"Ocean's Godori" by Elaine U. Cho is an impressive debut space opera that grabbed me right from the beginning with its rich character storylines and original premise. It is the first book in a series and a good start to it. I picked up the book on a whim because I was intrigued by the premise, and I wasn't disappointed. It is one of the best space opera novels I've read in a long time.

The book follows three main protagonists (Ocean, Teo, and Haven) and takes place in a world where Korea is the main dominating power, which, together with the help of major tech corporations, exploits planets in the solar system.

Ocean Yoon is a disgraced Korean space pilot of the Alliance, Korea’s space agency, who has to fly the Ohneul, a low-class Alliance ship, and bow to Captain Dae Song's orders. The other crew members are Maggie, a mechanic and engineer; Haven, a Mortemian and the new Medic; and Von Kent - the xenobotanist. And then we have Teo, the second son of the Anand Tech empire and Ocean's best friend. Last but not least is the soft-hearted pirate Phoenix, and his team consists of Aries, Cass, Lupus, and Gemini.

The storylines start out separately and then overlap in interesting ways. The plot thickens when Teo is framed for murder and has to run for his life. Ocean steps up to help him, and what follows is a great adventure chock full of ordeals, raiders, space chases, and even romance thrown in for good measure.

I enjoyed the book very much. It was slow to start, setting the stage, but after a bit, it picked up the pace and kept me fully engaged. I loved that the author didn't give us all the information right away or spoon-feed us. Bit by bit, the author uncovers more and more pieces, filling up the dots. I liked the writing and the way the story unfolded before my very eyes. The storylines are well thought out and engaging.

The author provided enough information on the background stories of the characters, so it was easy to keep up with the story. Although there were multiple characters in the book, I didn’t find it difficult to keep track of all of them. The characters are well-rounded, and the author did a great job of establishing them as people. I loved the friendships, the sharp ripostes, and the interactions between them, as well as the references to Korean culture and the exploration of humanity, cultures, values, and relationships.

If I have any complaint, it is that the ending was rather abrupt, ending with a cliffhanger. There is a hint of the development of a love triangle (my least favorite trope), and I hope it fades away in the next book. Other than that, the novel was wonderfully unique and exceeded my expectations. Full stars from me! I would love to read the next book in the series. I recommend this book to readers who enjoy space opera novels, action, and strong female characters.

* Thank you NetGalley and (publisher) for the opportunity to read this arc. All opinions are my own.

Elaine E. Cho's debut novel, Ocean's Godori, is a great read. It's largely set in space, and is centred around Ocean Yoon, a disgraced space pilot slumming it in a lower-grade ship doing missions she's not very interested in. She's a likeable rogue: "Handling Ocean is like trying to pet a cat. You have to feign complete disinterest and leave the door ajar for her to nudge open on her own."Along comes a space pirate, Phoenix, and suddenly Ocean and her rich gay bestie, Teo Anand, are tangled in quite the mess. Sometimes it's quite a hot mess, which will no doubt please queer readers: "The hand he puts up to push Phoenix away clutches a fistful [of] his shirt and brings him closer instead."

Bar for the first few chapters where you're trying to get a handle on who everyone is, the book's pacing is fast. Cho's descriptions of the action are also quite visceral: "Blood flies in ribbons, the hot viscosity painting his face, the messy gust of it a contrast to the bitter cold." Cho also integrates some interesting aspects of Korean culture into the book without interrupting the main storyline. Ocean, for example, is descended from the "fabled women divers of Jejudo, mermaids of Korea [who] call the surface of the water the line between death and life." Korean food is another vehicle for Cho to subtly showcase Korean culture: "Ocean can taste the undertone of sweetness in the spicy sauce. Maggie likes to fold in a little brown sugar to the gochujang, adding depth to the red pepper paste." I just wish I had known about the rear glossary sooner as using my Kindle's Korean dictionary simply wasn't cutting it.

I really wanted to like this based on the description and other reviews, but it just... didn't do it for me. I have tried for many days to try and articulate it, but it's difficult to say why. It felt like it was a lot of description of food and mundane parts, and not a lot of plot-driven content, and even then, it landed flat. Maybe space operas just aren't for me.

Some reviewers have noted the use of Korean throwing them off - that wasn't the case for me, I felt there were enough context clues to be able to piece together what was happening.

Thank you to Netgalley and the publishers for providing me with an early copy of the book in return for an honest review.

