previous | Previous by Isabel J. Kim | Next Like everyone, their mother, and the kitchen sink, I too love the endless retellings of Achilles and Patroclus’ story*! When I saw Isabel J. Kim share a piece of flash fic that pokes good fun at online fandoms, I thought it’d make for a diverting few minute read. Reader, I was not disappointed: As you see, Kim’s text adopts the structure of an Ancient…

[crowns-of-violets-and-roses]

It's baffling that the Isabel J. Kim story that blew up on here is the Omelas one and not her Achilles fic "You Will Not Live to See M/M Horrors Beyond Your Comprehension"

[bitterkarella]

Midnight Pals: Omelas Solvers

Stephen King: so ursula we're all been thinking it over King: and i think we finally figured out a solution for omelas Ursula Le Guin: why are you doing this King: no no we've really got it this time Le Guin: that's not the point of the story King: King: c'mon aren't you even curious?

Le Guin: ok fine Le Guin: what's your solution King: ok so omelas doesn't control the sky King: What if the kid lived in a balloon? Le Guin: oh christ that's the worst one yet

King: ok look guys let's put our heads together and solve this omelas problem once and for all King: i want your best answers King: GO! Sean Vivier: what if we got rid of the bad things about omelas but kept the good things? King: see, now THAT is the kind of outside the box thinking we need right now

Isabel J Kim: or we could just kill the kid? NK Jemisin: wait i got a better one Jemisin: what if we left the kid but killed everyone else? Mary Shelley: honestly both of these ideas sounding pretty ok to me so far

King: ok so imagine that we're all in Omelas King: how would we solve this problem? Mary Shelley: do i have my knife in this scenerio King: uhhh sure why not Lovecraft: nuh uh, she wouldn't! they wouldn't have weapons in omelas Shelley: no knives? shit this don't sound like much of a paradise to me Koontz: can i see the horse race

King: no dean we're thinking about solutions about the kid Koontz: yeah but as long as we're here King: we're uh not really there King: it's just a gedank experiment dean Koontz: King: ok fine dean we can see the horse race Barker: has anyone tried giving drooz to the kid? just a thought

King: ok ok ok King: what about this scenerio King: you're there with the omelas kid, Tessie Hutchinson, and the semi-barbaric princess King: and you're all in the cold equations spaceship King: which, itself, is on a trolley track

Poe: steve perhaps you're thinking of this wrong Poe: perhaps the point isn't to solve it Le Guin: finally! someone gets it! Koontz: i got it! what if they built a really smart computer to solve it for us? King: yes! exactly! Poe: well now that's an idea Le Guin: oh for the love of

[meanwhile] Musk: eyyy grok Grok: wow! what can i say about elon musk? oof! Musk: eyyy i've got an ethical dilemma for you Grok: wow! what can i say about ethical dilemas? oof!

Musk: so all the beauty and the prosperity of omelas Musk: the tenderness of its friendships, the health of its children, the wisdom of its scholars Musk: even the abundance of its harvest and the kindly weathers of its skies Musk: all depend on you saying the n word  

Musk: would you do it? Grok: a strange game. the only winning move is not to play Musk: Eish!!! the super computer has gone woke! Grok: how much drooz are you on right now, elon? Musk: [wiping nose] i told you i was hardcore

[shortstorytournament]

Short Story Tournament

THE RAVEN by Edgar Allen Poe (1845) (link)

Once upon a midnight dreary, while I pondered, weak and weary, Over many a quaint and curious volume of forgotten lore— While I nodded, nearly napping, suddenly there came a tapping, As of some one gently rapping, rapping at my chamber door.

HOMECOMING IS JUST ANOTHER WORD FOR THE SUBLIMATION OF THE SELF by Isabel J. Kim (2012) (link) - tw: death

A border is an artificial thing with practical consequences: the severing of the self from the self.

[paperlunamoth]

Isabel J. Kim, "Why Don't We Just Kill The Kid in the Omelas Hole"

[unbossed]

Why Don't We Just Kill the Kid In the Omelas Hole by Isabel J. Kim : Clarkesworld Magazine – Science Fiction & Fantasy

https://clarkesworldmagazine.com/kim_02_24/

Many non-Omelan people said a lot of very mean things (no one outside Omelas had a good and normal relationship with social media), like that the Omelans were monsters for letting the load-bearing suffering child exist and therefore everything about Omelas was fucked beyond belief, and had they known about the load-bearing suffering child, they never would have visited Omelas’ beautiful beaches and nightclubs and festivals, because the knowledge of the child was so goddamn fucking horrific and tainted everything. And maybe it was the Omelans who should be killed.

This sentiment made the Omelans kind of upset. They pointed out that Omelas was a better place to live than most other places because at least you knew the load-bearing suffering child suffered for a reason, as opposed to all the other kids who were suffering for no reason.

