1. What were your thoughts about this book as you discovered that there were both the Deal with Devil concept combined with Aliens, alongside of the main character, Katrina, being revealed as transgender? And what about the donut shop?
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Ryka Aoki: I respect both science fiction and fantasy, but I had honest intentions and reasons to mix them in Light from Uncommon Stars. I was a little bit worried about how people would accept this—or not. But I’ve been thrilled with how readers have embraced and accepted this book.
I think this book might resonate with readers because we all hold seeming contradictions. In the book, Shizuka Satomi mentions how great pieces of music contain such different-sounding sections and movements. And, as music reflects the soul, doesn’t that say something about us, and our own shifting arrays of motifs and counterpoints?
In my case, being of Japanese descent, and being queer, and being trans, means that I play a lot of different things to a lot of different worlds. Yet working toward true acceptance and love of self can be like composing your own sonata—you’re striving to express and share your entire music. The person who I am with my family lives in a different world than the person who teaches English and Critical Thinking. And that person seems very different from the writer, or the martial artist.
And yet, I don’t feel fragmented. I feel pretty whole.
2. Discuss your thoughts on the relationship between Tremon and Shizuka. What other 'deal with the devil' stories or films can we come up with? How do they compare?
Demon Tremon Philippe and Shizuka’s relationship may bring to mind more of Mephistopheles and Faust than the devil at the crossroads. But there is a long tradition of musicians trading souls for greatness, brought into American folklore via blues musicians, who may have drawn on tales of Papa Legba rather than the European devil-bargaining stories. In the novel, you’ve brought many cultural traditions into play—where did you start from in the soul-selling elements? What did you borrow from earlier tales, and what did you invent whole cloth?
Thank you for asking this question because it lets me talk about another tradition. The early days of Internet message boards were the first time ever that trans people could speak freely yet relatively anonymously with people like them around the world. In fact, one of my dearest friends had such a board and they live in Iceland. We needed each other. We helped each other go through some horrible times… But there were also some goofy and fun times come as well—it was the first time that we realized that we’re all a bunch of science fiction and fantasy geeks. I mean, anywhere we can dream, right?
And I remember at the time being struck by how many trans women had created their own creation myths, to explain how their soul was placed in this other body. Many religions ignore trans people. Yet to know where one came from—and why—is a necessary question for many human beings.
In these stories, and the discussion surrounding them, there was much talk about having the soul of a woman, or the soul of a man if one were a trans man. “Do you have a female soul?” was a very relevant question to those with trans binary identities. (Discussions of nonbinary identities and gender fluidity were happening as well—entire vocabularies were being invented. Those were some exciting times.)
I think that even now many trans women, perhaps when first trying to make sense of who they are, still ask themselves this question.
And so, the cursed Shizuka Satomi, precisely because she is so focused on acquiring souls that she finds bodies irrelevant—offers Katrina the space and place to find her answers.
3. The "Violin" in this book may as well be one of the main characters, and several of these instruments are personified with names and character. In fact, it seems like the maker of the instrument is embodied somehow magically in their creation. What did you think about the musical element of this book, and the different violins mentioned? What about Violin culture - do you relate to it in any way?
The descriptions and understanding of music and violins—and violin competitions—in the story are tangible. What is your music background?
I love writing music. I used to play in a band, and when I do my spoken word pieces, I compose all my own soundtracks. My main instrument is the piano, but I also play guitar, and some flute, and harmonica. For the most part, I am self-taught. However, I’ve been taking lessons for the past couple of years with a wonderful piano teacher—the irony is because I’m promoting this book, I’m on a brief hiatus from that.
However, I had no idea how to play the violin. I remember the first time I went into a violin shop. There were violins, but violins of different sizes, and cellos and violas and basses, and I was laughing to myself that I have no idea how to make music with any of this. I couldn’t put a tune together with one of these instruments to save my own life.
I did manage to teach myself some violin. And I really love the instrument. I have an acoustic violin from eBay, and I also have an electric violin now. This Christmas season, I am looking forward to jamming to some holiday music. We may never be ready for a committed relationship, but the violin and I have become good friends.
So, although I didn’t grow up in violin culture, as I researched violin culture, I found many parallels with a culture that I was familiar with—martial arts. Like many communities with overachieving children and parents with unrequited dreams, I found that in violin competitions, it was sometimes difficult to tell which was more important, the violin or the competition. This was so much like what I had seen as an annoying little martial arts kid. And so, those were the experiences upon which I drew.
The posturing, the pressure, the mind games…the nausea in the bathroom…so different, but not so different at all.
