Toward Eternity A Novel
Toward Eternity, a novel by Anton Hur, is set to be published by HarperCollins Publishers in July 2025. This 256-page work explores a love story that spans multiple millennia, life forms, and variations on immortality. The narrative delves into themes of technology and humanity, presenting a near-future world where a new therapy eradicates cancer by replacing the body’s cells with nanites, leading to a form of immortality.
Readers will encounter Yonghun, a literary researcher who teaches an AI to understand poetry, creating a sentient machine named Panit. When Yonghun mysteriously vanishes and reappears, questions arise about his identity. The story unfolds as Dr. Beeko, the inventor of the nanotherapy, transfers Panit’s consciousness into an android body, prompting existential dilemmas for Yonghun, Panit, and other nano humans. Toward Eternity examines the implications of technological progress, the essence of personhood, and the enduring nature of love amidst profound change.
Official synopsis Publisher
“A love story spanning multiple millenniums, life-forms and variations on immortality, the book posits Victorian poetry as a weapon of empire, insists on nature’s resilience in the face of genocide, and manipulates prose into something like a new language….Toward Eternity recognizes both the building and burning of bridges.” -New York Times
*A PARADE, LITHUB, and CHICAGO REVIEW OF BOOKS Best New Book. *An AUDIOFILE EARPHONES AWARD WINNER.
Negotiating the terrain of Kazuo Ishiguro’s Klara and the Sun and Emily St. John Mandel’s Sea of Tranquility, a brilliant, haunting speculative novel from a #1 New York Times bestselling translator that sets out to answer the question: What does it mean to be human in a world where technology is quickly catching up to biology
In a near-future world, a new technological therapy is quickly eradicating cancer. The body’s cells are entirely replaced with nanites–robot or android cells which not only cure those afflicted but leaves them virtually immortal.
Literary researcher Yonghun teaches an AI how to understand poetry and creates a living, thinking machine he names Panit, meaning Beloved, in honor of his husband. When Yonghun–himself a recipient of nanotherapy–mysteriously vanishes into thin air and then just as suddenly reappears, the event raises disturbing questions. What happened to Yonghun, and though he’s returned, is he really himself anymore
When Dr. Beeko, the scientist who holds the patent to the nanotherapy technology, learns of Panit, he transfers its consciousness from the machine into an android body, giving it freedom and life. As Yonghun, Panit, and other nano humans thrive–and begin to replicate–their development will lead them to a crossroads and a choice with existential consequences.
Exploring the nature of intelligence and the unexpected consequences of progress, the meaning of personhood and life, and what we really have to fear from technology and the future, Toward Eternity is a gorgeous, thought-provoking novel that challenges the notion of what makes us human–and how love survives even the end of that humanity.
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