When Elaine U. Cho’s debut novel, Ocean’s Godori(opens in new tab), came out in 2024, I had the privilege of being in conversation with her for the Washington, DC stop of her book tour, as well as for its sequel, Teo’s Durumi(opens in new tab). Published as The Alliance duology, the novels imagine a united Korea as the leading power of a colonized solar system. Featuring a tightknit crew of a rogue spaceship, including ace pilot Ocean with a troubled past and her best friend Teo with an even more troubled present, the narrative reframes the space opera from the white gaze and the American worldview of government and power. In the short time between the two books, I’ve seen how her readership has grown, and I feel confident that Elaine is destined to become a bestselling fan favorite. A voracious reader, Elaine works a day job as an editor at Shelf Awareness(opens in new tab). Dedicated to the craft of writing, she has a capacious imagination, and a, uh, very Korean work ethic. In real life she’s incredibly sweet and kind and has a thrilling sense of fashion. The future is very bright for Elaine U. Cho, and I cannot wait for her next book, and her next, and her next.

—Alice Stephens

 

Alice Stephens: Ocean’s Godori (2024) and Teo’s Durami (2025) were published as The Alliance duology by Zando Press. Did you originally write them as one story, or were they always two books? What are the challenges and rewards of publishing a duology?

Elaine Cho: I originally sat down to write a standalone space opera that would explore specific themes, but it ended up being somewhere between A Game of Thrones(opens in new tab) and Jonathan Strange & Mr. Norrell(opens in new tab) in length, which is a death knell for a debut author like me who wasn’t agented at the time. Even after I split the book into two, I had several literary agents tell me they wouldn’t consider the (now) first book because of the length.

After my agent and I sold Ocean’s Godori to Zando, we offered them Teo’s Durumi, since it was already written, but they wanted to wait and see how the first one did. This isn’t super uncommon from what I’ve heard, and Zando was also a new publisher at the time—Ocean’s Godori was actually the first book of its imprint. But it did mean that part of the editing involved shaping the first book into something that could stand on its own, in case we didn’t get to publish the sequel.

The overarching thematic arcs of the duology remained, but splitting it allowed me to explore different ideas and sub-arcs within the two books. Sequels are fun because you’re coming back to a world and characters you’ve already established and getting to play around in that sandbox. The first book asked questions about identity and how we figure out who we are, what our place is. The second one then asked, What now? What happens when you think you’ve figured yourself out? And how resolute are you when people close to you oppose you, when others don’t acknowledge your growth, when you have to act on your internal decisions? I love giving characters room to grow and breathe, which is easier when working across a series. I got to avoid the common pitfalls and challenges of writing a sequel or sophomore book because it was mostly written already.

 

AS: The space opera genre is dominated by white heroes who fight for American principles in a lawless or despotic universe. With The Alliance duology, you take the genre and tell it, shall we say, slant. A united Korea is the sole superpower of the universe, with Korean-based governing structures and bodies. Why did you choose to make Korea the superpower? What implications did this choice have on the themes of colonialism and capitalism that feature so largely in the plot?

EC: The Western space opera genre is indeed dominated by these principles of imperialism and colonialism, of alien lands and people who are meant to be conquered or who somehow need the protagonist (usually the Western power) to help them better themselves. If you read someone like, say, Ursula K. Le Guin(opens in new tab) though, you’re considering questions about how to live in the world while taking care of it or of experiencing a universe where the land and its people are treated as equals.

I wanted to make Korea the leaders of space primarily because I wanted to see Koreans at the forefront. I shaped the world and history around why and how that would happen, arising from a hopeful idea: What if the impetus for the unification of Korea was this drive for space exploration? 

Korea has a complicated history, full of the intense desire to succeed, to advance, but also the painful memories of exploitation and colonization, and an intimacy with feelings of powerlessness. 

Today, Korea has become a dominant power in the cultural sphere, rather than focusing on military or economic strength. I delved into what Korea’s influence as a superpower would look like in the duology’s world: What are the foods that people eat together, what is the slang derived from, what does a world led by Koreans look and feel like? The ways in which people talk—the dominating vernacular—and the ways that signify acceptance in social spheres say much more to me in terms of who holds the power.

 

AS: Yes, I love the glossary at the end of Ocean’s Godori of the Korean words that have become part of everyday English. As you stated earlier, at its core, the duology is, like many great works, about identity formation. Because Ocean was sent away from home to a boarding school for Diplomats when she was eight years old, she grapples with feeling fully Korean. She has also been forbidden by her mother to connect with her heritage as a descendant of haenyeo, the women divers of Jejudo. In the meantime, the Koreans have contracted some of their traditions out, such as funeral rites to the Mortemians, a caste despised throughout the universe. What do you think “being Korean” means? How do you feel Korean, and in what ways do you not?

EC: Ocean starts out wondering, “Am I Korean enough?” but gets to a point where the question becomes, “I’m Korean, so what does that mean?” It’s definitely something I’ve struggled with myself. There were many moments when I felt panicked about whether I was “Korean enough” to tell this story. At an author event, one of the audience members asked me why I felt qualified to tell this Korean story.

