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We Radiant Things: Notes on Being Alien and Becoming Cyborg
Blending lyric memoir and cultural criticism, acclaimed poet Franny Choi’s debut essay collection explores our obsession with cyborgs and what sci-fi representations of Asian femmes reveal about race, gender, sexuality, disability, labor, technology, and language.
In the 2014 film Ex-Machina, a Japanese maid named Kyoko—beautiful, obedient, unspeaking—peels back the skin on her face to reveal glimmering circuitry. The white man who has been trying to understand her inscrutable behavior looks on in horror. When Franny Choi first watches this scene, their own face awash in the screen’s eerie glow, they feel a familiar mix of revulsion and self-recognition. Yes, Choi thinks, that’s what I’ve been trying to say.
In this luminous essay collection, Choi descends into the uncanny valley to encounter notable cyborgs and robots from across American culture and asks why so many of them bear the faces of East Asian women. Just why is it that whenever artificial intelligence is represented, a sexy but unfeeling Asian woman enters the frame? What does the literal objectification of Asian femmes say about how the West imagines—and dreads—an increasingly automated future?
Choi draws from their own experiences along with queer, feminist, and critical race theory to answer these questions. Refusing the detached safety of critical distance, they write instead “at stabbing range”—a risky intimacy that collapses the space between human and machine, critic and subject. We Radiant Things draws closer to the images carved out for us, the histories of oppression that animate them, and the future in which we try, painfully, to find ourselves.
In the 2014 film Ex-Machina, a Japanese maid named Kyoko—beautiful, obedient, unspeaking—peels back the skin on her face to reveal glimmering circuitry. The white man who has been trying to understand her inscrutable behavior looks on in horror. When Franny Choi first watches this scene, their own face awash in the screen’s eerie glow, they feel a familiar mix of revulsion and self-recognition. Yes, Choi thinks, that’s what I’ve been trying to say.
In this luminous essay collection, Choi descends into the uncanny valley to encounter notable cyborgs and robots from across American culture and asks why so many of them bear the faces of East Asian women. Just why is it that whenever artificial intelligence is represented, a sexy but unfeeling Asian woman enters the frame? What does the literal objectification of Asian femmes say about how the West imagines—and dreads—an increasingly automated future?
Choi draws from their own experiences along with queer, feminist, and critical race theory to answer these questions. Refusing the detached safety of critical distance, they write instead “at stabbing range”—a risky intimacy that collapses the space between human and machine, critic and subject. We Radiant Things draws closer to the images carved out for us, the histories of oppression that animate them, and the future in which we try, painfully, to find ourselves.
192 pages, Kindle Edition
First published October 6, 2026
About the author
Franny Choi
12 books614 followersFranny Choi is a poet, performer, editor, and playwright. She is the author of Floating, Brilliant, Gone and the chapbook Death by Sex Machine. Her poems have appeared in Poetry Magazine, American Poetry Review, the New England Review, and elsewhere. She is a Kundiman Fellow, Senior News Editor for Hyphen, co-host of the Poetry Foundation's podcast VS, and member of the Dark Noise Collective. Her second collection, Soft Science, was released from Alice James Books in April 2018. A current Zell Postgraduate Fellow at the University of Michigan, she is currently based near Detroit, Michigan.
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Displaying 1 - 10 of 10 reviews
July 25, 2026
I love reading books which are just a bit out of my reach. Like I enjoy being in deep conversation with someone just enough smarter than me to make me work to keep up with their thoughts. But in neither situation do I want to be lost or confused. The wonder and delight of discovering someone else's interior world, showing me a different way of encountering a situation, a different way of seeing, is simply the best, isn't it? In We Radiant Things, Franny Choi revisits many of my own touchstones but through a different cultural lens. And a different lived experience. Even though Choi made me stretch, I was never lost or confused. This book made me question my own previously unexamined digestions of these pop artifacts. I will never look at Boomer from Battlestar Galactica the same again. And the scene at the Nasher will haunt me for a very long time. This book was helpful and challenging, Choi is brilliant and bravely honest. Thank you to Ecco and NetGalley for the eARC. If anyone wants to buddy read this, I will happily reread it with you. We can even make it a multi-media experience, consuming snippets of the various pop culture references.
