STEMinist mecha fantasy meets reality television in this
high-stakes novel from the author of A Magical Girl Retires—a
wildly imaginative tale of sibling bonds, unexpected friendship, and an
existential quest to understand what it means to be human.
Robotics student Kim Wooram, runner-up at the World Gigantic
Mechanics Olympiad, is a world-class pilot and engineer. Unlike many of her
contemporaries, she likes working solo, preferring the company of robots to
most other humans. Sought by robotics centers across the globe, she chooses to
return to Korea after learning of an exciting new secret government robotic
project known as V. To her disappointment, only male pilots are
allowed to apply.
Desperate for a chance to make history and encouraged by her
twin brother, Boram, the usual rule-following Wooram makes a risky choice.
Posing as Boram, she auditions for Project V, the reality
competition show whose winner will pilot the robot V—and quickly
becomes one of the top contestants in both skill and popularity. Wooram
attracts fans and friends like Seojin, the show’s youngest female writer and
ardent “Boram” stan, and Jeonghoon, the clumsy but lovable underdog. She also
gains a rival in Jinyoung, the ruthless heir to a Korean corporate dynasty.
As Wooram comes tantalizingly close to achieving her goal,
she begins to realize that V’s arrogant AI is a ticking time bomb.
With victory within reach, and her identity at stake, will Wooram destroy the
robot of her dreams to save lives, or stick to the script?
Project V is a playful yet sharp meditation on
some of the most pressing issues roiling modern society in Korea and across the
globe: the male dominance in STEM fields, the ethics of parasocial idolatry and
our addiction to social media and reality television, and the promise and peril
of an AI-oriented future. Punchy and compelling, Park Seolyeon’s novel is a
winning exploration of ambition and creation—a quintessential novel of our
present and future for mecha fans and all curious readers.
Translated from the Korean by Gene Png
About the Author
Born in 1989, Park Seolyeon made her debut
winning the Silcheon Munhak New Writers Prize in 2015 for her short story
“Mickey Mouse Club.” Her books include the novels The Job of Marta, The
Shirley Club, A Magical Girl Retires, and Capitalists Must Starve, which
won the 2018 Hankyoreh Literature Prize, as well as the story collections My
Hormones Made Me Do It, Your Mom’s the Better Player, and Me, Me,
Madeline. Her stories have been translated into Japanese, French,
German, and English. She lives in Seoul, South Korea.
Gene Png is a literary translator and
illustrator based in Seoul. She was awarded the Grand Prize in Poetry at the
53rd The Korea Times’ Translation Awards, and was the National Centre for
Writing’s Korean Prose Mentee in 2023 where she was mentored by Anton Hur. Her
translation of Cheon Seon-Ran’s THE SAVIOR AT NIGHT was
published by Bloomsbury in 2025.