This was the perfect marriage of the found family crew trope a la Becky Chambers or Firefly, with the stakes of space age humanity a la The Expanse. Except, the main power players are Korean space pilots and Indian tech chaebols. Not gonna lie, I may be a bit biased as a Hallyu pop culture aficionado, but what makes this truly delightful are the best of Kdrama tropes -- formidable Korean women, sassy banter and intense interpersonal emotional bonds. Ocean and Teo's friendship is the beating heart of this story even though they both have romantic side plots developing. And just the sheer non-Western-centric space opera sci-fi makes me so so happy. I need this to be adapted to the screen so badly! Knocking off a star because that was a VERY abrupt ending. Still one of the most fun sci-fi reads in a very long time.

Unique and peculiar book, I had never read anything like that, I must say I liked it. The world building done rather well, sometimes I found gaps in the description of the characters, but it is a reading even if a bit slow at the beginning, very pleasant and different from the usual!

Ocean's Godori, set in the future, is a mix between a fantasy sci-fi and a space opera. Although this wasn't completely the book for me I did enjoy a lot of it. I loved learning about the characters and the world building was really interesting, although it could have been developed more in places. I just didn't feel completely absorbed into the story but I think a lot of sci-fi fans will love this.

Thank you to Zando and Net Galley for the eARC in exchange for an honest review!

In Ocean's Godori we follow Teo, wastrel son of a billionaire mining/communications company, Ocean, disgraced alliance pilot and Haven, a death priest out on runspringa. When Teo is accused of murdering his entire family, Ocean and Haven become caught up in a web of interstellar conflict.

The cover compares it to firefly, which confused me until just over half way in. The comparison doesn't really reflect most of the main characters but rather some side characters which become important in the second half. For me that last 50% is where this book grabbed me! It takes a while to get to the plot points described in the blurb

This book throws you straight in, there's no tedious info dump in the first 50 pages to read through! This can be a little overwhelming but works for the style of the story! The ending is rather abrupt though and didn't feel like a satisfying ending to me?

I did love the cosiness interspersed with action scenes and would recommend people pick this up if they are fans of Becky Chambers, Nathan Lowell or Firefly!

I enjoyed this story, set in the future, with humans spread out to other planets and traveling between them very quickly with no attempt at explaining this scientifically. This is more fantasy than science fiction, with the tiny spaceships having gravity, and an entire moon having a force field shield. There's nothing too complicated or unexpected, but it's a lightweight, fun read. The romantic relationships have a very YA feel, but they are not the sole focus of the story. The characters are interesting, nicely developed and likeable, if not entirely relatable. Each of the main characters are in the process of working through some past, or current trauma. The ending leaves things somewhat in limbo, though the gist is that extremely wealthy companies or individuals are bad, resistance fighters or pirates are good, in a fairly unsophisticated way.

Introducing bold, new, city-scapes of futuristic Korea, to the outer-workings of the Space Alliance and the tech companies that own it, Ocean's Godori was an inventive new work in sci-fi.
I really enjoyed the detail to Ocean's spacecraft flying skills, and the whole feel whenever 'The Crane' got into the pilot seat was epic-- I was on the edge of my seat waiting to see how she would maneuver her way through whatever obstacle she had to outrun.
It was a good book, but overall, I felt a little more confused than hooked. For instance, what WAS a Mortemian, really? From the reception, one would assume black-ops troops that obliterated countries and kicked puppies in their spare time, but were they actually just a funeral assistants? I am honestly still a bit unsure.
I liked the banter and family feel of the crew of the Ohneul, but had a hard time placing who was speaking, sometimes. A few more dialogue indicators would have been a bit easier on the flow.
I really did NOT like the love interest of Teo's, and found it bizarre and forced, and just, really uncomfortable. I think the second crew that was introduced was fairly neat on their own, but came off a bit strong on the 'we're so not what you're expecting, and we're really just the poor good guys/ bantering pirates who are hot'. If you'd spaced out their encounters, and dialed back the attempt to make them instantly likable, it would probably be a bit more believable.
But I have to say Haven was my favourite character, and I'd be excited to see where he went in the next installment. I'd love to see more of the Alliance, and experience some more of the charged and diverse cities and environments.

3.5 stars?

This was a strong debut!

Teo was a great character and I liked Ocean a lot. Unfortunately even though I liked Haven, by the end I still didn’t feel like his point of view was necessary for the plot. I hope that as the future books come out, his character arc intertwines with the main plot more. Unfortunately, in this one even when the inciting incident occurred, it never felt like his actions were moving the story forward.

