Overview

This sweeping debut novel set in a unified Korea tells the story of three estranged siblings--two human, one robot--as they collide against the backdrop of a murder investigation to settle old scores and make sense of their shattered childhood.""I once had a family. At least, the earliest version of me had a family."" In a reunified Korea of the near future, the sun beats down on a junkyard filled with abandoned robots, broken down for parts. Eleven-year-old Ruijie sifts through the scraps, searching for a piece that might support her failing body. There among the piles of trash, something catches her eye: a robot boy--so lifelike and strange, unlike anything she's ever seen before. Siblings Jun and Morgan haven't spoken for years. When they were children, their brother Yoyo disappeared suddenly, leaving behind only distant memories of his laughter and near-human warmth. Yoyo--an early prototype of a humanoid robot designed by their father--was always bound for something darker and more complex. Now Morgan makes robots for a living and is on the verge of losing control of her most important creation. Jun is a detective with the Robot Crimes Unit whose investigation is digging up truths that want to stay buried. And whether they like it or not, Ruijie's discovery will thrust their family back together in ways they could have never imagined. At once a thrilling work of speculative fiction and a ""bold exploration of what it means to have a mind, a body, a self, and even a soul"" (Charles Yu, author of National Book Award winner Interior Chinatown), Luminous is a prescient yet timeless and unforgettably brilliant debut.

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9781797194943

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Reviews

"""[Luminous] is a spectacular debut, taking place in a thoroughly imagined, vividly written future. Harrowing but full of heart, a work of enormous ambition and brilliance with an ending that fully justifies the title and brought me to tears."" -- ""Karen Joy Fowler, New York Times bestselling author"""

Author Information

Silvia Park grew up in Seoul and splits their time between Korea and America. They received a BA from Columbia and MFA from NYU, in addition to completing the Clarion Workshop in 2018. Their short fiction has been published in Black Warrior Review, Joyland, and Reactor, and reprinted in The Best American Science Fiction and Fantasy 2019. Luminous is their first novel. Eric Yang is a stage, screen, and voice actor based in Brooklyn. He has narrated more than 30 audiobooks across a wide range of genres and is particularly adept with character voices and dialects. He is also fluent in Mandarin. As a child, Eric spent countless afternoons lying on the couch, completely absorbed in books: he hopes his audiobook performances can transport listeners in the same way. Sura Siu is a first-generation Asian American voiceover actress who has a passion for breathing life into characters, stories, and the printed word. When not performing, she enjoys playing video games, biking, and meditating.

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