"Light From Uncommon Stars" by Ryka Aoki (2021)

 **A ridiculous, preposterous, insane grab bag of genres.  Does it work?  I think it does, and it ends as one of the most fun and inclusive novels I've read in a while**

Ok, so

Is this a story about a trans girl moving on from abuse and rejection, finding her identity and her courage through music?

Is this a story about a celebrated performer who sold her soul to the Devil and the terrible things she will need to do to keep it?

Is this a story about intergalactic soldiers, stranded on Earth and trying to find a way to rejoin the war that has already taken its toll on them?

Is it a story about a struggling immigrant-run small business?  Is it a story about the very special community in the San Gabriel Valley?  Is it a Coming-of-Age story?  Is it a story about an older person finding love when they thought they'd given up?

Yes.  All of the above.  This novel is ridiculous, and I love it so much

In this story we meet Katrina, a trans girl who has been disowned by her family and is living on the streets as a sex worker.  Though sections of this book are light-hearted and fun, this book also doesn't flinch from describing the truly terrible things that trans people experience in modern-day America.  There's a heartbreaking scene early in the book where she drops a glass and freaks out:

As the cup clattered on the table, Katrina flinched. Tangerine juice splashed all about them. “I’m sorry!” Katrina leapt her feet. Shizuka watched the girl frantically scan the room for the front door. She was terrified. 

“I’ll clean it up,” Astrid said calmly. “Please, Miss Katrina, sit down. There’s no problem at all.” 

“I’m sorry,” she repeated. 

Of course. The black eye, the bruises, the fractured rib. These were simple wounds. What remained would be far more difficult to heal.

But Katrina has one thing, and that's a gift and passion for music.  One of the few possessions she's managed to save and protect is her violin, and throughout the novel her music is the way she can express her true self.  This journey is one of the cores of the novel, and it's beautifully told (oh, and slight spoiler, she does so by playing not classical pieces . . . but by playing videogame music.  Like I said, this book is ridiculous and great)

In this book, we meet Shizuka, a legendary performer turned a legendary music instructor, her students become world-famous without fail.  And of course we learn her secret, that she sold her soul to a demon for all of it.  She sold it once, and then she was given the opportunity to get it back in exchange for damning seven other souls.  She's had six students who rose like shooting stars to international fame and then burned out.  And now, well, she's taken a seventh student.  And we're going to have to see where this goes

Oh, her nickname in the music world is the Queen of Hell.  A reputation one gets the sense she sometimes enjoys deploying, like when she takes Katrina to have her violin repaired:

“So, you’ll do the job, Lucía?” Before she knew it, Lucy nodded. “Good. Though it is not from a prestigious maker, its sound may surprise you. And my student bought this with every penny she had.” 

 

Shizuka said the last line innocently, but Lucy could feel the gaze of the Queen of Hell. *If you dare laugh at her or her violin, I will burn your soul and this entire shop to ash.*

(I don't play favorites, but of the many characters into whose shoes we step in this book, Shizuka is pretty fantastic.  Who doesn't want to read the perspective of the Queen of Hell?)

In this story we meet Lan, who is secretly the captain of a crew of soldiers who have been marooned on Earth.  Her crew is tired, and weird, and injured both outside and inside.  They know, however, that it is their duty to repair their ship and rejoin the war.  While they wait, and as a cover (and to acquire the currency necessary to buy food and other supplies), they run a donut shop.  Because of course they do.  This leads to one of my favorite lines ever put into print:

“Captain,” Markus Tran said, “statistically speaking, there is no way our customers should be detecting any repeat donuts. Perhaps the problem lies with the replicators, or with carbohydrate modeling, or even the emitters.” 

“Emitters? Mother, if there is a problem with the emitters, that would also affect the space-time filaments. I suggest a level-four diagnostic,” Shirley said. 

Lan nodded. “Make it so. We can afford neither defective space-time filaments, nor any further drops in donut sales.”