4. Lan and her family are escaping the End-plague. Discuss your understanding of the endplague, and do you think that the ending with Shizuka and Lan playing violin music on an interstellar magical mystery tour is helping end the end-plague, or is that just a way for Shizuka to play gigs?
This novel felt, in many ways, like a pandemic novel–in a situation that should be full of hopelessness (the Endplague, a coming soul-deadline), there’s still this tonal quality, even in the early pages, that things will turn out right, even if we have no idea how that will happen. Was any part of the novel written during the pandemic? Do you see it differently now that it’s coming out as we’re still dealing with the coronavirus?
During the first few months of pandemic, most of the novel had already been written, and we were deep in edits. I was pushing so hard to get my story just right that the first part of the lockdown went by unnoticed. Plot hole here, inconsistency there…even without a lockdown, I don’t think I would have gone out, anyway.
These days, I’m feeling the pandemic more, especially because this is when I was to tour, sign books, and meet people in person. And, as I engage with the lockdown more actively, I do notice how the pandemic does seem to echo the themes of the Endplague. Although Covid-19 did not inspire the Endplague, I based the Endplague on how civilizations can often fall, not from outside cataclysms themselves, but from the conflicts and fissures they cause their populace…and a collective loss of hope.
In the book, without going into too many spoilers, Lan and her family come from a very advanced civilization that has conquered many diseases and social ills, but is still battling with divisions, suspicions, and fatalism.
Looking around at world today, the parallels are hard to escape.
5. What did you think was the point of Katrina choosing the Bartok piece to perform for the competition? Were you surprised about the dogwood bow swap?
Late in the novel, you use Bartók as a way of framing and understanding transness in a beautiful way. Could you talk about the theme of Katrina finding her voice through the violin, and about how music and self-intertwine in the novel?
Provided the instrument is well-maintained, when you play the piano, you’ll automatically play in tune. A violin can be perfectly in tune, but that is far from enough—you need to be in tune with yourself.
Furthermore, when I actually played the violin, I learned that certain notes resonate very well with other strings. In fact, sympathetic resonance is one way that a student can know if she’s in tune. If we listen for the resonances, we can feel the entire violin glow. There’s no better way to say it—it seems like the instrument glows.
This is very important to Katrina’s development, for human voices—and human souls—don’t have keys, or even frets, either. And when you’re playing in tune with yourself and others, you do get this internal glow. I think feeling this is very important to Katrina. It gives her security, weaves her into the songs of others.
But we are not always in harmony, nor should we be. Sometimes, our true songs are dissonant, or expressed in notes between notes. At that point, for all the rest of the world knows, your composition is wrong, or your intonation sucks. So, when your own music is so insistent, yet so at odds with what people expect—what do you do? Well, there goes Bartók.
There is a difference between playing with people in harmony and speaking to them in melody, after all. What does this mean for Katrina? I'll leave it at that.
6. Discuss the Matias family dynamics. What did you think about Lucy and her feelings of inferiority /imposter syndrome? Compare that with the experience Shirley had being the A.I. daughter of Lan.
7. Which character did you relate to most in the novel, and why? Which one did you relate to least?
8. Overall, how would you rate this book out of five stars?
Format: e-book and audiobook. I’d like to thank the author and Tor Books for sending me a copy of this book to review!
What I enjoyed:
I love the setting and themes in this novel. The pursuit of a legacy, of creativity, and of a sense of home and safety are blended together beautifully. There is wonderful trans and lesbian representation in this story and setting it in the SGV makes it even more fun since that is quite close to where I live! I loved the mixing of genres as well, the sprinkling of sci-fi into this story about souls, passion, and music was a really cool combination!
What was meh:
I had some issues with the shifting perspectives which at times felt a little jarring. When we are looking at things from Katrina’s point of view, the world is a threatening and dark place, brightened only by her love for music and a new friendship. The other POVs by contrast are fairly light and frothy so this contrast was a little jarring at times. Overall, the things Katrina has to go through weighed on me pretty heavily (I probably should have looked up trigger warnings beforehand), and the tone of this story was a lot darker at times than I expected.
Who wrote this book?
