Korean War Fiction

On 25 June, 1950, the invasion of South Korea by the Communist North launched one of the bloodiest conflicts of the last century. The seemingly limitless power of the Chinese-backed North was thrown against the ferocious firepower of the UN-backed South in a war that can be seen today as the stark prelude to Vietnam.

It was the first war we could not win. At no other time since World War II have two superpowers met in battle. Max Hastings, preeminent military historian, takes us back to the bloody, bitter struggle to restore South Korean independence after the Communist invasion of June 1950.

In sobering detail, The Korean War chronicles a US home front agitated by Joseph McCarthy, where absolutist conformity discouraged open inquiry and citizen dissent. Cumings incisively ties our current foreign policy back to Korea: an America with hundreds of permanent military bases abroad, a large standing army, and a permanent national security state at home, the ultimate result of a judicious and limited policy of containment evolving into an ongoing and seemingly endless global crusade.  

The Korean Peninsula today is divided into two, but there was a time when this peninsula was divided into many states. Over the course of time, and besieged by expansive transient dynasties outside of this modest piece of land, many clans and tribes overran their lands. Of all those malicious and greedy potential overlords, none managed to prevail.

THE NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER “A mesmerizing new historical novel” (O, The Oprah Magazine) from Lisa See, the bestselling author of The Tea Girl of Hummingbird Lane, about female friendship and devastating family secrets on a small Korean island. Mi-ja and Young-sook, two girls living on the...

They were the young ones, the bright ones, the ones with the dreams. From the Nazi-prowled wastes of North Africa to the bloody corridors of Europe, they honorably answered the call. War - it was their duty, their job, their life. They marched off as boys and they came back - those who made it - as soldiers and professionals forged in the heat of battle....

New York Times bestselling author and “the reigning champ of nostalgia noir” (The New York Times Book Review) James Lee Burke returns with a powerful novel in the Holland Family series set in 1950s Texas, as the specter of the Korean War looms. On its surface, life in 1950s Houston is as...

NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER From master storyteller and historian H. W. Brands comes the riveting story of how President Harry Truman and General Douglas MacArthur squared off to decide America's future in the aftermath of World War II. At the height of the Korean War, President Harry S. Truman...

One of the least understood countries in the world, North Korea has long been known for its repressive regime. Yet it is far from being an impenetrable black box. Media flows covertly into the country, and fault lines are appearing in the government's sealed informational borders. Drawing on deeply personal interviews with North Korean defectors from all walks of life, ranging from propaganda artists to diplomats, Jieun Baek tells the story of North Korea's information underground.

A wild, sweeping novel that imagines an alternate secret history of Korea and the traces it leaves on the present—loaded with assassins and mad poets, RPGs and slasher films, pop bands and the perils of social media “Your view of twentieth-century history will be enlarged and altered...

A work of literary horror in the gothic tradition, The Invisible Hotel is a startling, speculative tale of political and ideological adolescence in the long afterlife of the Korean War. Yewon dreams of a hotel. In the hotel, there are infinite keys to infinite rooms—and a quiet terror she is...

In the war-torn streets of 1950s Seoul, Min-ji, a young seamstress, stitches together a life for her mother and ailing sister amidst the chaos of the Korean War. When she meets James, an American soldier with plains-wide eyes and a gentle heart, a fragile love blooms, promising a visa and a new life in America. But when tragedy strikes and James is lost to the front lines, Min-ji’s dreams unravel, leaving her a widow with an expiring visa and a desperate fight to remain in her homeland.

Jonas Stuyvesant's silver-spoon upbringing has not prepared him for the horrors of war. When Communist North Korea launches a surprise invasion of the South, Jonas finds himself leading his platoon against a well-trained, battle-hardened army. Soviet-made tanks break through the American lines. These are not the pitchfork-wielding peasants he expected. What should have been an easy victory turns into a devastating rout. Jonas and his men begin their retreat down the Peninsula, fighting a rear-guard action.

Peace has returned to the Pacific after the Taiwan War, but it doesn’t last. The Korean peninsula erupts in fire and blood, drawing America into a fresh conflict that sees use of some of the world’s deadliest weapons. In the aftermath, Navy fighter pilot Jack Knapp tells a news reporter about his experiences fighting the Korean People’s Army (KPA) and how he helped prevent a nuclear attack that could have destroyed an American city.

Deep in the Korean mountains, US sniper Caje Cole and his squad are on patrol when they witness a dogfight that ends with an American pilot being shot down over enemy territory. Cole leads the rescue effort that puts him in conflict with a deadly Chinese sniper, but that turns out to be the least of his worries. Enemy forces are on the move, starting with the capture of an outpost just beyond the American line.

Manila, Philippines, 2003. Dane Chandler is visiting Manila on a writing assignment. Jack Pierce is a tough-talking Korean War veteran. When Jack asks Dane to join him for cards at the pension's cafe, Dane instinctively agrees, sensing the man's "command" presence. What unfolds will change their lives forever. Tokyo, Japan, 1949. Jack Pierce joined the army for honor and adventure, finding himself garrisoned at Camp Drake, Tokyo. On a raucous night at Ginza's glitzy Club Florida, the young corporal meets the love of his life, Michiko Okura.

Ice, Fire, and Blood, the first novel of veteran journalist Norman Black, brings to vivid life U.S. combat infantrymen's experience in Korea, from late 1950 to spring 1951. The story focuses on one company of an infantry battalion and begins in northwestern Korea. It covers those periods when Chinese armies entered the war and inflicted devastating loses on U.S.-U.N. forces and the subsequent turn-around, early in 1951, after Gen. Matthew Ridgway took command. In the following months, new equipment was received, serious loses were inflicted on the Chinese, and it became clear South Korea would not be overrun by Communism.

Based on a true story. As the Korean War threatens to ignite a global nuclear inferno, the fate of the free world rests on a razor's edge, while on the home front, two towering American titans – the resolute President Truman and the legendary General MacArthur – engage in a perilous battle of wills that could either avert Armageddon or tear the nation apart.

Ross Kemp has encountered conflict and warfare the world over, broadcasting from some of the most volatile military hot-zones. From meeting the world's deadliest gangsters, to perhaps his hardest assignment of all; embedded with the British Army in Afghanistan's Helmand province, where he...

North Korea has achieved a breakthrough with nuclear warheads and is about to arm their strategic missiles - weapons that could set the world ablaze. The Echo Six unit commander, Abe Talley, is ordered to take his men across the 38th Parallel. Their mission is to locate and destroy the nukes, as well as their creators. They must enter the heart of the most secretive, repressive, and brutal nation on Earth - and somehow find a way back.