Luminarium
A Novel
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5.0 • 1 Rating
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- $9.99
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- $9.99
Publisher Description
This Los Angeles Times Book Prize–winning novel is a “dizzyingly smart and provocative” look at technology, spirituality, and the search for meaning (Dave Eggers).
A Washington Post Notable Book of the Year
Named a Best Book of the Year by Publishers Weekly, Booklist, Austin Chronicle, and Kansas City Star
Twin brothers Fred and George Brounian were once co-CEOs of a New York City software company devoted to the creation of utopian virtual worlds. Now, as two wars rage and the fifth anniversary of 9/11 approaches, George is in a coma; control of the company has been wrenched away by a military contracting conglomerate; and Fred has moved back in with his parents.
Broke and alone, Fred is led by an attractive woman into a neurological study promising to give him “peak” experiences and a newfound spiritual outlook on life. But as the study progresses, reality becomes increasingly porous—and he finds himself caught up in what seems at first a cruel prank: a series of bizarre emails and texts that purport to be from his comatose brother.
Moving between the research hospitals of Manhattan, the streets of a meticulously planned Florida city, the neighborhoods of Brooklyn, and the uncanny, immersive worlds of urban disaster simulation; threading through military listserv geek-speak, Hindu cosmology, outmoded self-help books and the latest neuroscientific breakthroughs, Luminarium is a brilliant examination of the way we live now, a novel as much about the role technology and spirituality play in shaping our reality as about the undying bond between brothers, and the redemptive possibilities of love.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Shakar follows up his well-received The Savage Girl with this penetrating look at the uneasy intersection of technology and spirituality. As the five-year anniversary of 9/11 looms, 30-something New Yorker Fred Brounian struggles with the impending death of his hospitalized twin brother, George; the unscrupulous buyout of his Second Life like company; and the scientific experiments he undergoes that are designed to induce spiritual insight. While Fred's coming-to-terms with George's situation makes for traditional drama, Shakar's blend of the business of cyberspace and the science of enlightenment distinguishes the novel as original and intrepid: Urth Inc., Fred and George's company, is essentially swallowed by megacorporation Armation, which intends to use Urth's technology to build virtual training environments for the military. Meanwhile, Fred is an emotionally vulnerable guinea pig in Mira Egghart's neurological experiments to create a "spiritual odyssey, encoded as easily as a few songs on an iPod." As George nears his end, Fred falls for Mira, learns to meditate, and pursues the perpetrator of a vast cyberscheme threatening to undo both him and Urth. Shakar's prose is sharp and hilarious, engendering the reader's faith in the novel's philosophical ambitions. Part Philip K. Dick, part Jonathan Franzen, this radiant work leads you from the unreal to the real so convincingly that you begin to let go of the distinction.
