Luminous

In a near-future, reunified Korea, lifelike robots exist alongside us. They serve as children, lovers, soldiers or coworkers, and if not for their mass-produced faces we might not know them from the real thing. The concept itself is not a new one, but Silvia Park’s rendition of this possible future is remarkable and heartbreaking in its execution.

In a story centred on the lives of two siblings, we are brought into the detailed reality of this world. Jun’s body was destroyed in a military disaster and his organic self was replaced by a bionic one. Morgan is a successful young neuro-roboticist, the driving force behind the coded personality of a new line of child robots. Stephen was created by Morgan in the image of a former celebrity crush to play the role of her lover. Amid this mosaic of overlapping identities, Park explores murky questions of ownership and creation: what makes one’s body real, or one’s own? What happens to a thinking being whose core existence is centred on the role they must play?

It is so rare to discover a novel that can balance these clinical questions of existence with the contradictory, messy, and emotional experience of personhood. Not only does Park manage this, but they also understand that these two things are, in fact, inextricable. In celebrating our fickle humanness, and allowing it to be part of the conversation, they are able to create something new and truly exciting.

Whatever Park’s next book is, I intend to read it. Luminous is a fantastic book on so many fronts, and it’s no surprise to see there is already a television adaptation in the works.