A Strange and Brilliant Light: Winner of the Writers’ Guild Best First Novel Award
On sale
17th February 2022
Price: £8.99
The AI future is here . . . and it’s up to three women to change the world.
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.
‘Mind-bending’ Carole Stivers, author of The Mother Code
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.
‘A thoughtful, interior-focused story…like Ishiguro’s Klara And The Sun’ SFX Magazine
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.
‘A disquieting take on Big Tech’s plans for the future of work’ Gwyneth Jones, author of Bold as Love
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.
‘Sad, hopeful, funny, and brilliant . . . It will, I hope, inspire many to think long and hard about what we want our future to be like’ British Science Fiction Association
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.
‘Mind-bending’ Carole Stivers, author of The Mother Code
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.
‘A thoughtful, interior-focused story…like Ishiguro’s Klara And The Sun’ SFX Magazine
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.
‘A disquieting take on Big Tech’s plans for the future of work’ Gwyneth Jones, author of Bold as Love
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.
‘Sad, hopeful, funny, and brilliant . . . It will, I hope, inspire many to think long and hard about what we want our future to be like’ British Science Fiction Association
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Reviews
If you like small, intimate fiction that asks very big questions, this is the perfect novel for you
Smoothly written
a beautifully written, thought provoking novel
A disquieting take on Big Tech's plans for the future of work
Mind-bending
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.
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
Lee gives the reader a massive amount to ponder as well as delivering a brilliantly written and absorbing story about some very real people
Incredibly thought provoking
This is a thoughtful, interior-focused story...like Ishiguro's Klara And The Sun
A slickly written and enjoyable novel
Thoughtful... provides much food for thought
Lee has created a story that feels relevant and poignant for a world on the brink of automating so many parts of our working lives
A thought-provoking novel
Eli Lee can write description and emotion beautifully
Often bleak, A Strange and Brilliant Light is also sad, hopeful, funny, and brilliant, such that I expect to see it on a lot of award lists. This quiet, thoughtful novel, almost entirely led by flawed but amazing women, has a lot to say about the world we're about to be living in. It will, I hope, inspire many to think long and hard about what we want our future to be like.