Culturally and
technologically rich, almost too much (4/5)
Ian McDonald is a new author
for me and my picking up the tome which is River of Gods was a daunting
endeavor. Don’t you hate choosing a new book, voluminous to say the least, and
end up hating the author’s writing style in a matter of pages? I’ve had that
experience with Spinrad’s Child of Fortune (1985) and Lafferty’s Arrive
at Easterwine (1971). I managed to choke down Arrive at Easterwine
and regurgitate a review, but Child of Fortune had too many alarums flashing
before me, thus I closed the book and sold it after less than 20 pages.
Thankfully, Ian McDonald has
impressed me with River of Gods. It’s a cultural and futurological
immersion which is both intoxicating and disorientating, yet the reader doesn’t
experience each separately—the synergy of the two is an experience itself!
Rear cover synopsis:
“As Mother India approaches her
centenary, nine people are going about their business—a gangster, a cop, his
wife, a politician, a stand-up comic, a set designer, a journalist, a
scientist, and a dropout. And is is Aj—the waif, the mind reader, the
prophet—when she one day finds a man who wants to stay hidden.
In the next few weeks, they
will all be swept together to decide the fate of a nation.”
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There are many plot threads
which intertwine in a dazzling amount of ways, some of those character plots
are central to the story and recur frequently, while other character plots add
ambiance to the story. However, take any one of those away and it would all
unravel. To the best of my ability, this is the synopsis of the synopsis, which
should be titled “Meanwhile”:
Ray Power Electric, owned by
the successful and reputable father of three sons, suddenly decides to forego
the life of an eclectic billionaire and seek life as an ascetic guru. Mr. Ray
divides his lumbering giant of a company into three parts, one for each son.
Most importantly, Vishram Ray, once a stand-up comedian living a frugal life in
Scotland, now owns the Research and Development portion of Ray Power Electric.
Vishram reluctantly takes the reins of the department and becomes intrigued
with one of its latest budding success: zero-point energy, being fed energy by
tapping into higher universes. Maintaining his father’s immaculate reputation
and following his work ethic propels Vishram toward the promise of free energy
for the world.
Meanwhile in India, Mr. Nandha
the Krishna Cop is tracking down artificial intelligences (aeais) which exceed
the internationally-agreed limit of Level 2.0, thanks to the Americans’
Hamilton Act. Rouge aeais are always being found in computer systems around
India, aeais which panic in their floundering power and inadvertently maim
humans and attack the Krishna Cops who are there to execute it. An aeai Level
of 3.0 is mythical in some circles, but Mr. Nandha has been tracking down
curious leads which point to a massive multinational collaboration involving
shell companies, transfer of large amounts of cash, and investment in esoteric
research. Sadly, his private life isn’t as thriving as his work life—his
socially displaced wife, from a much lower village caste to the city’s
government worker’s caste, is awkwardly assuming her newly found place among
the elite. However, a trip to the cricket test match reveals her true
unreservedness of her caste, a shame which descends upon her and her home
wrecking mother.
Meanwhile in America, the
government has spotted an erroneous asteroid, one which seems to be shifting
its direction of flight to coincide with Earth’s orbit. The government is quick
to realize the alien possibility of such an action and assemble a team to delve
into the orbiting rock which is imprinted with a vast triskelion. Lisa Durnau
is called upon to examine the enigmatic find at the center of the asteroid. The
archeological dig into the “Tabernacle” discovers a rippling sphere of black
and white bits which, while undulating in mesmerizing ways, only conveys three
pieces of information: the face of Lisa herself, the face of her missing
ex-colleague Thomas Lull, and the face of an unknown girl. Recently, Lisa has
been in charge of an advanced and accelerated push as artificial intelligence
which utilizes an evolution based on organic principles, all mimicked by her
powerful and handy computer. Millions of years have passed and life breeds on
the artificial Earth for an aspiration to, one day, breed a genuine
intelligence without human interference. This amazing concept is the brainchild
of Thomas Lull, who abandoned his own project and sought a quiet life in India.
Meanwhile, wandering in India
in search for Thomas Lull, is Aj, a young girl with a mysterious past and in
search for her parents. Her ability of foresight and seeming omniscience marks
her as a prophet or sage, but the grounded Thomas Lull is intrigues by the photograph
of her parents—two of his fellow scientists, the supposed mother with a barren
womb. Aj’s calm demeanor and gifted intelligence are indicators of tampering, a
dark possible truth which hangs like drooping vines of guilt from his
shoulders. The recent death and possible assassination of Aj’s parents upsets
them both and reaffirms some of Thomas’s suspicions.
