Luminous by Silvia Park
Publisher – Penguin
Published – Out Now
Price – £9.99 paperback £5.99 ebook
Three siblings. Two human, one robot. The spectacular new debut about what it means to be alive.
In a recently reunified Korea, robots have integrated seamlessly into society. They are our teachers, our bus drivers and policemen. They are our lovers. They are even our children.
Eleven-year-old Ruijie sifts through scrap metal in a Seoul junkyard, searching for anything that might repair her failing body. There amongst the piles of junk she happens across a robot boy: lifelike, strange and unlike anything she's seen before.
Across the city, estranged siblings Jun and Morgan Cho haven't spoken since the abrupt disappearance of their robot brother Yoyo, which shattered their childhoods and left a gaping hole in their lives. But Ruijie's discovery is about to bring the lives of brother and sister hurtling back together, forcing them to confront the reality of Yoyo's true nature, and the dark purpose their father never revealed.
When I was reading Luminous by Silvia Park as the last of this year’s Clarke Award nominees, I actually felt this was a science fiction novel where I had got something I had not realised I had been missing for some time in my reading. A big sprawling novel that weaves a large cast, multiple but linked plotlines and for me importantly uses them all to explore a theme of what being human means. It was a wonderful reading experience.
It’s the near future of a united Korea and the world is very used to the way robots are key to society. You can have huge war robots, metallic cooks and increasingly androids that look human and can be our carers, lovers, companions or even a proxy for children. In a scrapyard Ruijie finds what initially appears to be a boy her own age but she notices his broken foot means he is a robot; Yoyo though is far more human than any she has met before. Elsewhere in the poorly resourced police department for missing robots Jun is tasked with finding a wealthy woman’s young girl companion who is also a robot which sends Jun into the darker parts of society. Jun’s sister Morgan however is a high-flying executive designer for one of the world’s top robotics companies and they are about to launch perhaps the most human like robot there has ever been, but Morgan ponders what awaits her next in life. All three main characters are about to find their lives crossing and answering some long-awaited questions about their lives.
These days artificial intelligence has fallen into the cast con-game of productivity tools that no one really needs but are built on theft and corporate greed. Science fiction however has a long history of exploring the idea of humans creating artificial life and that is much more what Luminous is focused on and what it tells us about being human. All our three main human characters are also showing us that humanity is hard to define ever as one thing. Ruijie is a child with severe health condition and is increasingly reliant on automated power suits for her to walk and act as a child. Jun is trans and had already changed their gender to male but fighting in the last war Jun was severely injured and the vast majority of their body is now artificial but also feeling less included as an actual human and then while Morgan is fully human, we find she has a robotic lover based on a famous film star and is also quite terrible at interacting with people outside of her work. Park for me asks us how far we can accept each of these as human and I think for me the answer is they all are, but it reminds us that what a human is quite a nebulous concept and that helps as we start to explore the robotic side of society.
At the centre of things is the enigmatic Yoyo a robot both older than most and yet child-like (until the moments they are not). Ruijie and her friends all slowly accept Yoyo as one of them, but this starts to then cross over into Jun’s case, and we find a world where people are happy to use robots to address their sexual or violent needs placing the children now in danger. Park makes us delve into the morality of this world. Is it better that humans use robots rather than people for this or is it still equally repugnant that robots that often appear sentient are being mistreated. For me a highlight is Stephen the robot lover of Morgan. Initially this just seems a joke but then Park builds Stephen as a character with his own internal actions, his own secret life and desires and again we as the reader start to see him not as a product but a fully three-dimensional character in his own right. Is Morgan his owner, his lover or his captor?
Something that for me makes the novel work is Park avoids neat answers. We have a much more morganic set of stories all weaving in and out of each other. The reader must put the bigger plot together and there is no giant exposition wrapping everything up at the end. People change, some become better for the experience, and some will not. Park delves into the human cast’s backstories and in particular with Morgan and Jun we see signs they once had a robotic sibling, but their memories are hazy as to what he was actually there for. We get messy relationships, broken families and rivalling siblings that we patiently delve into, leave and come back to as the stories wind around each other. All which Park places into a very realistic and yet unusual future Korea recovering from war and unification that we see is not yet a neat and tidy solution for those from he North or hurt in the wars. It feels plausible and yet to my western eyes a new place to get into and works then as a place to try and work out how humans and robots can or should live together. Increasingly the uncanny valley appears now more just a mirror reflecting us back and this means moral questions needs examining as to how such a world can work. Park does not give easy answers but for me the joy was a reader thinking where would I start putting the line and the re-questioning my decisions as to what being human means. There is a sense that if we get this wrong the robots are more than capable now of looking after themselves and making their own world which hovers ominously in the background.
Luminous is a big pool of a novel to dive into. Prepare for hidden depths and it is not one to reveal all its treasures quickly to the reader. This though is novel to wallow in and soak the world and characters up and think about. It is an extremely impressive piece of storytelling and one I wish more writers where prepared to take risks with in telling their stories. A very fitting Clarke nominee and one I strongly recommend you to read.
