{"product_id":"beautiful-shining-people","title":"Beautiful Shining People","description":"\u003cp\u003e\u003cb\u003eA damaged teenage tech prodigy meets an enigmatic waitress in a tiny Tokyo café              , sparking an epic journey across Japan that will change everything, forever …              a captivating, masterful novel with an extraordinary mystery at its heart…             \u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e‘             Set against a tech heavy backdrop \u003ci\u003eBeautiful Shining People\u003c\/i\u003e blooms into an emotional and soulful tale that reckons with the isolation we can all feel as outsiders’              \u003cb\u003e\u003ci\u003eSciFi Now\u003c\/i\u003e Book of the Month\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e‘             That \u003ci\u003eBeautiful Shining People\u003c\/i\u003e isn’             t just a slipstream novel with pretensions to being literature is in great part down to the deftness and tenderness with which Grothaus draws his central relationship …              to let us explore a world of robots and deepfakes that’             s just unfamiliar enough to be exotic’              \u003cb\u003e\u003ci\u003eSFX Magazine\u003c\/i\u003e Book of the Month\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e‘             A fascinating exploration of what it means to be human in a world where everything can be faked …              wonderful, insightful and thoughtful’              \u003cb\u003eJames Oswald\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e–             –             –             –             –             –             –             –             –             –             –             –             –             \u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eThis world is anything but ordinary, and it’             s about to change forever…             \u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eIt’             s our world, but decades into the future…             \u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eAn ordinary world, where cars drive themselves, drones glide across the sky, and robots work in burger shops. There are two superpowers and a digital Cold War, but all conflicts are safely oceans away. People get up, work, and have dinner. Everything is as it should be…             \u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eExcept for seventeen-year-old John, a tech prodigy from a damaged family, who hides a deeply personal secret. But everything starts to change for him when he enters a tiny café               on a cold Tokyo night. A café               run by a disgraced sumo wrestler, where a peculiar dog with a spherical head lives, alongside its owner, enigmatic waitress Neotnia…             \u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eBut Neotnia hides a secret of her own –              a secret that will turn John’             s unhappy life upside down. A secret that will take them from the neon streets of Tokyo to Hiroshima’             s tragic past to the snowy mountains of Nagano.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eA secret that reveals that this world is anything ordinary –              and it’             s about to change forever…             \u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e–             –             –             –             –             –             –             –             –             –             –             –             –             \u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e‘             Poetically written, every word of this adventure leaps off the page with passion. A wonderful and enlightening trip’              \u003cb\u003e\u003ci\u003eThe Sun\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e‘             Cyberpunk meets \u003ci\u003ebildungsroman\u003c\/i\u003e –              a real joy’              \u003cb\u003eOscar de Muriel\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e‘             Exquisite world-building, this book had me invested from the very first page. Vivid plot and irresistible characters and a real tug at the soul …              you''ll drown in it’              \u003cb\u003eLisa Bradley\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e‘             A life-affirming, epic book about what it is to be human: to live, to dream, to hope, to love …              at a time when we most need reminding of these things’              \u003cb\u003eDavid F Ross\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e‘             Totally engrossing from the start –              the story, characters and settings will linger in your imagination long after you''re finished …              truly wonderful’              \u003cb\u003eJonathan Whitelaw\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e‘             Masterful …              truly breathtaking and achingly beautiful. It builds anticipation and suspense before coming together in a thrilling, captivating conclusion’              \u003cb\u003e\u003ci\u003eThe Bookbag\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e‘             Outstanding! Sci-fi showing how the past might impact on the future …              a glimpse into a (very plausible) terrifying future’              \u003cb\u003eMichael J Malone\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eWhat readers are saying…             \u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e*****\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e‘             A beautiful, emotional and thought-provoking read’              \u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e‘             A striking and strange novel –              and a searing statement about the dangerously thin lines between utopia and dystopia’              \u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e‘             Just devastatingly beautiful’              \u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e‘             My book of the year …              no question’             \u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e‘             Masterful storytelling’             \u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e‘             Grothaus has a bewitching ability to stop time in a moment, and then run seemlessly into action with unstoppable momentum’             \u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e‘             Succinctly captured the feeling of Japanese fiction. I was very much put in mind of Haruki Murakami or Toshikazu Kawaguchi’             \u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"MediaPlace","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":57309275324798,"sku":"NW9781914585647","price":13.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0817\/1379\/1261\/files\/9781914585647.jpg?v=1778579690","url":"https:\/\/mediaplace.com\/en-usa\/products\/beautiful-shining-people","provider":"MediaPlace","version":"1.0","type":"link"}