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Today’s book recommendation is a recent release that I’ve been looking forward to since last year. I’d attended an event where the author read part of chapter one and I was riveted. This blending of science fiction and fantasy takes place in San Francisco along three timelines—two in the past and one in the not-too-distant future. It’s a beautifully-written and thought-provoking examination of our connections and obligations to each other through time.
Down in the Sea of Angels by Khan Wong
The earliest anchor in time in this book is in 1906, which some of us who are from the Bay Area know is a really significant year in San Francisco history. Our protagonist in the 1906 timeline is Li Nuan. Li Nuan is around sixteen and she is currently in San Francisco because her father back in China sold her to settle a gambling debt. She does domestic work for a Chinatown mob boss, and this domestic work quickly turns into sex trafficking as she is forced to work in one of the associated brothels.
The second timeline is in 2006 with a queer, Chinese American named Nathan. He is a designer working in tech and is an avid Burner. In this context, the term Burner refers to devotees of Burning Man, which is a multi-day hedonistic art celebration in the Nevada desert. Nathan’s workplace is getting protested because of their role in supporting a tech company that depends on the child slavery necessary for all our tech products. While horrifying, this is based in fact, and I appreciate the author bringing awareness to this and using it as an opportunity for moral awakening and evolution.
The third and primary timeline is another one hundred years later in 2106. Maida Sun has psionic abilities as do many people after a thing happened called “the bloom.” Her ability is psychometry, which is the ability to hold an object and learn the history of its ownership and what it has witnessed. During her new job assignment, she gets some really intense and truly terrifying readings from a particular object, an object that readers will recognize from both Li Nuan’s timeline and Nathan’s timeline.
I loved this book so much. It was a great read, excellent pacing, captivating storytelling, and an impressive display of the conversations between the past and the future, and the benefits of having these connections. Content warnings for racism, sexual assault and harassment, historical sex trafficking of minors, physical and verbal abuse, violence, substance-use, and drug-related death.
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