Luminous
'A major new voice in science fiction.' - Guardian
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5.0 • 2 Ratings
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- $14.99
Publisher Description
* A Guardian pick: Top 5 Science Fiction Book of 2025 *
Three siblings. Two human, one robot. The spectacular new debut about what it means to be alive.
'Wildly and, yes, luminously emotional.' Matt Haig, author of The Midnight Library
In a recently reunified Korea, robots have integrated seamlessly into society. They are our teachers, our bus drivers and policemen. They are our lovers. They are even our children.
Eleven-year-old Ruijie sifts through scrap metal in a Seoul junkyard, searching for anything that might repair her failing body. There amongst the piles of junk she happens across a robot boy: lifelike, strange and unlike anything she's seen before.
Across the city, estranged siblings Jun and Morgan Cho haven't spoken since the abrupt disappearance of their robot brother Yoyo, which shattered their childhoods and left a gaping hole in their lives. But Ruijie's discovery is about to bring the lives of brother and sister hurtling back together, forcing them to confront the reality of Yoyo's true nature, and the dark purpose their father never revealed.
At once a dazzling work of speculative fiction and a poignant family drama, Luminous is a timely, unforgettable story about what it really means to be human.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Sinister charm exudes from this android-filled mystery by debut author Park. In a near-future, unified Korea, Jun works as a detective in Seoul's robot crimes unit. He's searching for a missing AI when he's reunited with his sister, Morgan, a hotshot "personality programmer" for the robot manufacturer Imagine Friends. The two became estranged after high school when Jun enlisted in the military and was maimed in an accident, requiring much of his body to be replaced by bionic implants. Uneasy with the new Jun, Morgan tries to hide from him that she has a live-in android lover and is modeling Imagine Friends's next big release after her and Jun's missing older brother, Yoyo, a humanoid robot. Meanwhile, the broken-down original Yoyo hides out in a junkyard where he befriends a pack of wily schoolchildren, among them a North Korean refugee. Told with mordant wit (Morgan "had lived under the belief that she could be preemptively forgiven for the uniquely monstrous selfishness that preceded genius. But only if she had a cock"), the narrative takes a wide-angled approach to the theme of human-machine convergence. With Ishiguro-esque precision, Park dissects sentience and reality, as well as love and death. This lustrous, challenging work will reward readers who stick with it.
