Book Review: A Thousand Blues by Cheon Seon-ran (translated by Chi-Young Kim)

About the book

From its perch on top of a pile of junk inside a shed, Coli, a robot with powerful observational qualities, waits patiently for someone to find it.

Coli is special among AI robots. This is because Coli has the capacity for emotion.

Today, Coli is feeling particularly in awe – of the sky in all its wondrous shades of blue.

Luckily for Coli, a young girl is about to pass by. She is obsessed with robots.

Together, they will save a life.

But first, they must make friends, put themselves at risk, and pull off the mother of all deceptions.

What we love it

I defy you not to fall in love with this book. Emotional, profound and entirely relevant, it's undoubtedly one of my favourite books so far this year. 

Set in a near-future Korea, the book tells the story of a robot, who, thanks to a slight human error during assembly, possesses an unusual degree of empathy and curiosity. 

Originally built to race horses (because lightweight robotic jockeys mean horses can run faster), an accident finds Coli consigned to the scrapheap and it's racehorse partner scheduled for euthanasia (because running faster causes inevitable joint degeneration and a horse that can't race doesn't generate profit).

Thankfully, Coli is found by Yeonjae, a student with a passion for robotics. What begins as an unlikely partnership gradually brings together a small group of family and friends, all united by a shared determination to save a life.

Despite being set in a future where robots have replaced so many human workers, this is a novel focussed on what it means to be human. It's about regrets and hopes, loneliness and connection, and the countless small choices that shape our lives. The choices that draw us together, or that slowly distance us from one another and the world around us.

It's wonderfully ironic that the character with the greatest capacity for observation and empathy is an AI robot. In a story filled with humans struggling under the pressures of modern life, Coli seems to grasp one simple truth better than anyone else - that making a living creature happy is one of the most worthwhile things you can do with your time.

The world Cheon Seon-ran imagines feels uncomfortably plausible at times. It's one where vague promises of greater efficiency have seen people slowly replaced with robotics and AI decision-making - but once those jobs disappear, so do the livelihoods that depended on them and it's this theme that runs throughout the novel. It's not an apocalyptic vision of machines taking over the world. Instead it's something altogether more subtle, with technology evolving to solve one problem whilst simultaneously creating another due to inherent problems within society itself.

Early in the novel, Yeonjae is asked a question that sits at the heart of the entire story - what does technological development provide humans and what should it provide? It's such a simple question, but one that feels increasingly relevant today as AI rapidly becomes more and more prevalent.

This book doesn't argue that technology itself is the enemy. Instead, it suggests that the value of technology ultimately will depend on how we choose to use it - whether to improve life and alleviate suffering not just for humanity but for all living creatures, or to just maximise profit. 

Another theme that really resonated with me was the novel's celebration of slowing down. We live in a culture obsessed with speed, productivity and optimisation, where faster is almost always assumed to mean better. A Thousand Blues gently pushes back against that idea. Sometimes it's ok to just lie back and stare at the sky.

For a book about AI, robotics and the future of work, A Thousand Blues is a remarkably warm and uplifting read. It asks difficult questions about capitalism, automation and technological progress without ever becoming preachy. But more than anything, it's a story about connection, about the way we connect with each other and the way we connect with the world around us.

This a thoughtful, hopeful and moving read and one of those books I just know I'll end up wanting to come back to again and again.