This Year’s Common Book

Light From Uncommon Stars is an elegant young adult novel that defies categorization as well as gravity—a light-as-air ride through bildungsroman, science fiction, and fantasy. This is not to say the novel is weightless; it grapples with serious themes, addressing both worldly and otherworldly terrors with a bracing matter-of-factness. Still, it never allows itself to be completely bogged down by them. This appears to be the signature style of Ryka Aoki, a trans Asian American poet, author, teacher, and composer. Her new novel is an intimate portrayal of a young woman coming into her own as she faces threats, both to her identity and her person, whose relentlessness and sheer cruelty make an actual demon’s incursions into her life look like a trifling matter.

Ryka Aoki is a poet, composer, teacher, and novelist. Her latest novel Light From Uncommon Stars (TOR Books, 2021) was an Alex, SCKA, and Otherwise Award winner, and was also a finalist for the Hugo, Locus, and Ignyte Awards. Ryka is a two-time Lambda Literary Award finalist for her collection Seasonal Velocities and Why Dust Shall Never Settle Upon This Soul, and her first novel, He Mele a Hilo was called one of the “10 Best Books Set in Hawaii” by Bookriot. She has been recognized by the California State Senate for “extraordinary commitment to the visibility and well-being of Transgender people,” and her work has appeared or been recognized in publications including Vogue, Elle, Bustle, Autostraddle, PopSugar, and Buzzfeed, as well as the Smithsonian Asian pacific American Center. She was also honored to work with the American Association of Hiroshima Nagasaki A-Bomb Survivors, where two of her compositions were adopted as the organization’s “songs of peace.” Ryka also appears in the recent documentaries “Diagnosing Difference” and “Riot Acts,” as well as writing for and acting in the award-winning film “Transfinite.” She is a two-time Lambda Award finalist, and winner of the Eli Coppola Chapbook Contest, the Corson-Bishop Poetry Prize, and a University Award from the Academy of American Poets. She is also a Professor of English at Santa Monica College, a pianist, and is starting to learn to play the violin.

Ryka Aoki’s Website

• Hugo Award Finalist
• A National Bestseller
• Indie Next Pick
• New York Public Library Top 10 Book of 2021
• A Kirkus Best Book of 2021
• A Barnes & Noble Best Science Fiction Book of 2021
• 2022 Alex Award Winner
• 2022 Stonewall Book Award Winner
• Finalist for Locus Award, Ignyte Award, and Dragon Award. 2022 Alex Award Winner

• Ancillary Review of Books: The SFF Librarian Reviews Light From Uncommon Stars by Ryka Aoki
• Lesbrary: Danika reviews Light From UnCommon Stars by Ryka Aoki
• Locus Magazine: Caren Gussoff Sumption Reviews Light From Uncommon Stars by Ryka Aoki by Caren Gussoff Sumption
• The New York Times: Beasts and Baseball: New Science Fiction and Fantasy
• SFRA Review Volume 54, Number 1: Review of Light From Uncommon Stars by Yen Ooi
• The Rumpus: Defying Gravity: Ryka Aoki’s Light From Uncommon Stars by Krithika Sukumar

• He Mele a Hilo (Signature Press, 2014)
• Seasonal Velocities (Trans-Genre Press, 2013)
• Why Dust Shall Never Settle Upon This Soul (Biyutti Press, 2015)
• The Great Space Adventure (Flamingo Rampant Press, 2019)

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