My answer is the one that Ocean arrived at—I feel qualified because it isn’t meant to be an all-inclusive story about what it means to be Korean. Ocean expresses one particular facet of Korean identity, and it’s not whether her story is Korean enough, but that she adds to the rich variation of what being Korean means.

Growing up, I felt like there was a spectrum between “Korean” and “American” and I was on some sort of sliding scale. I read Korean much better than I can speak it; I’m good enough at speaking it to hear and recognize exactly how off my accent is. It’s a specific experience, but universal in this questioning of who we are and how we fit in. Part of that interrogation is wanting to know, whom do I belong with?

What does being Korean mean? I’m still figuring out the boundaries of that. The instinct is to answer with how well I handle spicy foods or the immense pride I felt when Han Kang(opens in new tab) was awarded the Nobel Prize. But for now, the answer is: being Korean is being me and being you. It’s a broad answer, but that’s the beauty of it.

My identity is so tied up with these specificities: the Korean food I grew up with combined with the otherness imposed on me even though I was born here. I’m very proud of being Korean, but it’s as a Korean American, if that makes sense.

 

AS: The concept of “noonchi” appears a lot in the text, not only as a word, but woven into the timber of the prose. Please explain what noonchi is and how you incorporated it into your writing style.

EC: “Noonchi” is one of those words that’s tied up with Korean identity, translating to something like “eye measure” or “eye feeling,” but it’s really about social cues. It’s about reading other people well enough to achieve harmony or to provide for them. It’s a huge compliment if you’re told you have good noonchi; if you’re told you have no noonchi, that basically means you’re oblivious and can’t see outside of yourself.

That’s why I consider it a huge compliment to be told that it’s incorporated into my writing style! I love when books withhold, and I try to achieve that in my writing. I always overwrite my first draft, and the first editing round is about cutting away as much as I can. Some of it is to have a book that moves like a shark, lean without an ounce of fat. A lot of it is leaving space for the reader. I’d rather not dictate how a reader interprets the book. When the book is out in the world, it’s creating different worlds within readers, which is lovely.

I hope I’m creating a book that reveals more as it goes, or on reread. You need to develop a little noonchi to “read” the characters, to understand their actions and motivations even if they aren’t spelled out. There are three main points of view in the first book, and I was intentional about how they react and what they notice. I meant for their initial scenes to be indicative of their personalities. For example, Teo’s first thoughts are of how much plastic surgery his date has had, and that’s because he’s consumed with this discrepancy between outward appearance and inner motivations. He plays the part of a careless philanderer and claims he’s happy to be without responsibilities, but he’s the one character who knows the politics and analyzes why a Diplomat is acting a certain way (he’s also the one character who will notice what someone is wearing, since he’s into fashion). Although it’s never explicitly explained why he always turns his head to hide his cheek scar from the cameras, readers can intuit why as they get to know him.

 

AS: Family and parental expectations profoundly influence your characters. Ocean and Teo live in the shadow of their elder siblings and struggle with the feeling that they have failed their parents. Haven joined the Alliance to please his father. Dae became an Alliance captain because of her mothers. But family can also be the tight social unit of the ship’s crew. How do you define family?

EC: Family and found family are some of my favorite tropes to read and write, especially within this genre. It links back to that earlier question I brought up of wanting to know whom we belong with, or the basic question of, do I belong with anyone at all? Most of the characters struggle with familial expectations and end up finding acceptance in the family they form with the crew. Despite their reservations and the different reasons they have for keeping others at a distance, they eventually grow to understand, rely on, and care for their fellow crew members.

Family can come with a whole mess of relationships and obligations, but it’s also a place where your flaws are known, for better or worse. To link in another earlier question, family can be defined by the subculture you create, so you now belong to this family, this home, this identity that’s made up of memories you’ve created with other people, the rhythms you’ve fallen into by picking up someone else’s habits, the small exasperations that are endurable because they’ve become familiar or even endearing.

It’s interesting to me that Dae and Ocean aren’t particularly close friends, but their relationship felt most like a familial one in a traditional sense, in that they have these undeniable ties to each other, their unconscious biases shaping resentments and how they see each other in ways that are difficult to reconfigure or even identify. On the other side, Haven comes into his relationship with Ocean with a preconceived, almost lofty, view of her. It isn’t until later that he gets jolted out of that, and the disillusionment comes close to breaking them, but that’s the moment, too, where they’re able to understand themselves better and develop a genuine trust in each other. 

 

AS: You have an MFA in flute performance. Is there a synergy between music and writing for you, or are they two separate disciplines? You strike me as a “lone wolf” writer; how did you learn the techniques of fiction writing? What is your writing process?

EC: They feel very separate to me, even though they’re both creative pursuits, but there’s definitely overlap in the practice! Being a musician requires so much solitary practice, hours a day, and it’s similar to how I write and edit now. I have a full-time job and typically only write on the weekends, so Saturday and Sunday are straight days of writing and editing.

