Imprint
- Arcadia
- Arcadia
Modern & contemporary fiction (post c 1945), Science fiction
WINNER of the WRITERS' GUILD BEST FIRST NOVEL AWARD: A riveting, thought-provoking speculative literary novel exploring the impact of the AI revolution through the eyes of three very different young women.
Lal, Janetta and Rose are living in a time of flux. Technological advance has brought huge financial rewards to those with power, but large swathes of the population are losing their jobs to artificial intelligence, or auts, as they're called. Unemployment is high, discontent is rife and rumours are swirling. Many feel robbed - not just of their livelihoods, but of their hopes for the future.
Lal is languishing in her role at a coffee shop and feeling overshadowed by her quietly brilliant sister, Janetta, whose Ph.D. is focused on making auts empathetic. Even Rose, Lal's best friend, has found a sense of purpose in charismatic up-and-coming politician Alek.
When vigilantes break in to the coffee shop and destroy their new coffee-making aut, it sets in motion a chain of events that will pull the three young women in very different directions.
Change is coming - change that will launch humankind into a new era. If Rose, Lal and Janetta can find a way to combine their burgeoning talents, they might just end up setting the course of history.
Praise for A Strange and Brilliant Light: Winner of the Writers Guild Best First Novel Award
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Smoothly written - FINANCIAL TIMES
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Important ideas are wrapped in an absorbing, character-driven novel that's also a thought-provoking consideration of the ways we might cope with something that is already happening all around us. - LISA TUTTLE, The Guardian
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Mind-bending - CAROLE STIVERS, bestselling author of THE MOTHER CODE
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Eli Lee can write description and emotion beautifully
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- BOOKS BY YOUR BEDSIDE
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A disquieting take on Big Tech's plans for the future of work - GWYNETH JONES, author of the Arthur C. Clarke-winning BOLD AS LOVE
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Fans of relational narratives will enjoy the interactions of the three protagonists while there is also intellectual AI debate for those science fiction readers more drawn to ideas over people
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- SFBOOK REVIEWS
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This is a thoughtful, interior-focused story...like Ishiguro's Klara And The Sun
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- SFX MAGAZINE
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Lee gives the reader a massive amount to ponder as well as delivering a brilliantly written and absorbing story about some very real people - BLUE BOOK BALLOON
Eli Lee
Eli Lee was born in Dorset and is now is based in London. As well as writing fiction and non-fiction for a variety of anthologies, magazines and websites, she is fiction editor and contributor to literary journal Minor Literature[s] and has also worked for Strange Horizons. Find her on Twitter at @_elilee.
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