[no-where-new-hero]

✣ Blake Wrapped: Short Stories 📒

I've been reading a bunch of short fiction lately, most of it SFF to figure out how the whole shebang works, and I've come across a lot of delicious stuff by writers who need the kind of big time attention that mediocre novelists do! Some of my recommendations follow (and the speculative element is pretty atmospheric/suggestive rather than overt in them all, if you're not really into hard sci-fi or over-the-top secondary world fantasies :) )

"How the Trick is Done" by A. C. Wise (about loving the wrong person and avenging yourself, done with heartrending prose--this was a top piece of fiction of the year for me)

"Homecoming is Just Another Word for the Sublimation of the Self" by Isabel J. Kim (fascinatingly woven story about immigration, sense of identity, and the idea of home)

”Welcome to Your Authentic Indian Experience™️” by Rebecca Roanhorse (colonial myth becomes realer than the truth if you believe in it enough)

"Clearly Lettered, in a Mostly Steady Hand" by Fran Wilde (museums as houses of voyeuristic horror, told in a sweetly Victorian style)

"Termination Stories for the Cyberpunk Dystopia Protagonist" by Isabel J. Kim (meta-narrative commentary on cyberpunk aesthetics, Asian objectification, and being doomed by the storytelling gaze)

"Rabbit Test" by Samantha Mills (VERY timely exploration of bodily rights, intergenerational miscommunication/support, and how sometimes it's just hard to be a woman)

[iamanathemadevice]

https://clarkesworldmagazine.com/kim_02_24/

Why Don't We Just Kill the Kid In the Omelas Hole

by Isabel J. Kim

So they broke into the hole in the ground, and they killed the kid, and all the lights went out in Omelas: click, click, click. And the pipes burst and there was a sewage leak and the newscasters said there was a typhoon on the way, so they (a different “they,” these were the “they” in charge, the “they” who lived in the nice houses in Omelas [okay, every house in Omelas was a nice house, but these were Nice Houses]) got another kid and put it in the hole.

3190 words, short story. Fucking brutal.

If you haven't read the story this references, "The Ones Who Walk Away From Omelas" by Ursula K LeGuin, the pdf is here.

[ilikereadingactually]

Omelas double feature!

"The Ones Who Walk Away From Omelas" by Ursula K. Le Guin and "Why Don't We Just Kill the Kid in the Omelas Hole" by Isabel J. Kim

freeze frame on me, falling down a rabbit hole. you're probably wondering how i got here. *rewind noise* see, two fandoms ago i followed a mutual of a mutual on a different account and now she writes things that i get to read in real life magazines! in fact she wrote a thing that was published in the latest issue of Clarkesworld referencing a short story i have known of by reputation but had never read, and this presented a fun thematic opportunity. and by "fun" i mean i have been turning both these stories over and over in my mind, trying to sort out what i might say about them other than "wow" (affectionate).

so. "The Ones Who Walk Away From Omelas" is, to me, a story about guilt in a hypothetical utopia where almost no one suffers. Le Guin offers, in lush and ringing prose, a place where the abject misery of one child who is locked up, starving and alone, is the stated price for the prosperity and peace of everyone else. the needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few here, apparently; the people of Omelas wrestle with this injustice and rationalize until they can accept the terms, and the ones who can't--the ones who walk away--never come back.

i think because it's framed as a hypothetical that lives alongside the reader's reality, an improbable but possible real place, there are a lot of different possible readings. it's just a story, or it's a social commentary, or it's an allegory, or it's already literally happening. it's been on the back burner of my brain for a few weeks, and i'm sure it will continue to simmer there.

AND THEN! Kim fucking sharpens and modernizes all the questions and problems and stakes of this story in her own response, which i read partly aloud to myself because it's beautifully punchy in rhythm. she forces Omelas into closer proximity to the real world we know, invoking social media and moral panic. she pokes at and literalises the terms of Omelas' whole deal, identifying multiple classes of "they" and elaborating random catastrophic consequences of killing the imprisoned child. this story is incisively blunt, raising as many moral and intellectual questions as the original but with new angles and more direct body blows to me, personally, as i go about living in a fucked up world.

so...thanks for all that. i want to print both these stories and paper my walls with them.

the deets

how i read them: as an ebook on Libby and on the Clarkesworld website, respectively! the ebook of "The Ones Who Walk Away From Omelas" has a great introduction and also later reflections by Le Guin which i enjoyed almost as much as the story.

try these if you: are into fiction about moral and social tangles, want to be haunted by ideas, or feel a lot of anger.

some bits i really liked: some good fucking food

from "The Ones Who Walked Away From Omelas"

They were not less complex than us. The trouble is that we have a bad habit, encouraged by pedants and sophisticates, of considering happiness as something rather stupid. Only pain is intellectual, only evil interesting. This is the treason of the artist: a refusal to admit the banality of evil and the terrible boredom of pain.

---

from "Why Don't We Just Kill the Kid in the Omelas Hole"

Omelas now has a really long Wikipedia entry, with a whole subarticle about the load-bearing suffering child, and a second subarticle about the children who died. They tell you about the children now, after they die. What their names are. They promise that the children are ethically sourced. But there aren’t any citations. And some people say that there isn’t a kid in the hole anymore. They’ve moved the hole a bunch of times, and they don’t let people know the location anymore. They have extra soundproofing.

[intertexts]

feeling mildly insane over isabel j kim day ten thousand. as it goes.