In general the character work for the main characters was well done, but I did want more from some of the side character and overall some felt a bit flat. For example, I was hoping to get more from the Captain. She had her moments throughout, especially when at one point she discusses aspects surrounding class and the Alliance. However she didn’t feel consistently utilized throughout the second half of the book. Most of the side characters from the first half even felt underutilized in service of newer characters.

This was such a great concept in a scifi novel, I enjoyed the space pilot element and thought it worked well overall with what I wanted. Elaine U. Cho writes a great story and the characters had a great feel to it. I was never bored when reading this, I enjoyed getting to know Ocean as a character and the world within. It was everything that I hoped for.

Thank you to Zando and Net Galley for the eARC in exchange for an honest review.

Space operas and I have a strange relationship. I love them, but often find myself disappointed by the them. Whether it’s problems with the way the female characters are written, or the pretty blatant ableism the genre can perpetuate, they often just aren’t up to scratch.

That isn’t the case with this one, though. Elaine U. Cho has created something truly epic with Ocean’s Godori. The story is rich and colorful and the characters are full of life.

1: The Plot

Ocean Yoon is a Korean pilot who works for the Alliance, Korea’s space agency. Despite her talent, she’s currently flying a Class 4 ship after shooting someone against orders. When her friend Teo is accused of murdering his parents, Ocean and her crew become caught up in the conflict.

2: Narrative, Prose, and Story

The choice to throw the readers into the thick of things with very little up front exposition was the right one. Cho is masterful at weaving exposition into the right places without infodumping on the reader.

With unique sci-fi names, I sometimes have trouble keeping up with who’s who. Luckily, Cho was able to introduce characters well and switch POVs often enough that I wasn’t left confused, but not so often that the narrative felt choppy.

The fast pacing made this an easy read. I had no trouble getting into and keeping up with the story.

Ocean, Teo, and Haven are all great characters who are interesting and feel real. They make excellent POV characters for a well-rounded story as they’re all quite different and have their own perspectives and motivations. It was a delight to get to know them and realize I would die for them.

3: The Romance

This space opera is quite heavy on the romance, which is great for me because I love a good romance. However, if that’s not what you enjoy, I’d recommend something else.

There are two main pairings, Haven and Ocean (Gemini, my guy, I love you, but BACK OFF), and Phoenix and Teo. They both mean the world to me. Neither are weird or feel forced. I think they’re really well done. I’m rooting for them!

4: Characters

As usual with my reviews, I’m only going to talk about the characters and dynamics I have something to say about.

Ocean’s captain is Dae Song, my nemesis, who I’m really hoping we get both a decent amount of backstory and a character arc from. She’s difficult and selfish, but I think there’s a lot of room for her to grow.

Phoenix is a criminal with a heart of gold who ends up helping them. Yeah, his character is totally unrealistic. But do I care? Absolutely not. I love him.

Ocean and Teo’s friendship is so adorable. They’re cute and codependent, and I love them for that.

While I loved everything I saw from all the characters, I felt like we only scratched the surface of all of them. So, I’m hoping we spend enough time with them in later books.

5: Other Notes

As is often the case with softer space operas when compared to harder sci-fi, the science wasn’t quite there. The novel has the aesthetics of sci-fi without the pseudoscientific explanations. The world feels real, but most of the technology isn’t explained to us.

Mixing Romaja with English text was a bad idea. It’s just usually a bad idea to mix multiple languages like that, especially if you’re not including any kind of footnotes. Readers who don’t know Korean will either have to stop to look up the words (annoying, and they aren’t even written in Hangul so they won’t automatically translate) or ignore the text entirely (meaning readers are missing dialogue). There is a glossary at the back of the book, but personally, I’d recommend switching to footnotes.

Colonialism, capitalism, and identity aren’t explored much in this novel. But, most of this first book is set up for what I assume will be a series of 3-5 books (though, I couldn’t find anything saying how many there’d be), so I expect those themes to play a larger role later.

5: Conclusion

This novel was definitely exceptional for a debut. I can tell that Cho is going to kick ass in this genre. I can’t wait for the next one!

★★★★★ (4.5/5)

Ocean’s Godori is a strong debut novel by Elaine U. Cho, and initially interested me for being a book sitting firmly within the space opera genre so in I jumped after being approved for an advanced readers copy in exchange for this review. You probably know the drill - all opinions are unbiased, honest and mine alone. It’s the first book in a series, although I’ve no indication of how many books the series will consist of.

