Not Yet God

In the year 2026, a high school girl appears in Jeonju, South Korea, a “battery” that awakens and energizes the telekinetic, psychic, and healing powers that lie dormant in other people's brains. The “battery” awakens other batteries, and the number of people with powers skyrockets. Now, the world is a place where superpowers are no longer special, and everyone has a powerful battery by their side and begins to fight for power, wealth, or safety. Warfare, politics, and money-making have changed forever. They begin to write history in a way they never imagined.
But when humanity's overflowing energy threatens to destroy the planet, a group of scientists hastily packs tens of thousands of human fertilized eggs, a powerful battery, and a handful of superpowers into a spaceship and blasts off into the far reaches of space. In the hopes that the new humanity born in a new place will forge a new history of peace.

<Not Yet a God> is the eleventh story in a series of novellas that together complete the 'battery universe', and the next episode, “The Lotus Eaters”, is a cinematic imagination, fast-paced suspense, and spectacle.

In Ilsan, Gyeonggi-do, Sae-ha, a junior high school student engrossed in a game in the arcade of the Lafesta building, feels a strange noise and a loud vibration. Thinking it's an earthquake, he rushes outside to evacuate, but the streets are deserted. The streets, which were bustling with activity just moments ago, are empty of life, with cars standing in traffic, billboards flashing as usual, and game centers blaring. While cycling through the neighborhood, Sae-ha sees a giant spaceship in the middle of the lake park and runs away. The next day, she realizes that only four other girls her age and from similar backgrounds are left in the city. Frightened that shadowy black monsters are chasing them, they take refuge in a building, but Sae-ha feels that she must enter the ship in the lake to understand this strange situation. After boarding a yellow duck boat that leads them to a large spaceship, they travel through a strange tunnel, open a capsule hole, and find themselves in a cabin with a mirror. He is horrified to see himself standing there in unfamiliar clothes and with an unfamiliar face, but he has no time for sentimentality: the monster he saw outside has taken on a more definite shape and is chasing him. Frantically moving and running to follow the commands flashing on his forearm, Sae-ha manages to escape to the psychosensory chamber, but the creature tears open the door and lunges at him with tremendous force. However, it's not Sae-ha that the monster kills, but a woman sleeping there.
When Saeha awakens, the monster is nowhere to be found, and he is ordered to stabilize the ship's systems. A hologram of a woman appears. She explains that Sae-ha is an artificial life form called Orillian, and that this is a virtual reality representation of the supersonic spaceship carrying Sae-ha, the Ilsan children, and other psychics. And Saeha's mission is to use virtual reality to stop the super-powered but still prejudiced humans when their discrimination and internal conflicts lead the ship to self-destruction and help humanity reach its destination. Saeha accomplishes her mission, and the ship returns to its normal routine. When asked what he wants to do on the way to his destination, Sae-ha says he wants to go home and eat ice cream. Back to Ilsan La Festa. As Sae-ha and his friends laugh and talk about the virtual reality they're in, the air pauses and buffers for a moment. Sae-ha nods at his friend's comment that it's all fake anyway, but movies with Han Hyo-joo are real.

There is a sequel, the full-length novel The World of Mint, which contains a wealth of characters and episodes that could be franchised or serialized.

1. Having already made a splash in the U.S. market with “Counerweight,” Duna is about to release his second English-language feature with “Not Yet a God.” As a leading film critic who has been reviewing films for Cine21, Sisaen, and other media for 30 years, as well as judging or writing screening notes and reviews for various international film festivals, the novel's scenes are vivid and visualized.
2. Duna's characters are familiar ones that can be found everywhere in Korea, but they act outlandishly or unexpectedly, or react differently to stimuli from outside the country, providing freshness and tension.
3. Two of Duna's novels, 'Remnants of Old Dreams' was made into a drama (2014, Remnants of Old Memories, MBC) and 'Fox Bone' was made into a movie (Scary Story 3, 2016, Su-film).