Fred Lunzer is a writer based in London, with a background in AI research and strategy. He grew up in London and Tokyo, and speaks Japanese. He writes literary fiction novels and short stories, as well as essays and reviews.
Sike, Lunzer's debut novel, is about a young man using an AI psychotherapist to navigate his relationships.
At Electric Lit the author tagged ten novels by "authors [who] write realistically while contending with the futuristic topics the 21st century throws our way." One title on the list:
Klara and the Sun by Kazuo IshiguroRead about the other titles on Lunzer's list.
We’re in the mind of a robot, called Klara. She’s an “Artificial Friend,” who is in a store and waiting to be bought by a family. Eventually a young girl called Josie chooses her, and Klara’s job will be to give Josie companionship. Klaragains energy from the sun. Josie suffers from a mysterious illness, possibly a result of a genetic enhancement surgery she underwent, and Klara thinks the sun might be able to help her too.
Ishiguro is a master of matter-of-factness: Klara and the Sun delivers its extreme subject matter through Klara’s naïve eyes. So we come to recognize the loneliness of technology, the horror of sequestering a child’s future, gradually, bit by bit, as though the future is creeping on us.
And as we stand in the wings with Klara, watching the human theatre and only ever half understanding it, the sense of technology as humanity’s tool develops. Ishiguro doesn’t condemn the future, even when he condemns the humans living it.
Klara and the Sun is among Jalen Giovanni Jones's top ten literary adaptations coming to TV & film in 2025 and Sierra Greer's seven top stories of robot-human relationships.
--Marshal Zeringue
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