About the Author
Aoki, a trans woman, has said that she strives not to write just for other trans readers, but for their family, and other people in general. She hopes that through writing for a general audience instead of only trans people, that she can help others see transgender people as human, she wrote: "If a trans musician can make the audience cry by playing Chopin, how else, but as a human, can she be regarded? And if a book written by a queer trans Asian American can make you think of your own beaches, your own sunsets, or the dear departed grandmother you loved so much and even now find yourself speaking to, then what more powerful statement of our common humanity can there be?"[5]
In 2021, she released Light from Uncommon Stars. She has described the book as being in part influenced by the story of Ted Ngoy, the Cambodian American entrepreneur known as the "Donut King", stating that she wanted "to open my own literary donut shop".[14]
The Donut King
Donut King
Ngoy secured work as a janitor with Peace Lutheran Church in Tustin, California. While working a second job at a gas station, Ngoy took notice of a busy local doughnut shop and inquired of its operators about learning the business. He subsequently received training through an affirmative action program to increase minority hiring within the Winchell's chain of doughnut shops, and managed a store in Newport Beach where he employed his wife and nephew.[5] By 1977 he was able to purchase his first doughnut shop, Christy's Donuts, in La Habra. Despite never really being a huge success under the previous owners, Christy's became popular under the ownership of the Ngoys. The Ngoys decided to keep uniformity amongst their shops, naming subsequent acquisitions Christy's.[6][3]
Ngoy bought additional doughnut shops in Orange County. He became tired running doughnut shops on his own and decided to train and lease shops to his relatives and employ Cambodian refugees. He saw an opportunity to expand his business and help the large number of poor, unassimilated Cambodians who had fled the Khmer Rouge to the United States. By 1987, Ngoy owned 32 Christy's Donuts locations, largely accomplished by living out of a motorhome allowing him and his family to travel up and down the state of California establishing new locations.[7][3]
Ngoy's fortunes improved dramatically, such that by the mid-1980s Ngoy had amassed millions of dollars through his expanding doughnut shop empire, reported as 50 locations throughout California. In 1985, Ngoy and his wife became American citizens assuming the American names of Ted and Christy, respectively, and were enjoying a lavish lifestyle including a million dollar home at Lake Mission Viejo, a vacation home in Big Bear, expensive cars, and vacations to Europe. Ngoy had become an example to other Cambodian immigrants, who began to follow his business model for their own entrepreneurial endeavors. Ngoy also involved himself in American politics, joining the Republican Party and hosting fundraisers for George H.W. Bush and encouraged fellow Cambodian immigrants to support the GOP.[4]
Decline
Despite the wealth he had amassed and his importance within his community, Ngoy felt dissatisfied, remarking that he had "No political life, no religious life, just work, work."[1] In 1977, the Ngoys took a trip to Las Vegas where Ted saw Elvis Presley. It was here that Ngoy had his first taste of gambling while placing bets at the Blackjack tables. Ngoy would make a habit of returning monthly to watch performers such as Tom Jones, Diana Ross and Wayne Newton and indulging in the incentives pit bosses of major casinos offered all the while spending even larger sums at the card tables. This caused tension in the Ngoy household, being the center of many arguments between Ngoy and his wife. Ngoy would often visit Las Vegas for a period of a week, unbeknownst to his wife. He would forge her signature on checks and even borrow money from relatives who leased stores from him. When he was unable to pay back his debt, he would sign over his store to them. Once a paragon in the community, refugees now avoided him for fear of being asked for a loan. Ngoy attempted Gambler's Anonymous, but denies its help with his situation stating that when he went to meetings "I cry, everybody cry. After cry, go back gambling." Ngoy's gambling had progressed from the card tables to placing bets on sports games with Cambodian bookies.[1]
After a particularly devastating gambling loss in 1990, Ngoy flew to Washington, D.C. and joined a Buddhist monastery where he spent a month meditating. Following his time in the nation's capital, Ngoy spent time in a monastery in the Thai countryside where he spent his morning begging for alms. Upon his return to Orange County, Ngoy began gambling harder than ever stating "Monks cannot help me, Buddha cannot help me."[1]
Political career
After the establishment of a constitutional monarchy in 1993, Ngoy returned to Cambodia for the country's first elections. He formed the Free Development Republican Party ahead of the country’s UN-backed elections believing that he could show others the path to wealth and hoping that in being a politician his gambling addiction would be stymied. He did not fare well in either the 1993 or 1998 parliamentary elections, but his friend, Prime Minister Hun Sen, made him an advisor on commerce and agriculture.[1]
When his wife returned to California for the birthday of a grandchild in 1999, Ngoy began an affair with a young woman, serving as the final straw between him and his wife, Christy. She divorced him soon after and has not since returned to Cambodia. Ngoy's political career ended in 2002 after breaking with two powerful allies, the commerce minister and the head of the Cambodian Chamber of Commerce. He dissolved his party and accused the government of corruption. The next day, he flew back to Los Angeles leaving behind his new wife and their two children. By 2005, after a failed political career in Cambodia, Ngoy was penniless and living on the porch of a fellow Parkcrest Christian Church parishioner's mobile home.[1]
In 2013, he was living in Phnom Penh working in the real estate business.[8]
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