The paperback edition of Blood of the Old Kings by Sung-il Kim and translated by Anton Hur is out today, so we are re-releasing our interview with both of them from last year. The cast loved this book when it was originally released and found this interview to be a delight, and hope you do too. The second book Blood of the Undying Throne is out next month and we plan on covering that as well for a Bookling, so look forward to that.

On this Off the Books, we are interviewing Sung-il Kim, author of Blood of the Old Kings, and Anton Hur (Toward Eternity, transl. Blood of the Old Kings, I Want to Die but I Want to Eat Tteokbokki by Baek Se-Hee) to discuss Kim’s book, falling empires, publishing, translations, technofeudalism, and what’s next for The Bleeding Empire series.

Your hosts are Joshua MacDougall (@FourofFiveWits), Christina Ladd (@christinaladd), and Steph Kingston (@StephOKingston), and you can find us all on Bluesky. Our art is by Mangoyu Art (@MangoyuArt), and our music is by Bad Sparrow (@BadSparrowMusic). You can find us on Twitter, BlueSky, and Instagram.