We primarily follow the book’s namesake, Ocean Yoon, who is a disgraced pilot for a unified Korean agency called the Alliance who dominates space exploration and the political relations surrounding it. Ocean and her team bounce around the galaxy from Seoul on Earth to Mercury and to other places flung far across our solar system. Other point of views from various and vastly differing characters are interspaced throughout, giving us a more rounded approach to both the story and its characters. We adventure with them across space for varying purposes, with each character injecting something unique and much needed into the storytelling. Ocean herself is somewhat of a closed book (no pun intended… or was there?) which helped pull the book and reader immersion more tightly together. Haven’s character interested me in particular, especially the slow unwinding introduction of his unique fictional cultural background and customs, and I felt he was a good compliment to Ocean’s shut off and at times downright cold demeanour.

It’s a decently sized read at 368 pages but the fast pacing and action sequences made it feel a fair bit shorter for me. And unlike most space operas, it keeps its politics quite light and easy to understand while still satisfying the need to learn about the world (well, worlds) that we find ourselves visiting. Korean culture features quite heavily for an English language novel, and I feel some readers unfamiliar with the culture might struggle somewhat with the smatterings of Korean language found throughout the book. Most is easy enough to figure out due to context although since English is my one and only language, I did find myself turning to a certain Korean American husband of mine to either clarify or outright ask what a few words or phrases meant. Having said that, don’t be me and find the glossary of Korean language terms at the back of the book AFTER you have completed the book! Although in fairness, I’m reading an ARC so it could be easier to discover it’s there after publication.

Overall impressions are that it’s an easy, well paced read and I’d recommend to anyone with a love of lighter yet fast paced space operas, travel and piloting in their science fiction. There is a nice touch of romance and a dash of spice to help keep things between characters interesting. I’ll be keeping an eye out for the next book!

This space opera starts slowly but builds to an exciting, incomplete finish. I found the world-building too vague for my taste; perhaps my unfamiliarity with Korean terms and culture in a Korea-centric setting undid me. Nevertheless, I found characters hard to differentiate and I still don’t really get the political structure nor the actual scope of the novel’s universe.

Over the course of the book, characters emerge as distinct people and protagonist Ocean, friend Teo, swaggering pilot Phoenix, and medic Sasani become real people with real, intertwined relationships.

While my initial read was, “not for me,” by the end I knew I would read the required sequel.

Not for me, but possibly for you if you're into K-drama (I suspect).

For me, the many untranslated Korean words (about half of which my Kindle couldn't translate for me either), the small amount of plot per thousand words, the multiple alienated and unlikeable characters, and the inexplicable inclusion of clutches, gearshifts, and brake lights on the spacecraft added up to a DNF.

A solid 4.5 stars, excellent debut space opera. And "Arghhh!" it is a cliff hanger! Must read the next book.

The first few scenes were challenging because we were introduced to four different people (and a few more) with little context and not much idea how they were connected. This was complicated by me conflating Hadrian and Hasan, so don't do that. But as soon as Ocean Yoon gets behind the controls of a space ship, the story is moving.

It felt like there was a new Korean-language concept every page or so for the first part of the book. Some of those could be figured out from context, but not all. That occasionally bumped me out of my reading flow. After I finished, I discovered the narrative glossary at the back. Future readers should refer to that and the writer might consider moving that to the front, even though prologues are not my favorite thing. Maybe readers can skip it, but know they can go back, like some pronunciation guides in other books.

And...still not sure how the godori game connects to this story, but I enjoyed it anyway.

I so want to read the next book.

This book would have been a magnificent anime. Stunning visuals, actions propelled forward by the rule of cool and good at distracting from loose ends & omissions in the story - because the momentum and the picture are compelling enough to let the cast of characters with two key personality traits and 50 shades of awesome make it a good show.

It doesn't quite work like that in the medium of the book. If you, like me, got hooked by the promise of Becky Chambers meeting Firefly -- Ocean's Godori is so far towards Becky Chambers ends of things that it ends up reappearing somewhere close to Portrait of a Thief. If you like these things, you will probably enjoy Ocean's Godori.

