Critics' Opinion:
Readers' rating:
Published Sep 2021
384 pages
Genre: Fantasy, Sci-Fi, Speculative, Alt. History
Publication Information
Good Omens meets The Long Way to a Small, Angry Planet in Ryka Aoki's Light From Uncommon Stars, a defiantly joyful adventure set in California's San Gabriel Valley, with cursed violins, Faustian bargains, and queer alien courtship over fresh-made donuts.
Shizuka Satomi made a deal with the devil: to escape damnation, she must entice seven other violin prodigies to trade their souls for success. She has already delivered six.
When Katrina Nguyen, a young transgender runaway, catches Shizuka's ear with her wild talent, Shizuka can almost feel the curse lifting. She's found her final candidate.
But in a donut shop off a bustling highway in the San Gabriel Valley, Shizuka meets Lan Tran, retired starship captain, interstellar refugee, and mother of four. Shizuka doesn't have time for crushes or coffee dates, what with her very soul on the line, but Lan's kind smile and eyes like stars might just redefine a soul's worth. And maybe something as small as a warm donut is powerful enough to break a curse as vast as the California coastline.
As the lives of these three women become entangled by chance and fate, a story of magic, identity, curses, and hope begins, and a family worth crossing the universe for is found.
"[W]ondrous...Musicians selling their souls to hell shouldn't fit in the same story as alien doughnut makers building a stargate, but somehow all these elements combine to create something wild and beautiful. Filled with mouthwatering descriptions of food and heart-swelling meditations on music, this novel is an unexpected gift." - Kirkus Reviews (starred review)
"Aoki draws from her own experiences as a queer Japanese American woman to craft a dark but ultimately hopeful sci-fi exploration of the threats faced by queer people of color...the novel is a love letter to immigrant culture and the power people have to save each other. Readers prepared for the emotionally difficult scenes will find a beautiful, satisfying story of redemption and families of choice." - Publishers Weekly
"A singing, full-hearted, fearless―and fearlessly goofy―vision that dances across the border between real and surreal, heartrending and sweet, with the nonstop energy of Douglas Adams, and a deep, merciless compassion." - Max Gladstone, author of Empress of Forever
"A story that sparkles with magic and music and joy; this book just sings." - Everina Maxwell, author of Winter's Orbit
"A kaleidoscopic and riveting symphony...Aoki has conjured the most spellbinding venues to unpack race, sexuality, and class with both ingenuity and heart. A new classic." - Sequoia Nagamatsu, author of Where We Go When All We Were Is Gone
This information about Light From Uncommon Stars was first featured
in "The BookBrowse Review" - BookBrowse's membership magazine, and in our weekly "Publishing This Week" newsletter. Publication information is for the USA, and (unless stated otherwise) represents the first print edition. The reviews are necessarily limited to those that were available to us ahead of publication. If you are the publisher or author and feel that they do not properly reflect the range of media opinion now available, send us a message with the mainstream reviews that you would like to see added.
Any "Author Information" displayed below reflects the author's biography at the time this particular book was published.
Yka Aoki (she/her) is a poet, composer, teacher, and novelist whose books include He Mele a Hilo and two Lambda Award finalists, Seasonal Velocities and Why Dust Shall Never Settle Upon This Soul. Ryka's work has appeared or been recognized in publications including Vogue, Elle, Bustle, Autostraddle, PopSugar, and Buzzfeed. Her poetry was featured at the Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center, and she was honored by the California State Senate for "extraordinary commitment to the visibility and well-being of Transgender people."
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