A couple of years back, Ian McDonald wrote RIVER OF GODS, a triumph of speculation and characterization set amid the India of 2047. It endures along the decade’s high-water mark, but as big as the book was, the world McDonald created was so rich and layered that you always knew that a myriad of stories remained to be told.
And told they were, trickling out in periodicals and anthologies since the novel’s publication and winning awards along the way. CYBERABAD DAYS is the culmination of the saga begun in RIVER OF GODS; it collects all of McDonald’s previously published short fiction set in this universe and includes “Vishnu at the Cat Circus,” an unpublished story that wraps up most of the unanswered questions posed by RIVER, and brings the curtain down on that universe.
A caveat to prospective readers: If you pick this one up and like the first story or two, do yourself a favor and get RIVER OF GODS. Not only will you save yourself from spoilers, but you seriously owe it to yourself. The creation of and interaction between manufactured societal divisions is McDonald’s bread and butter, and the high-tech castes he created for RIVER serve as a sharp commentary on the lengths humans will go to to make them feel better about themselves.
Anyway, CYBERABAD DAYS is everything a RIVER OF GODS fanboy could want: battlemechs, artificial intelligences, bizarre sex, revenge — it’s all here. It’s got:
• A woman who falls for an artificial intelligence and then pays the price in the Hugo-winning novelette “The Djinn’s Wife”;
• McDonald’s take on the plight of demobilized child soldiers, “Sanjeev and Robotwallah”;
• “Kyle Meets the River,” in which an insulated boy growing up in a fortified compound comes to realize that his Indian friends live in a world far removed from his own;
• “The Little Goddess,” which has a formerly venerated girl trying to figure out if there is indeed life after being divine; and
• cold, cold revenge being served up between warring corporate clans in “The Dust Assassin.”
Every single one of these tales is incisive and wonderful, but the triumph of CYBERABAD DAYS is “Vishnu at the Cat Circus.” It could easily have been a letdown — readers have had plenty of time to imagine their own extensions of RIVER’s plot. But McDonald does himself proud with this one, as it traces the life of a genetically modified boy as he lives a life of aging at a rate far slower than normal humans and seeing humanity slowly veer toward posthuman existence. Like all of McDonald’s India stories, it’s weird, sad, sexy and wonderful. And it’s the perfect wrap-up for the painstakingly real future that McDonald started with RIVER OF GODS.
So pick up CYBERABAD DAYS if the hugeness of RIVER OF GODS intimidates you. Pick up CYBERABAD DAYS if you think RIVER OF GODS is the best thing since the Singularity. The chance of regretting it is negligible. —Ryun Patterson
OTHER BOOKGASM REVIEWS OF THIS AUTHOR:
• BRASYL by Ian McDonald
• RIVER OF GODS by Ian McDonald
Related posts:
- River of Gods
- Brasyl
- Fables: Arabian Nights (and Days)
- The Best Science Fiction and Fantasy of the Year: Volume One
- Three Days to Never
