Luminous by Silvia Park

For readers of Klara and the Sun and Machines Like Me, this highly anticipated debut novel is set in the near future in a unified Korea, and tells the story of three estranged siblings–two human, one robot–as they are drawn back together against the backdrop of a murder investigation.

A young girl named Ruijie, who has a severe medical condition, is searching the local scrapyard for something that will aid her deteriorating body. She stumbles upon, and befriends, a child robot called Yoyo. Ruijie is enthralled by Yoyo, but little does she know, he has been missing from his family for years. 

Yoyo’s siblings Morgan and Jun have barely spoken since Yoyo disappeared. Morgan, a developer with Imagine Friends, is preparing to launch a new generation of child robots based on Yoyo. Meanwhile Jun, a trans detective who was injured in the war that united North and South, is investigating a missing robot case.

These parallel narratives converge when Yoyo is discovered by a predator who works at the scrapyard, despite Ruijie’s best intentions to keep him safe. From here, the lives of the characters overlap in the most unexpected of ways.

What is remarkable about this debut is just how atmospheric and otherworldly it is. Park’s prose and excellent plot building transported me to another time and place, and the themes of friendship, family and faith left me deep in thought. I'd love to see an adaptation of this.

Silvia Park’s stories have been published in Black Warrior Review, Tor, The Best American Science Fiction and Fantasy, and elsewhere. They hold an MFA from NYU and attended the Clarion Science and Fantasy Writers’ Workshop and Tin House Summer Workshop. They teach fiction at the University of Kansas and split their selves between Lawrence and Seoul. Luminous is their first novel.

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