Luminarium
Fred Brounian and his twin brother, George, were once co-CEOs of a
burgeoning New York City software company devoted to the creation of
utopian virtual worlds. Now, in the summer of 2006, as two wars rage and
the fifth anniversary of 9/11 approaches, George has fallen into a
coma, control of the company has been wrenched away by a military
contracting conglomerate, and Fred has moved back in with his parents.
Broke and alone, he’s led by an attractive woman, Mira, into a
neurological study promising to give him "peak" experiences and a
newfound spiritual outlook on life. As the study progresses, lines
between the subject and the experimenter blur, and reality becomes
increasingly porous. Meanwhile, Fred finds himself caught up in what
seems at first a cruel prank: a series of bizarre emails and texts that
purport to be from his comatose brother.
Moving between the
research hospitals of Manhattan, the streets of a meticulously planned
Florida city, the neighborhoods of Brooklyn and the uncanny, immersive
worlds of urban disaster simulation; threading through military
listserv geek-speak, Hindu cosmology, the maxims of outmoded self-help
books and the latest neuroscientific breakthroughs, Luminarium is a
brilliant examination of the way we live now, a novel that’s as much
about the role technology and spirituality play in shaping our reality
as it is about the undying bond between brothers, and the redemptive
possibilities of love.
Heady and engrossing ... Shakar is such an
engaging writer, bringing rich complications to the narrative.... At
times, Luminarium reads like a Christopher Nolan or Wachowski brothers
movie as scripted by Don DeLillo.”—The New York Times Book Review
“A
brilliant book dogged in its pursuit of disassembling human experience
in hopes of finding the essence, or at least an astoundingly prismatic
view.”—Los Angeles Times
"A strikingly metaphysical novel that
never dematerializes into misty cliches, a book to challenge the mystic
and the doubter alike."—Ron Charles, Washington Post
“As Shakar
suggests in the book, maybe the whole universe is one big computer game
and we are all bit players plotting a course through the multiple
parallel realities this adventure-seeking void generates. It's a
fascinating idea on which to hinge this worthy novel.”—Seattle Times
“Luminarium
is dizzyingly smart and provocative, exploring as it does the state of
the present, of technology, of what is real and what is ephemeral. But
the thing that separates Luminarium from other books that discuss
avatars, virtual reality and the like is that Alex Shakar is committed
throughout with trying, relentlessly, to flat-out explain the meaning of
life. This book is funny, and soulful, and very sad, but so
intellectually invigorating that you’ll want to read it twice.”—Dave
Eggers
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