Did Not Finish
June 7, 2026Doing identity memoir more than cultural or media criticism and just not in the mood rn for that
August 15, 2026
What a wonderfully written and thoughtful collection of essays discussing ideas around the “Asian Robot Woman” using many familiar pop culture robots/cyborgs seen in movies, TV, etc. I really enjoyed the author’s analysis of these characters while also relating them to her life. It was a great mix of personal stories with critical discussions. She has such a lush use of language! I love when I’m reading something and can say “oh I have never actually thought that before” and that happened many times while reading this. It challenges stereotypes and offers a different perspective using science fiction as the lens of exploration. I was familiar with many of the characters and really appreciated being able to think about them differently and now basically just want to rewatch everything, especially Battlestar Gallactica! And having recently read Cloud Atlas I really appreciated the insight into Sonmi-451. I highly recommend this!
Thank you to the publisher and Netgalley for an early copy for review.
Thank you to the publisher and Netgalley for an early copy for review.
October 10, 2026
My impression of We Radiant Things is that it’s a thoughtful and intriguing book, especially because it uses science fiction to explore questions that go far beyond technology.
What caught my attention most is the image of an Asian woman who appears beautiful, quiet, and obedient, only to reveal that she is a machine underneath her skin. It’s an unsettling scene, but it raises an important question: why are Asian women so often portrayed as artificial, submissive, or emotionally unreadable in stories about robots and artificial intelligence?
I think this is where Franny Choi’s book becomes particularly interesting. Rather than simply criticizing these portrayals, Choi connects them to deeper questions about race, gender, sexuality, identity, and the way society treats people who are seen as different. The use of personal experience alongside cultural criticism also makes the subject feel more intimate and human.
What I find especially compelling is the idea that our visions of the future often reflect the prejudices we already have. Perhaps our fear of machines isn't always just about what technology might become. Sometimes, it also reveals how we understand—and misunderstand—other human beings.
That said, I think it’s important not to assume that every robot or fictional character with Asian features carries the same message. Context matters, and science fiction can reinforce stereotypes just as easily as it can challenge them.
Overall, We Radiant Things sounds like a book worth reading for anyone interested in literature, identity, and the cultural implications of artificial intelligence. It seems less concerned with predicting the future than with asking uncomfortable questions about the present.
What I appreciate most about its premise is that it encourages us to look again at images we might otherwise take for granted. Sometimes, the most revealing stories about technology are really stories about ourselves.
What caught my attention most is the image of an Asian woman who appears beautiful, quiet, and obedient, only to reveal that she is a machine underneath her skin. It’s an unsettling scene, but it raises an important question: why are Asian women so often portrayed as artificial, submissive, or emotionally unreadable in stories about robots and artificial intelligence?
I think this is where Franny Choi’s book becomes particularly interesting. Rather than simply criticizing these portrayals, Choi connects them to deeper questions about race, gender, sexuality, identity, and the way society treats people who are seen as different. The use of personal experience alongside cultural criticism also makes the subject feel more intimate and human.
What I find especially compelling is the idea that our visions of the future often reflect the prejudices we already have. Perhaps our fear of machines isn't always just about what technology might become. Sometimes, it also reveals how we understand—and misunderstand—other human beings.
That said, I think it’s important not to assume that every robot or fictional character with Asian features carries the same message. Context matters, and science fiction can reinforce stereotypes just as easily as it can challenge them.
Overall, We Radiant Things sounds like a book worth reading for anyone interested in literature, identity, and the cultural implications of artificial intelligence. It seems less concerned with predicting the future than with asking uncomfortable questions about the present.
What I appreciate most about its premise is that it encourages us to look again at images we might otherwise take for granted. Sometimes, the most revealing stories about technology are really stories about ourselves.
