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Negotiating the terrain of Kazuo Ishiguro's Klara and the Sun and Emily St. John Mandel's Sea of Tranquility, a brilliant, haunting speculative novel from a #1 New York Times bestselling translator that sets out to answer the question: What does it mean to be human in a world where technology is quickly catching up to biology?
In a near-future world, a new technological therapy is quickly eradicating cancer. The body's cells are entirely replaced with nanites—robot or android cells which not only cure those afflicted but leaves them virtually immortal.
Literary researcher Yonghun teaches an AI how to understand poetry and creates a living, thinking machine he names Panit, meaning Beloved, in honor of his husband. When Yonghun—himself a recipient of nanotherapy—mysteriously vanishes into thin air and then just as suddenly reappears, the event raises disturbing questions. What happened to Yonghun, and though he's returned, is he really himself anymore?
When Dr. Beeko, the scientist who holds the patent to the nanotherapy technology, learns of Panit, he transfers its consciousness from the machine into an android body, giving it freedom and life. As Yonghun, Panit, and other nano humans thrive—and begin to replicate—their development will lead them to a crossroads and a choice with existential consequences.
Exploring the nature of intelligence and the unexpected consequences of progress, the meaning of personhood and life, and what we really have to fear from technology and the future, Toward Eternity is a gorgeous, thought-provoking novel that challenges the notion of what makes us human—and how love survives even the end of that humanity.
Part 1
The Near Future
Mali
Something has happened, something so extraordinary that I cannot file it into Patient One's official medical file, which is why I am writing it here in a separate physical notebook.
Patient One, our first clinical trial patient, was found missing.
Security footage from the South African University of Science and Technology's closed-circuit cameras has him leaving a storage room and not coming out on the other side. He is in one frame and—blink—gone in the other, the door swinging into the emptiness he had occupied a moment prior.
The Cape Town Police Authority are investigating the incident, but they have little to work with. There is no indication that the footage has been doctored, although I suppose there's always that possibility. The cameras at the Singularity Lab (horribly anachronistic name, yes) are practically geriatric in terms of video technology. But if the footage is altered, why on earth would someone have altered it? Has Patient One been...
E. J. Koh, author of The Liberators
Anton Hur emerges as one of the most exciting translators, and now authors, of our generation. Toward Eternity develops a surreal and subversive terrain of nanite swarms, exploding memories, and symphonic poetry. Hur unburies both familiar and ancient history, geography, and language—a sprawling, crystalline, and deftly crafted vision of a yet unimaginable future. Matthew Salesses, author of The Sense of Wonder
Anton Hur is a genius and this book is a fast, fun, and smart read. An exploration of language, AI, and what it means to be human, Toward Eternity is a terrific debut from a fearless writer and acclaimed translator. Porochista Khakpour, author of Tehrangeles and Sick: A Memoir
Hur is first and foremost one of our best writers. This chilling gem of speculative fiction is written with the restrained elegance and dazzling precision of an expert who can bend, tone, and ultimately alchemize language into a truly singular storytelling experience. You'll never look at the intersections of poetry and biology, and art and technology, the same again. What a delight to witness a writer in complete control of his craft, to experience the thrills of invention as unforgettable as the most canonical cautionary tales of the genre.
If you liked Toward Eternity, try these:
by Emily St. John Mandel
Published 2023
The award-winning, best-selling author of Station Eleven and The Glass Hotel returns with a novel of art, time, love, and plague that takes the reader from Vancouver Island in 1912 to a dark colony on the moon five hundred years later, unfurling a story of humanity across centuries and space.
by Kazuo Ishiguro
Published 2022
Klara and the Sun is a magnificent novel from the Nobel laureate Kazuo Ishiguro--author of Never Let Me Go and the Booker Prize-winning The Remains of the Day.
The Bluestockings by Susannah Gibson
An illuminating group portrait of the eighteenth-century women who dared to imagine an active life for themselves in both mind and spirit.
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