The premise sounded intriguing: we get Korea as the dominant power (and culture) in our solar system, which is a welcome new spin for the genre, and we are promised a nuanced exploration of colonialism and capitalism, as well as themes of legacy and identity. A superb ambition, one I can get behind any time -- but the execution fell short of the high stakes announced. The story takes its time getting to the announced murder for which Ocean’s best friend was framed, but this time is not spent digging into chewy exploration of colonialism and capitalism. Mainly, we are introduced to the characters and their respective quirks and circumstances - which oddly enough have very similar-sounding POV voices. They are all very special and amazingly skilled at a number of various things that would take decades to perfect, and - since this is the future - I would’ve maybe even bought it if there was talk of commonplace augmentation, but there is not. A trait they all seem to share - unwavering dedication to one another - hinges on strange reasons like “I followed my crewmate into exile because it was the right thing to do” (ruining pretty much every chance at a career in the process) or “I sought out a complete stranger because I hacked into a database and found her interrogation transcripts” (and I guess was so impressed as to try and get to know her personally?). The world-building I can only describe as done in broad strokes, and the plot development can at best be characterized as improbable. To give an example: at the eleventh hour, the main characters are rescued by the incredibly soft-hearted raider who picks up all the strays to the point that it’s his trademark and thus would’ve in all likelihood very quickly made him and his crew incredibly vulnerable to any kind of traps, attacks and blackmail. On top of that, the reader gets all the answers to anything resembling a mystery pretty much immediately or before they even think to ask, and most of those answers are again either improbable or simply don’t make sense from the cause-and-effect point of view. It seemed to me that the scenes that had the best flow (or felt like the author had the best time writing them, in any case) were the romantic, reinforcing my impression of colorful character vignettes.

The vignettes come generously peppered with: Shakespeare quotes and appreciation thereof as a sign of being cultured; food as a love language; characters having flashbacks showing their strained/difficult relationships with their parents or characters discussing aforementioned parents; characters lauding or explaining other people to third parties; and one scene with the title game that is maybe meant as a metaphor somehow, but honestly I’m not sure and I'm not seeing the significance that would warrant it being part of the book title.

Tl;dr: I feel like this book was trying to do too many things all at once and succeeded at too few. While some of those ideas seemed neat and more fleshed out than others (for example, Mortemians as a society and their philosophy or using certain Korean words as universally understood terms/slang), the main plot was more of a patchwork than a tapestry. As always, I continue to warmly welcome and loudly champion more books inspired by East Asian cultures, it just might be was not for me, or not for me in a book medium (as opposed to a graphic novel or animation).

Thank you #NetGalley and the publisher for an early copy of #OceansGodori.

This was not like any other story I have read, but to be fair this was also my first sci-fi/ space novel!

I am NOT disappointed in anyway. I loved how fast paced it was from start to finish. There was no room for feeling bored.

The ending was perfect but now I need MOREEEE.

The main character is the epitome of amazing.

Thank you Cho for being my introduction to this genre, I’m excited to see what else you write!

Thank you NetGalley and publishers!

5 stars, hands down. I loved everything about this and Elaine U. Cho is now on my must read list.

I think the original synopsis I read compared Cho to Becky Chambers, which I disagree with. Chambers' space operas always feel like such a microcosm of events - they are small scale, charactee centric and when I finish them I'm not wowed to get to the next. This isnt to say every space opera needs to affect the whole galaxy, but I need something a bit heavier in plot.

I see more similarities with J.S. Dewes, Alex White and James S.A. Corey (I loved The Expanse series, but they were crap at writing women characters - Cho is definitely an improvement on that front).

Cho builds a space opera setting with Korea reunified and the geocentric hub of the galaxy, similar to The Expanse, the martians have been prevented from terraforming and major corporations have a predominant say in who lives and who thrives. While it does take context clues to learn some of the Korean, I thought it was a great new perspective on global dominance. Having visited Korea in 2016 and learned more about its history and culture, I didn't doubt Cho's worldview - look at how influential South Korea is as a forced island in terms of technology and pop culture -- imagine having a land border accessible again.

I also appreciated her references for sci fi / pop culture fans - starting with boyfriend Adama a la Battlestar Galactica. These touches made it easier to connect to the story.

We have a wily group of core characters with distinct pasts and skills that complement each other - the plot here is both intimate to some characters, has larger galaxy implications and provides a solved mystery that leads to an ending that makes you want more without feeling like a massive cliffhanger.

The pacing of the story is fast - definitely take time with the first five or six chapters to understand who all the characters are.

I truly found this story to be phenomenal and I'm excited to read what Cho does next. Thank you to Zando and NetGalley for the ARC.