Honestly, I'm surprised and disappointed that the Pulitzer Prize Committee didn't immediately close nominations and award the Prize that year for the line, "We can afford neither defective space-time filaments, nor any further drops in donut sales"

As these characters meet, as well as a vast array of well-developed supporting characters (seriously, Aoki puts love even into the characters who appear in only a few scenes), the narrative that comes out of it . . . well, it's a mess, there's no denying that.  It's almost 400 pages in which one chapter you're reading a heartbreaking queer Coming-of-Age story, in the next you're reading a dark urban fantasy, and in the next you're reading something from the thoughtful corner of the military scifi subgenre

I will say, one thing that really makes this book work is its setting, in the San Gabriel Valley.  For those that don't know, the San Gabriel Valley is an area West of Lost Angeles that has one of the largest Asian diaspora populations anywhere (I believe it's the largest in at least North America).  Much of this population is first- and second-generation immigrants, coming in the 70s and later and mixing with the Latin-American population that was already there.  It's an incredible area, you can wander from city to city and at times you feel like you're in a different country.  I have absolutely no doubt that the inspiration for this mishmash of styles is the mishmash of culture that defines the San Gabriel Valley

When Lan and her family arrived in the States, they took the human form of a Vietnamese family.  And every one of their neighbors in the Valley just kind of assumed they're war refugees--people are correct, just wrong about which war

(oh, and the Valley also has legitimately some of the best Asian food, of every country and culture, in North America.  Amazing.  Hit me up if you need recs)

I loved this book because, in the end, it puts its money where its mouth is regarding inclusivity.  Everyone is welcome, everything is welcome.  Come to "Light From Uncommon Stars" and you will be welcome to tell your story

Is there long discourse on the use of scifi technology to make donuts?  You bet there is:

Yes, Floresta was using steamed bun flour. But she also reduced the gravity in the proofing box for added fluffiness. She genetically modified domestic and wild yeast DNA to create a strain that worked faster, while producing optimum flavor, texture, and aroma. She installed lasers in the ovens; a twelve-microsecond burst gave cake donuts the perfect crunch around the edges, as well as creating a lattice of nanoperforations that let in just the right amount of hot coffee. And then there was an amazing substance she had discovered on this planet: MSG. Just a little, and everything took on a whole new level of tastiness. No, you didn’t have to be a rocket scientist to make donuts—but that didn’t mean being a rocket scientist didn’t help

Is there dramatic metaphor about art and music?  Hell yeah there is:

“Katrina,” she said quietly, “do the strings give the violin its sound?” 

“Miss Satomi?” The question did not make sense. After all, the strings are what the bow plays upon, what the audience sees. 

“It seems absurdly obvious, doesn’t it?” Miss Satomi conceded. “But think about it. Why are there Stradivarius violins, but no Stradivarius strings?

"Of course, string qualities matter. But no one pays millions, or even thousands, of dollars for a set of strings. Trust me—if it were necessary, we would. But strings are only the source of the vibrations. These vibrations are taken via the bridge through the sound post into the body of the instrument itself. 

“And there, in the dark, the sound develops. There, in the empty spaces, a violin’s voice matures, gains complexity, power, depth…” 

Shizuka pointed at Katrina’s heart. “Everything the audience hears, what we strive to create … what we live to convey … it comes from there. In your hollows. In your nothingness.  There is where your music gains its life.”

Is there powerful and painful reminder of the things that queer youth experience every day?  Is there very pointed reminder that, just as Lan lives in a world of matter replicators and space-time filaments of which the rest of the community is ignorant, just as Shizuka lives in a world of dark deals with evil of which the rest of the community is ignorant . . . Katrina lives, and so many young queer kids live, in a world of hardships and struggle of which the rest of the community is ignorant?  Yes, yes there is:

More and more, Shizuka realized how the world was not the same place for Katrina. One morning, Shizuka had menudo. The menudo place down the hill had new tablecloths, cute curtains, and flower vases on every table. But the owners were very Christian, and the customers were city workers on lunch break, arriving in trucks and utility vans. They had always been kind to Shizuka. But how would they serve Katrina? These were good people, most of the time, weren’t they? In the end, she sent Astrid, who brought the menudo home in large Styrofoam cups.

Listen, this book is wild one.  But it's cute and weird and lovely and in the end it's a joy, it really is

I loved this book

Floresta had been watching them the whole time. Her niece, Lan, was fond of saying that you didn’t have to be a rocket scientist to make donuts. And yet, most rocket scientists had not the slightest idea of how to make a proper apple fritter.