Light From Uncommon Stars
Shizuka Satomi sold her soul to a demon to become the world's most acclaimed violinist, and to escape Hell she has agreed to deliver seven student souls in her place. She has delivered six. In a strip-mall donut shop in the San Gabriel Valley, she meets Katrina Nguyen, a young trans runaway with a battered violin and the kind of raw talent Shizuka has been hunting for years. The shop is owned by Lan Tran, a starship captain who fled an alien war and is hiding her family on Earth. The three women's lives knot together over donuts, violin lessons, and the slow realization that none of them want the bargain they were handed.
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A cursed violin teacher, a runaway trans violinist, and an alien donut-shop family build an unlikely refuge in a San Gabriel Valley strip mall.
Yes. Light From Uncommon Stars was a finalist for the Hugo Award and a Lambda Literary Award winner. Ryka Aoki is also a poet and martial arts instructor, and the novel draws on her interests in classical music and Buddhist philosophy.
Both. Light From Uncommon Stars blends classical music, demonic deals, alien refugees, and intergalactic donut shops. It is widely cited as a defining work of literary genre-blending in the 2020s.
Light From Uncommon Stars was written by Ryka Aoki, published in 2021 by Tor Books.
Light From Uncommon Stars is 368 pages in standard print editions, though page counts vary slightly between hardcover, paperback, and large-print formats.
At an average reading pace of about 250 words per minute, Light From Uncommon Stars takes most readers 6 to 8 hours to finish.
Light From Uncommon Stars is a standalone novel by Ryka Aoki, not part of a series.
Light From Uncommon Stars is available in hardcover, paperback, ebook, and audiobook formats from Amazon, Bookshop.org, ThriftBooks, and most major bookstores.
