Sadly "Luminous" by Silvia Park wasn't as gripping as I thought it might be. I've just re-read the plot and didn't pick up on half of it. The book started off interesting enough and the premise of robots integrated into society is an interesting topic but I wasn't that focussed or interested towards the end.

This novel is set sometime in the future in a reunited, albeit bloodily, Korea. Jun and Morgan Cho are adult siblings whose father designed humanoid robots, including Yoyo, an additional sibling for Jun and Morgan. Unsurprisingly, Yoyo was made more humanoid than his robot contemporaries but, at the start of the novel, he has disappeared. Jun is also in the police force and Morgan is working on the launch of new models of childlike robots for a multinational company

Throughout the story, the boundaries between robots and humans are deliberately blurred. Morgan has a robot, Stephen, who has been programmed to be both a friend and, when required, a lover. Jun who was badly injured in the war of reunification has been rebuilt to be part robot. Meanwhile, the technology has been devoted to making robots which are more like humans, and the humanoid children are the most advanced examples of this.

Then, there is Ruijie, a child who will need bionic surgery before too long and she meets the ‘disappeared’ Yoyo hiding out in a robot scrapyard while she is looking for her own robot which is lost. Then, there is the police force, including Jun, who are seeking missing robots, and that’s another part of the story.

Throw in a side plot, about ‘scrappers’ who dismantle robots for parts and are not above the occasional kidnap, plus a depraved and illegal sport where people fight robots, and there is really too much going on for the story to keep control of. It is hard work sorting out who is who, and why they are in particular places, let alone who they are related to!

It is still an entertaining read and, eventually, everything is just about sorted out. You sometimes get the impression that the writer wanted to establish intellectual copyright over every possible variety of robot and their behaviours and raise as many connected issues as possible! Enjoy thinking about them as your work out the plot!

A very interesting premise for a novel. The writing has a nice flow and feel about it and the novel was well paced. But, I really did not feel any attachment to the characters, they seemed nice enough folk but not interesting or compelling enough to draw me into their story.

Sorry, but I found this novel very hard going. The writing was stilted and the characters didn't seem to stand out, the siblings seemed to merge in to one in my mind? I was confused again and again about who was human and who wasn't, which was credit to the author that it seemed seamless and very unified.

The premise of a society with no such distinction is there, but the novel just didn't seem to bloom in to a story I couldn't put down. I like the idea, but the pace and action could have been more prominent. A bit of a marmite type of book.

Luminous is a very well written book that I think plenty of people will love, but it just didn’t quite work for me. Set in a reunified and robot-filled Korea, we follow three siblings: Morgan and Jun, humans who have lost touch as adults, and Yoyo, their robot brother who has been missing for years. We follow along as the lives of these three characters start coming back together.

Silvia Park clearly has a knack for crafting smooth and insightful prose, but I found the pacing to be too slow for my tastes. I had a fine time while I was actually reading, but once I put the book down I didn’t feel much of a pull to pick it back up. I definitely don’t think this was a fault of the book though, I was just hoping for something a little punchier!

A fantastically adventurous and colorful sci-fi novel set in a future version of Korea, "Luminous" is densely packed with characters and plot twists, descriptions of technology and more. It could feel like too much but I felt the plot was well handled and I was always engaged. A fun read for fans of innovative, character-driven SF.