Last edited: 2026-04-06 06:55:10 | 1 revision | All changes

Limbinal

Category: Writings / Creative Website: jack-luo.com/journey (sample PDF linked) Summary: Jack’s novel-in-progress about a man stuck in a liminal space Last updated: 2026-04-06

Overview

Limbinal is a novel Jack began writing from July 23 onwards. It follows a man stuck in a liminal space — a world where reality blurs and the boundaries between dreams and waking life become indistinguishable.

The title is a deliberate portmanteau: liminal (the threshold state between two conditions) + inal (suggesting something final, terminal). Liminal spaces are the in-between places — the empty airport at 3am, the school hallway in summer, the hotel corridor that goes on too long. Limbinal takes that feeling and builds a world from it.

Themes

Per Jack’s description on jack-luo.com:

Identity — who you are when your environment gives you no external confirmation
The pursuit of meaning — what meaning looks like in a world where normal reference points have dissolved
“Robotic racism” — Jack’s phrase; a concept about how society categorizes and discriminates against non-human or machine intelligence, explored through the liminal world’s logic

Connection to Jack’s Other Work

The liminal space aesthetic runs through Jack’s broader creative and intellectual interests:

His dream journal (documented in the Index section) is full of threshold spaces — vending machine arcades, Japanese stores you can’t find again, rooftops at night, places that feel almost-real
The Steins;Gate obsession connects here — causality, loops, being stuck between timelines
The neon rain photo (jack-neon-rain.jpg) — crouching in a rainy parking lot at night — is a visual liminal space: not quite inside, not quite outside, time unclear, the city abstracted into reflections

Jack has been building a world that feels more intense, more alive, more meaningful than the default one. Limbinal is the fiction version of that project.

Status

As of the jack-luo.com listing, a sample PDF is available at jack-luo.com/assets/pdf/limbinal-v12.03.23.pdf (version dated March 23). The note “let me know any feedback and questions about the book (bonus points if you know publishers)” suggests it was actively seeking publication at some point.

Current status: not yet publicly released as a complete work.

Revision history