Don't Let the Luminarium Freak You Out

Okay, get a hold of yourself now.

Seriously. You're starting to twitch,
and you need to chill the fuck out.

Just because your comatose twin brother
appeared to you in the prototype of
a virtual reality environment that you & he
built for the military corporation that devoured
your feisty software start-up, that doesn't mean
that he's alive, does it?

Just because that same brother, who you've watched
waste away toward death over months and months,
seems to be interacting with (or even controlling
parts of) your current real-life activities,
it doesn't mean he's actually doing that –
and certainly not Doing It From 'The Other Side,' right?

I mean, right, goddamnit?

Alex Shakar sure won't tell you: He's the author of Luminarium,
the novel that's about what's described above.

And, yes, he's going to be at BookPeople,
presenting the thing on Thursday, but unless he wears
some neon costume that radiates the words SPOILER ALERT,
he's got to keep mum and let you read the book to find out for yourself.

We've read the book, and we're not talking, either.

We will tell you, though, that if a man's going to extend his creative power
and impress people after writing a terrific first novel like The Savage Girl,
then he'd better come up with a freakily compelling and thoughtful narrative like Luminarium.

Oh, how convenient: He has.

It's even got threads of boy-meets-girl to it,
a swath of technology-enhanced soul-searching,
and features a crazed section unraveling in Disneyfied-yet-dismal Central Florida.

We recommend the novel, of course,
and suggest that meeting its author might be just the thing to illuminate your evening.