Beautiful Shining People

PRAISE FOR BEAUTIFUL SHINING PEOPLE ‘Cyberpunk meets bildungsroman – a real joy’ Oscar de Muriel ‘A fascinating exploration of what it means to be human in a world where everything can be faked, and an alarming projection into a not-too-distant and all-too-plausible future … wonderful, insightful and thoughtful’ James Oswald ‘Totally engrossing from the start – the story, characters and settings will linger in your imagination long after you’ve finished … truly wonderful’ Jonathan Whitelaw ‘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’ Lisa Bradley ‘Set in a near-future Japan where technology has all but rendered human productivity redundant, Beautiful Shining People is a life-affirming book about what it is to be human: to live, to dream, to hope, to love. And at a time when we most need reminding of these things’ David F. Ross ‘Outstanding! Sci-fi showing how the past might impact on the future; part coming of age, part boy meets girl, with a strong sense of place and a glimpse into a terrifying and very plausible future’ Michael J. Malone ‘A striking and strange novel, about beautiful shining people in all their strangeness – and a searing statement about the dangerously thin lines between utopia and dystopia’ B. S. Casey ‘Masterful … truly breathtaking, achingly beautiful passages of writing, from internal reflection to vivid descriptions of the surroundings. Grothaus’s second novel moves for the most part relatively slowly, ebbing and flowing smoothly as it builds anticipation and suspense before coming together in a thrilling, captivating conclusion’ The Bookbag ‘This book was incredible … I couldn’t bear put it down’ Sophia Eck ‘Devastatingly beautiful. It made me smile, it made me weep, it made me turn the pages faster and faster, holding my breath in suspense … quite simply immense’ From Belgium with Booklove ‘The story is underpinned by mystery and suspense, but it is so wonderfully textured and nuanced that it is also so much more … A truly beautiful story of friendship, trust and love, and it’s most definitely highly recommended’ Jen Beautiful Shining People Michael Grothaus For m.e. & k.n. Contents Cover 1 – The cusp of a new world. 2 – Japan is good. 3 – Maybe we’ll be back to throwing sticks and rocks. 4 – A boy was dead, and people were angry. 5 – Sakeee! 6 – It made the world look like it was simply black and white. 7 – Isn’t it nice, the way it comes down? 8 – Does the dog speak fucking English or something? 9 – So, you like the Mossman? 10 – It’s a bullet in the brain. 11 – We all look completely ordinary. 12 – Beautiful, shining kami in the sky. 13 – Today was a very good day. 14 – It’s one of our many flaws. 15 – That’s something. 16 – Otōsan. 17 – Musume. 18 – A blindness to all the people in the world. 19 – 神 About the Author Other titles by Michael Grothaus Copyright 1 – The cusp of a new world. Everything before me looks like another world, one normally hidden from the ordinary. A patchwork of illuminated shapes stretches into the distance. The soft blinking of a thousand antennas. The drones silently gliding across the night. Behind them, glowing hues mist vast swaths of the landscape – a kaleidoscope of colours suggesting even stranger lands within this strange expanse. Yet, as I look into the sky, I’m reminded that I’m solidly earth-bound. That this isn’t some otherly world I’ve been transported to. My eyes adjust to the two artificial stations, the jagged silver crescents suspended between here and the natural moon. One American, the other Chinese. Both locked in their endless, paranoid orbital dance, neither yet finished, but each already suspicious of its incomplete neighbour. The sound of a bell sinks my eyes back to the infinite city before me. On the narrow side-street below, a man rides his bicycle, its basket stuffed with groceries. He rings his bell again, warning the stray cat lounging outside a FamilyMart to get out of the path. At the corner, a woman watches a stream on her phone as she waits for