S&L Podcast - #542B - Luminous by Sylvia Park Wrap-Up

/

BOOK OF THE MONTH WRAPUP (SPOILERS)

Welcome to the wrap-up of last month's book pick!

Luminous by Silvia Park | Bookshop Link

Download directly here!

ScottM:

"We were made to replace what you love."

The novel doesn't shy away from all the many and complex sorts of pain and loss and grief we experience. It's messy. It's often ugly. Yet glimmers of love and the sheer beauty of life and our humanity shines relentlessly through. At the core of the story Ruijie embodies that reality with every step she takes, every time she chooses love and the fierceness with which she holds every moment of her life. She knows she is on borrowed time but she lets nothing hold her back. She chooses to live and love. So fiercely.

Everyone is complicated and broken. And utterly beautiful. It's Ruijie, though, who leaves me crying. I understand the pain so many of the characters carry deeply. And they all reveal the underlying beauty of being human through their deep wounds and flaws. But Ruijie embodies our shared spirit at our best, despite all the reasons she has to abandon it and give up.

There's no neat conclusion. Problems are not resolved. Things may even be getting worse in some ways where the novel ends. That's certainly the call back to an earlier story in the closing line. No happy endings are promised.

But we love. And we live. And even when we die, we still live in those who loved us.

John Taloni:

Perhaps it's because I favor optimistic fiction, but I am finding this book gruesome and off-putting through the first 20%. The author is well oriented in SF; I see inspiration from Spielberg's "AI," Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep, Varley's "Millennium" and many others. Calling a movie "Dispossessed" was a nice touch.

It's just overall too gruesome and nihilistic. The casual swapping of organs for bionic parts. What seems to be the end-stage of the "global homogenization" concept. Current day concepts of robots used to help an aging population taken to extreme. It's a lot of interesting concepts, all mixed together in a stew of distasteful plot. I credit the effort, but am not finding the plot enjoyable.

As usual, open for discussion and disagreement.

ADDENDUMS

Thank you to all the folks who help to back our show! If you want to help support the show, head to patreon.com/swordandlaser.

You can also support the show by buying books through our links! Find links to the books we talk about and some of our favorites at swordandlaser.com.