Robots are ubiquitously integrated into human society throughout Silvia Park's extraordinary debut novel, Luminous--as servants and staff, but also as daughters, sons, siblings, friends, even lovers. In a fast-approaching future, Korea is reunified, and robots and humans coexist symbiotically. A robot named Yoyo, once a son and a brother, is the focal point amid a disparate cast of characters who come together via serendipitous meetings, unexpected reunions, and wrenching losses.
Ruijie is the first to encounter Yoyo. She's not healthy: "the doctors lobbed acronyms, like ALS, PMA, and MMA." None of the letters stuck, but her young body continues to break down, forcing her to resort to customized "robowear" for mobility. Ruijie, a precocious three-time science fair winner, regularly scavenges the salvage yard next door to her school, looking for usable parts to enhance her failing form. Meeting irresistible Yoyo engenders easy friendship.
Out in the adult world, detective Jun of Robot Crimes--who was born human, but now lives in a 78% rebuilt body after a horrific accident seven years prior--is summoned to investigate a missing robot child. Unlike her "ungrateful son," the owner insists, "Eli is special." The search leads Jun to his younger sister, Morgan, from whom he's been estranged for years. Morgan is a robot designer at Imagine Friends, the pioneering, trend-setting company that originally issued Eli. Morgan is consumed at work with the latest secret project, Boy X, but at home, she's fielding robot challenges with her live-in creation, Stephen, whose interactions are becoming increasingly human--devoted, needy, even demanding. "I wanted someone to love me," she admits, unlike their fractured family. Growing up, Jun and Morgan had a third sibling, Yoyo, who disappeared. Their father, once the world's top neurobiotics innovator, unexpectedly transitioned to zoobiotics at the height of his career: "It was like watching a famed brain surgeon put down his scalpel to become a horse doctor," a colleague summarized. Soon Dad arrives in Seoul, expecting to see both his human progeny. None are ready for Yoyo's reappearance.
Park is a remarkably agile writer, moving seamlessly from speculative ingenuity to poignant family drama to deeply philosophical ruminations on humanity's future. "Bionic. Transhuman. Posthuman... death is a problem that can be solved." But at what cost? In her brilliant new world, Park transforms machines into the truest barometers of humanity. --Terry Hong
Shelf Talker: Set in a not-too-distant future, debut novelist Silvia Park's Luminous gloriously explores the unpredictable, fading lines between man and machine.