As a musician, much of what you do is the interpretation of a piece of music: What’s the context? What is the composer trying to do, and are you conveying what they wanted to the audience? You learn early on that even if you feel like you’re performing a crescendo, sometimes you need to emphasize it more so that the audience picks up on it. That’s similar to how I tackle editing—is what I’m saying being conveyed in a way that will connect with the reader? Is what I’m saying coming through in the way I intend? Do I need to tweak the emotional crescendo so it’s actually “heard” as a crescendo? Rather than connecting the composer to the audience as a musician, I’m connecting my composition to the audience as a writer.

As to learning the techniques…I’m definitely still learning! And I’m trying to get better with each book. But a lot of what I’ve learned is just from the sheer amount I read. I love reading craft books as well and have picked up so much from them.

I’m mostly a plotter rather than a pantser. The characters are usually the first pieces that materialize, and I conjure details about them—what they’re searching for, what I hope they’ll find. I build the plot off of that. I’d love to plot everything out for each book (I did that for my most recent work and it went so quickly), but I usually plot the first 60-70 percent, have a solid last 10 percent, and then leave the little bit in the middle to develop as it wants (it tends to do that on its own anyway even if I don’t leave room for it).

 

AS: The duology is very cinematic. (I, for one, would love to see it made into a film or series.) What influence does cinema have on your writing?

EC: I love films! I cut my teeth writing film reviews, which also gave me experience in getting edited, which I think is just as important. Sometimes I have a few “set pieces” in my head before I get a book started—vivid scenes that I sort of write to. 

Cinematic language has been helpful for writing action scenes. I prescribe to the Jackie Chan(opens in new tab) and Justin Lin(opens in new tab) schools of action scenes. Jackie Chan is deliberate about making each hit impactful—when he gets punched, it hurts. His editing is careful to catch each shot on camera (sometimes filming a hit twice so the audience absorbs it) rather than obscuring the shots (which many modern action scenes do). Justin Lin’s action scenes are about emotional beats. If you look at the Fast and Furious series(opens in new tab), the action scenes are the big draw, but Lin understands that the emotionality needs to support the action. Where are the characters in terms of their individual emotions and their relationships to one another, and how does that change over the course of the scene? It doesn’t matter how flashy the scene is if you haven’t established any stakes or connection—the explosions may be exciting initially, but they’re ultimately empty.

 

AS: If they do make a movie of the duology, they should use the exquisite book covers as the posters. 

EC: Jee-ook Choi(opens in new tab) is an amazing artist! I’m so pleased we got her to illustrate my next book too! It was one of the first things I asked for when I moved to my new publisher, Saga Press.

 

AS: I feel privileged to be here at the beginning of what I’m sure is going to be a very successful writing career. What’s next for you?

EC: That’s so kind of you to say! I feel so very privileged to have met you and to share our author journeys! My next book, The Final Death of Namjoo Han(opens in new tab), is coming out April 27, 2027. It’s a contemporary fantasy that features a resident of an afterlife circle designed after a Korean bathhouse from which she’s trying to escape. I had a lot of fun writing it, and I’m always trying to do something new with each book, whether it’s genre or form or style. I’m finishing up writing an epic fantasy that I did mostly for fun (I call it my palate cleanser) and am outlining a horror noir. But I have a lot of other ideas and genres I’d love to explore. Last time we talked, I mentioned how horror and mystery were two genres I love but probably wouldn’t ever write…and now I’m plotting out something that combines both! I believe writers are what they read, and I think I’m particularly driven by what I love. The Alliance duology is a love letter to space operas and Final Death was partially inspired by my admiration for the video game Hades. So, I guess we’ll see what comes next! I’ve long had political intrigue and heist novels on my writing bucket list. Looking at my general interests, I suppose some homage to the Animorphs or Fast and Furious series isn’t out of the realm of possibility.

 

AS: Wah, my head is spinning! I can’t wait to read them all.

 

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ALICE STEPHENS(opens in new tab) is author of the novel, Famous Adopted People, and is also a book reviewer, essayist, and short story writer. Her work has appeared in Lit Hub, the Los Angeles Review of Books, The Margins, the Washington Post, and other publications. Her historical novel, The Twain: A Tale of Nagasaki, is forthcoming from Regal House Publishing in February, 2027. She is currently working on a collection of autofictional short stories about her adoption from Korea. Find her on Instagram @alicestephensbooks.

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ELAINE U. CHO(opens in new tab) is a former film critic, former bookseller at Elliott Bay Book Company, and current associate editor for Shelf Awareness. She has an MFA in flute performance from CalArts and is a kyūdō practitioner. Her first duology comprises Ocean’s Godori and Teo’s Durumi. Her next book, The Final Death of Namjoo Han, is a contemporary fantasy coming out on April 27, 2027. Find her on Instagram @elaineucho.