A Strange and Brilliant Light by Eli Lee
I would like to thank Jo Fletcher Books for an advance copy of this novel in exchange for a fair and honest review
Publisher – Jo Fletcher Books
Published – Out Now
Price – £16.99 Hardback £8.99 Kindle eBook
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.
How do you feel about automated tills at checkouts? Convenient, clunky, or impersonal? Technology is getting able to do a lot of tasks that in the past were the cornerstone of workers. As the twenty first century rolls on I think automation will have a larger impact on our lives – look at the vanishing og the high street stores as we go online. This will have an impact on people for whom these jobs. This is the subject of Eli Lee’s novel A Strange and Brilliant Light but one that sadly left me cold.
In a near future alternative country automation is on the rise and Tekna has a new startling plan – an automated intelligence named an Aut that will make the coffee and serve customers. This will have an immediate impact on it’s baristas who are no longer required. Into this mix are the ambitious Lal who wants to work for the Tekna corporation, Rose who used to be Lal’s friend works in a cafe where this aut will now be found and Lal’s sister Janetta who works on making AI ever more human. These women are about to face these social changes head on and decide where their land goes next.
Unfortunately, I grew very disengaged with this novel. It felt less interested in the role of AI and more in the three characters growing up and getting more independent and the AI felt a side issue for most of the story. The plot for quite a short novel crawls and doesn’t really get anywhere fast. Lee has some lovely moments of writing but this story isn’t tight enough in subject mater or plot to make it real. By making the whole setting a country that doesn’t exist felt a strange choice that added little to the tale – this could easily have been set in the UK and may have been better to have done so explore social impacts. One other issue is the characters all tended to sound exactly the same. It ends in a moment of freedom and change but I never feel the consequences for this world – everything is distant and remote. What was worth saving from the march of AI?
I was sadly not enchanted by this story despite the issues involved being ripe for exploring. Lee has talent but I don’t think the story held up enough to help me recommend it.