Review of advance copy received from NetGalley
Thank you Ecco & NetGalley for the Advanced Reader's Copy!
Available Oct 2026
I love it when poets explore nonfiction! In Franny Choi's WE RADIANT THINGS, Choi mediates on Asian American femme/women's identity and media/technology. Each chapter explores a different way robots and/or Asian American women are depicted (and often conflated) and then tied into larger explorations of history, sociopolitical beliefs, and Choi's own personal life. It is an acerbic and academic collection that makes no effort to create boundaries between the personal and the research, often speaking to the idea that human/cyborg is a somewhat ambiguous delineation to begin with. There's so much care in how Choi interrogates our past and our future and many moments where I had to pause to reread the brilliant observations.
Available Oct 2026
I love it when poets explore nonfiction! In Franny Choi's WE RADIANT THINGS, Choi mediates on Asian American femme/women's identity and media/technology. Each chapter explores a different way robots and/or Asian American women are depicted (and often conflated) and then tied into larger explorations of history, sociopolitical beliefs, and Choi's own personal life. It is an acerbic and academic collection that makes no effort to create boundaries between the personal and the research, often speaking to the idea that human/cyborg is a somewhat ambiguous delineation to begin with. There's so much care in how Choi interrogates our past and our future and many moments where I had to pause to reread the brilliant observations.
Review of advance copy received from NetGalley
5 stars
I'm a superfan of everything Franny Choi creates, so I expected to love this book. Then I got access to the audiobook. Choi reading their own work? Even better.
Choi blends discussions about all different types of identities and social roles and functions with their own personal experiences. As an avid fan of Choi's poetry and listener to Choi's podcast _Vs._ with Danez Smith, this debut essay collection is just the kind of new and exciting and complementary frontier I needed next. I loved connecting with Choi in this new way, particularly on such a fascinating set of concepts.
Fans of Choi's and those who are totally new to this fantastic writer and thinker will find a lot to ponder and enjoy here. I know I did.
*Special thanks to NetGalley and Ecco for this arc and alc, which I received in exchange for an honest review. The opinions expressed here are my own.
I'm a superfan of everything Franny Choi creates, so I expected to love this book. Then I got access to the audiobook. Choi reading their own work? Even better.
Choi blends discussions about all different types of identities and social roles and functions with their own personal experiences. As an avid fan of Choi's poetry and listener to Choi's podcast _Vs._ with Danez Smith, this debut essay collection is just the kind of new and exciting and complementary frontier I needed next. I loved connecting with Choi in this new way, particularly on such a fascinating set of concepts.
Fans of Choi's and those who are totally new to this fantastic writer and thinker will find a lot to ponder and enjoy here. I know I did.
*Special thanks to NetGalley and Ecco for this arc and alc, which I received in exchange for an honest review. The opinions expressed here are my own.
Review of advance copy received from Goodreads Giveaways
We Radiant Things is a thoughtful and beautifully written collection that blends memoir, cultural criticism, and reflections on technology, identity, and belonging. Franny Choi examines the way Asian women are often portrayed in science fiction and uses those examples to explore larger questions about race, gender, and what it means to be human in an increasingly technological world.
October 8, 2026
Franny Choi is one of my favorite thinkers writing today. Her poetry is brilliant. Her essays vibrate with a lyrical, elegiac intensity. In We Radiant Things, Choi blends feminist cultural critique with memoir to untangle fraught representations of Asian womanhood in the modern sci-fi lexicon. What do robots and cyborgs with East Asian features tell us about stereotypes, representation, and identity? Memorializing what it means to feel alien and othered, Choi places herself in the middle of these narrative essays, building ideas and arguments with stunning verbal acumen from emotion and experience. I loved these essays.
Review of advance copy received from Publisher
A beautifully structured book that takes cultural icons and shows us how to see them in new ways. Full review here.
August 27, 2026
This was a different perspective book. It references many modern topics and the western perspective was referred to. This was a Goodreads giveaway winner.
Displaying 1 - 10 of 10 reviews