• Dragon Pearl
• written by Yoon Ha Lee
• published by Disney/Hyperion (2019)

The first two books to be published under Disney/Hyperion’s Rick Riordan Presents imprint, Aru Shah and the End of Time by Roshani Chokshi and The Storm Runner by JC Cervantes have been, quite deservedly, extremely successful. Both are fantasy quest stories in the model of Percy Jackson and Magnus Chase, and each author has crafted a fascinating, engaging, innovative novel by integrating, in the case of the first, Indian mythology and, in the second, Maya legend. The imprint’s third book, Yoon Ha Lee’s Dragon Pearl is a bit of a departure. It’s a Korean-mythology infused space opera.

The author was kind enough to answer some questions about Dragon Pearl, how it came to be part of Riordan’s imprint, and what he’s planning to write next.

S.W. Sondheimer: You have a book of flash fairy tales out that were first published on your website. Do you remember when you first become interested in fairy tales and myths? Do you have any favorites? Did you read or reread anything in particular in preparation for writing Dragon Pearl?  

Yoon Ha Lee: When I was a kid, I used to sit in the Greek mythology section of the library and read the kids’ books there – stories about Arachne, Athena, Heracles, and more.

For Dragon Pearl, I reread a collection of Korean folklore by Zong In-Sob, Folk Tales from Korea. It’s an oddball collection that runs the gamut from gumiho (fox spirit) stories to the legend of Hong Gildong, but I encountered it as a child and remain entertained by it. I also read parts of Hong-Key Yoon’s The Culture of Fengshui in Korea as inspiration for my mystical star ships and Religions of Korea in Practice, a collection of essays edited by Robert E. Buswell Jr., for background on the smallpox spirits.

SWS: Your most well-known novels, the three Machineries of Empire books, are intended for an adult audience. What was the impetus for making a foray into young adult literature? How was the process different? Is there anything you would have done differently with Dragon Pearl had you been writing for an adult audience?

YHL: My agent, Jennifer Jackson, thought I might be interested in writing kids books based on Korean lore since I’ve incorporated Korean influences in my worldbuilding in the past. I thought it would be fun to try, plus my daughter (now 14) is a huge fan of Rick’s books, so she wouldn’t have forgiven me if I hadn’t made the attempt!

One of the hardest adaptations I had to make was streamlining my language for a younger audience. I know that I’m overly fond of semicolons and long sentences, and it was good to focus on making my prose more comprehensible. Machineries is not remotely aimed at kids, and if I’d written Dragon Pearl for adults, it would have been a darker and more complex story, with more betrayal and a much higher body count.

SWS: How did you become part of the Rick Riordan Presents project? 

YHL: When my agent let me know of RRP‘s call for submissions, I came up with a synopsis describing the overall trajectory of the book and wrote the first three chapters as a sample. I then handed those over to my agent to turn in to the editor, Stephanie Lurie. After she’d read the sample, Steph asked my agent if I had ever written for younger audiences before, and Jennifer (truthfully) answered no. So Steph knew that I was going to be a bit of a fixer upper! But she and Rick liked the concept, and they were both very generous working with me to strengthen the story.

SWS:  Dragon Pearl is a bit of a departure from the other RR Presents books in that, though it has fantasy and mythological elements and is a ghost story, it’s also a space opera. Tell us a little bit about how that structure came about and how you chose which elements to include.

YHL: Part of it was the fact that I’ve written space opera with fantasy elements before, both short stories and my adult sf novels. Part of it was that I thought to myself that I bet no one else was going to pitch Korean mythology space opera to Rick Riordan Presents. You’d have to ask my editor for the answer, but I’m pretty sure I was right!

I’ve loved space adventures since I discovered Douglas Hill’s Last Legionary books and Margaret Weis’s Star of the Guardians books in high school, so I wanted to write something with that flavor. But I also thought it would be interesting to see what mythological creatures would be doing in a future setting. One thing I didn’t want to replicate was the caste-based structure of past Korean society; I wanted to represent a future that was more democratic in spirit.

SWS: The writing style is also a little different in that, from Percy Jackson to Zane Obispo, we’ve seen heroes and heroines who have difficulty accepting their own divine origins, who fight against the supernatural to some extent, and who have no qualms about snarking whenever possible. Min is certainly self-reliant and assertive, but she’s a departure. How did her personality and dialogue style solidify for you? Why do you think she came together the way she did? What would she think of Aru and Magnus, Anabeth and Percy? Of Apollo? Of Zane?

YHL: I drew more from Korean folklore about mythological creatures than gods as such, and I really wanted to write about a fox spirit coming to terms with the implications of her powers, which can easily be used for ill. She presented herself to me as someone who chafes against the prejudices against her kind and learns how to make friends the hard way.

I think Min would identify a lot with Aru and her storytelling nature and appreciate Magnus’s survival skills. She’d probably enjoy Percy and Annabeth’s company but have trouble getting along with Apollo. And she’d definitely sympathize with Zane because of his loyalty to Rosie!

SWS: In a lot of fairy tales, only extraordinary people can interface with the supernatural. In Dragon Pearl, however, it seems that anyone who is willing to accept it can do so. Why was that an important element to include? 

YHL: This is a departure from, say, the Korean tradition of shamanism, but I did this on purpose because I wanted to depict a future where no one is shut out from magic. I always felt sad when I read books where only special people, chosen either by their heritage or by some destiny, could work magic because I knew I would never be one of those people. I prefer to believe in a world where working magic is a matter of studying and working hard enough.

SWS: Why do you think there are myths people come back to time and again, stories that catch the attention of generations? Have you seen common themes across mythologies that you think are fundamental? Which are fundamental to Korean myth and legend? Why? 

YHL: Myths are how we teach one another what’s important in life – not necessarily in a literal sense (I have never met a fox spirit that I’m aware of) but in the language of metaphor and symbol. Most people understand the world better through stories than through abstracts. Myths deal with the common themes that we see in our own lives, only writ large – birth and death, love and friendship, revenge and mercy.

One theme that amuses me in Korean folklore is that of desperate but clever peasants outsmarting powerful but dim-witted tigers (who sometimes shapeshift). I like to think of the tigers as being symbols for the nobles that the peasant lived under.

SWS: What are you reading now? 

YHL: Thanks to David Goldfarb, I am reading The Essential X-Men vol. 1. I have some general knowledge of the X-Men universe, but it’s so fascinating to see some of these origin stories that I never knew before! I’m also making my way through Sonya Taaffe’s gorgeous story collection Forget the Sleepless Shores; she is my favorite living poet and her prose is beautiful, subtle, and carefully textured. I read it in small sips, savoring.

SWS: What are you working on now? 

I’m working on an adult fantasy novel tentatively called Phoenix Extravagant for Solaris Books. It’s set in a world where magical paints can be used to imbue automata with qualities like courage or loyalty. Its heroine is a painter who discovers the ugly secret behind those paints, and she teams up with a rogue mechanical dragon to take on the evil empire!

SWS: Will there be more Dragon Pearl or more stories from that universe?

While I wrote Dragon Pearl as a standalone, I won’t rule out the possibility of more if there’s a demand. I guess we’ll see!