Cyberabad Days
-
-
4.8 • 4 Ratings
-
-
- $7.99
-
- $7.99
Publisher Description
Cyberabad Days returns to the India of 2047 as featured in Ian McDonald's acclaimed novel River of Gods. A new, muscular superpower of two billion people in an age of new nations, artificial intelligences, climate-change induced drought, water wars, strange new genders, genetically improved children that age at half the rate of baseline humanity, and a population where males outnumber females four to one.
Cyberabad Days is a cycle of seven stories, three Hugo nominees and one Hugo winner among them, as well as an original thirty-one-thousand-word novella.
Welcome back to the fierce, dazzling, thrilling world of River of Gods.
Featuring:
Sanjeev and Robotwallah (selected for both The Year's Best Science Fiction: Twenty-Fifth Annual Collection and Year's Best SF 13): A boy-soldier roboteer from the War of Separation learns that war may be hell, but peace is harder.
Kyle Meets the River: A young American in Varanasi learns the true meaning of “nation building” in the early days of a new country.
The Dust Assassin: In the time of water-wars, the daughter of a powerful water-raja learns that revenge revenge is a slow and subtle art.
An Eligible Boy: Love and marriage is never easy when there four men for every women. But it should be easy with an Artificial Intelligence matchmaker. Shouldn’t it?
The Little Goddess (Hugo nominee for best novella of 2006): In Kathmandu, a child-goddess discovers what lies on the other side of godhood and what divinty really means.
The Djinn’s Wife (Hugo for best novelette and BSFA short-fiction winner of 2007): A minor Delhi celebrity falls in love with an artificial intelligence, but is it a marriage of heaven and hell?
Vishnu at the Cat Circus: A genetically improved “Brahmin”child finds himself left behind as he grows through the final generation of humanity.
Praise for Cyberabad Days:
“The sheer number of ideas and plotlines can sometimes make McDonald's novels seems dense, but the stories here are sharp, focused and witty.” —BBCFocus
“McDonald's India engulfs you with an overwhelming, perfumed, stinky embrace. A hugely impressive collection. Seven nifty, witty stories.” —SFX
“McDonald excels at conveying, in a gorgeous melange of sensory impressions, an India transformed by AIs, nanotech, robots and cybernetics: the subcontinent is chaotic and lurid, shot through with devotion to eternal Hindu gods and divided by internecine conflict. McDonald gives a refreshing take on the future from a non-western viewpoint.” —The Guardian
Customer Reviews
Collection of Stories from the World of India 2047
“Cyberabad Days” is the second book in Ian McDondald’s India 2047 Duology. The first work is the novel “River of Gods.” This second book is a collection of shorter works. Some of the events in the first book are retold in these stories through different viewpoints.
In this future setting, what we know as India has broken up into several regional states, which are a rich tapestry of ancient beliefs and future tech. The characters include Artificial Intelligences (AIs) or in the books “aeais.” In one story one of these aeais marries a human dancer.
Like the previous book, there are Krishna Cops and persons without gender (Nutes). In this book we also get to experience the viewpoint of a Brahmin, one of the genetically engineered children that may be the next stage of human development.
The great thing about the shorter works in this volume is the reader gets to experience different facets of this future world. It’s a busy place, with lots to take in. However, it’s also very different and interesting.