Meanwhile on the war front, possible
assassinations are being linked to the American autonomous military robots
which scour the urban streets in stealth warfare against domestic and
international insurgents. The daily battles which span the city echo the
tensions on the Kunda Khandar border where the Awadh dam has caused tensions
for the drought-stricken Indian nation as well as the intercity tensions with
fundamentalists taking place around Sarkhand Roundabout. Shaheen Badoor Kahn is
the president’s advisor and heads many of the truces, agreements, and talks
with the afflicted parties. Renown for his opalescence and dedication, a developing
affair creates a schism between himself and his superiors which, on a greater
scale, upsets the political balance of a nation at the fulcrum of war and
peace, death and drought. His love affair with the eunuch Tal, thus, goes
beyond mere lust.
Meanwhile on TV, the hit soap
opera named Town and Country and ubiquitously taken the nation by storm
with its aeai-directed cast, some of whom have such stardom that the population
is entirely unsure whether they are real or not. Tal, a gender neutral human by
choice, has created many of the sets for the soap opera. Yt’s (the pronoun
chosen for those who have chosen to be gender neutral) knack for interior
design and contacts within yt’s media company has shown yt a wild life of fame,
fortune and, ultimately, human fallacy. Without the organs needed to naturally produce
hormones, yt is able to alter yt’s metabolism and array of artificial hormones
in order to meet the circumstances in which yt finds; this comes in handy when
yt becomes the hunted party.
Meanwhile, poised to break news
as it happens, it the Afghani-native journalist Najia, whose past is as veiled
as the dark underpinning of the war of assassination, the sheer amount of power
being wielded by politicians and corporate entities, and the precipice of
external and internal war the century-old nation of India finds itself on. Her
sympathetic nature and astute awareness of the tides of change allow her to be
a mercurial investigator amid the swathes of the corruption, decadence and war
footing.
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This review is being written
two weeks after finishing the book, a circumstance which attests to the strong
nature of the plot and its characters. The brilliance of the combined cultural
and technological foreignness captivates the mind much like the dangling of a
keychain in front of a baby; however, the dangling of the culture and
technology in front of the reader is able to extend for hours on end, as long
as the reader has an affinity for rich narration and seemingly alien
foundations.
The one thing which River of
Gods does not lack in is color—that vague notion of “color” extends not
only to the visual pictures which McDonald paints of rural and urban India but
also branches out to depictions of sexuality in the year 2047, graphic acts of
seduction and illicit acts of passion, and the cultural thrusts of intrinsic
motivation for each character’s parrying. The only aspect really missing from
the heavily spiced curry which represents McDonald’s affection for India is the
international element to ground it, just one additional perspective on the heap
to give it a global feel; Sri Lanka, America and China are all mentioned in
passing but none play a pivotal role in viewing the circumstances which India
is entrenched in. This would have been an excellent opportunity to try “very tight limited third person" where an
outsider would view the wild chaos of elements from their own perspective while
the native southern Indians would not eye such commonplace elements.
Therefore, is River of Gods too rich for
its own good? If the book were half of its size, the novel would have been
easier to consume but given its voluminous existence, it’s difficult to grasp,
masticate, and digest the kaleidoscope of language, culture, geography, nomenclature,
etc. I didn’t find the web of characters to be difficult to understand; this
had a long wind-up but proved fruitful in its execution well into the novel.
The word count would probably match some of McDonald’s other contemporary
British science fiction authors of Alastair Reynolds, Peter F. Hamilton or Iain
M. Banks. It’s dense, it’s heavy—consume if you have the appetite!
The technology prevalent throughout River of
Gods is a mix of author-projected plausibility and some unlikelier
elements. Where the visual electronic interface of the “hoek” is among the most
plausible and versatile, the alcohol-fueled cars are also plausible but becomes
repetitive for its own good. Some technologies in McDonald’s year 2047 seems
too implausible: (1) the explosive growth of artificial intelligence, (2) the mechanization
and autonomy of military robots in urban centers, and (3) the electronic
counter-measurements. The author is fairly casual about using EMP grenades
(pages 233, 474, 475 and 509). The most outrageous technological feat is the Bangladeshi
towing of an Antarctic iceberg to the coast in order to reset the monsoon which
had been absent and causing drought.
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I’ll quote myself: “It’s dense, it’s heavy—consume if you have the appetite!”
This is definitely an intricate though massive novel which whets my appetite
for another McDonald cultural and technological exploration such as Brasyl
(2007) and The Dervish House (2010). If I feel compelled, like I did a
month ago when I started River of Gods, to open another tome, I am
gifted with a number of voluminous novels on my shelves… so McDonald will have
to take a backseat for quite some time. Anyway, I need a copious amount to
resettle my appetite for another of McDonald’s sci-fi banquets.
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