“I think it’s better to feel,” Yoyo said, “even if it hurts.”
Chapter 18: Gaechon, Luminous by Silvia Park
Table of Contents
Preamble
I heard about this book through a list of 49 new books coming out March 11-17, 2025 that was posted on Kobo’s blog. I thought the premise of the book sounded intriguing and since I wanted to read more speculative fiction, I put it on my TBR. I haven’t heard anyone else talk about this particular book so I had no expectations going into it other than what I could glean from the description of the book on Storygraph.
As a side note – there are two publishers for this book, Simon & Schuster and Magpie; a imprint of Oneworld Publications. I like the cover design of the S&S published version so that’s the one I purchased and that’s the cover that I have added as the primary image of this review.
Let’s get into it.
The Book
Every once in a while I read a book that is fairly rough around the edges but not necessarily in a way I dislike. Luminous is one of those. The writing is at times a bit stilted and the book is trying to tackle a lot of complex themes at once which engendered a feeling of trepidation. Did the author bite off more than they can chew? That was the question I had on my mind in the first half of the book.
When I say a lot of complex themes, I mean it; these are some of the ones from my notes – unified Korea, human and humanoid robot relations, transhumanism and its relation to physical disability, trans masc representation and familial transphobia, war & PTSD, grief, memory, and of course the big one – what does it mean to be human? Yeah, there is a lot happening.
The story follows three estranged siblings, two human, one robot – Jun, Morgan, and Yoyo along with with a school kid named Ruijie and her friends Taewon, Amelia, and Mars. The book switches between Jun, Morgan, and Ruijie. All the characters here are well fleshed out and are interesting in their own right. This is fairly decent character work. The author mentions in the acknowledgements section that this was originally supposed to be a children’s book. Perhaps the child characters in this book were from that version of the book.
The speculative fiction elements in this book are there to serve the many themes of that book and they do a good enough job at that. The near-future world that was built in this book is compelling and I think the author could build a series of books in this world and I would be interested in them.
I generally thought that the themes present in the book were handled with care and nuance. I was pleasantly surprised to see a trans masc character represented and represented well. Trans masc characters are nigh unheard of in the fiction I read, they are very rare; I cannot remember the last time I actually read a book with such a character in them.
The theme and setting of the unified Korea was also particularly intriguing. I couldn’t quite parse what kind of stance or opinion the author was taking on the matter. As far as I am aware, the topic of Korean unification is a contentious political topic in South Korea. I am interested in what a Korean reader’s opinion on this aspect of the book might be.
Conclusions
The descriptor that I keep coming back to for this book is – thought-provoking. It made me think about my relationship to death & grief. This book made me return to that topic from an angle I don’t usually approach – robots and non-human life. What does it mean for a robot to die? What does it mean for a robot to be alive? How is it different from the way humans live and die? In a way it reminded me of one of my most favourite episodes of Star Trek, Measure of a Man from The Next Generation.
I am glad I read this book. This is a debut novel from Silvia Park and I think there is a lot of potential on display here. I am interested in reading more speculative fiction like this from her in the future, especially if it is set in the same world as this book.
Luminous is a bit of a mess but it is a mess I enjoyed reading.
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