A long-running plot line that saw Raider take custody of a young child holds particular significance for Brandon, for reasons we’ll discover: “You, trenchcoated, half shadowed, holding that little Asian boy in your arms, staring into the dark rain falling all around you and straight into my soul. Volunteers record chapters of public domain books. “Raider” was, we discover, way ahead of its time in its depiction of Asian lives - “We said more than unsubtitled Cantonese, we played more than kung fu masters or dragon assassins” - even if today some of it may be indefensible. LivriVox was founded in 2005, it is an extensive library of free public domain audiobooks. One intriguing quirk of the narrative is how much of it is told in the second person, with Brandon, who has Korean heritage on his mother’s side, directly addressing his childhood idol, the hard-boiled hero of a gritty ’80s cop show he used to watch with his (White) father. With varying degrees of success, Chong synthesizes a large, diverse set of themes and plot elements, including time travel, grief, Asian American representation and queer romance.

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