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The Proposal is Bae Myung-hoon’s third book in English (all published by Honford Star). I reviewed his second, Launch Something!, here two years ago, and thoroughly enjoyed Bae’s story about ROK Space Force members, political intrigue, and a strange origami satellite. This time, Bae puts us firmly in space, dropping us into the mind of a space-born soldier serving in a fleet that has found itself at war with a mysterious (alien?) race.

Written as a series of letters from this soldier to his girlfriend on Earth, The Proposal explores everything from long-distance relationships and “Earth-born” instincts to space fleet dynamics and political intrigue among the highest ranks in the Allied Orbital Forces. In his early letters, the unnamed soldier lingers over the fascinating differences between Earth-born and space-born people, such as the fact that the former love having a sense of direction:

The most primal ethic that makes humans human is not the taboos against cannibalism or incest but the ability to tell apart up from down, apparently. Something about how a human ear must hear the sound of gravity pulling their body long before they can hear the voice of their ego or conscience (15).

Despite these differences, many Earth-born and space-born couples manage to have relationships, with people visiting each other whenever they have leave. The advent of the war, though, has made it more difficult for the soldier to see his girlfriend, hence all of the letters that he has been writing to her. We learn that, many years ago, a book called Prophecies foretold the war: an alien force would appear and threaten Earth from an interdimensional portal. Unbelievable quantities of money and time were spent to address this prophecy: a massive fleet was built and launched into space, one that would be ready for anything that appeared. Just as humanity was starting to wonder of it made a mistake, a large fleet of seemingly alien ships appeared and started attacking the Earth fleet.

With each encounter, the soldier-narrator realizes more things that are odd about the entire situation. Why does the alien force seem to have the exact same weapons as the human force? How does the alien force know exactly where the human ships are each time? Despite upgrading the ships and their technology after each encounter, the humans find that they’re sitting ducks. The aliens seem to know exactly where the humans will be, and though the Earth force is able to defend itself better each time, it still suffers many casualties.

Even with this alien threat, Earth’s command starts to wonder if there are rebels among the Allied Orbital Forces. An inspection force is sent to the fleet to find out if one of the generals is planning to turn his guns on Earth. General De Nada, realizing that he is under suspicion but still determined to defeat the alien forces, uses the inspection force ships to achieve stunning results.

Particularly fascinating for this reader is the slow, subtle dawning on the soldier-narrator that what the humans are fighting may not be aliens at all…I won’t spoil it for you because I want you to read this short, intense, compelling Korean novel so skillfully translated into English by Stella Kim. It’s well worth your time.