River Of Gods

Author: Ian Mcdonald

The future is here, William Gibson once said, it's just not evenly distributed. That unevenness of distribution is especially apparent in what we still call the Third World, those countries still scrambling to keep up with the effects of Western technological change while holding on to their distinctive character and traditions. It is that conflict that lies at the heart of Ian McDonald's monumental and brilliant novel.It is set in India on the 100th anniversary of independence, but India is no longer a unified state, it has been balkanised into a number of competing states. Here AIs that might pass the Turing Test are banned, but some states are not above working with them covertly. Meanwhile severe water shortages threaten the stability of the various Indian states. Both basic needs and modern technological developments, therefore, play their part in the chaos that is starting to overwhelm the subcontinent.Telling the story through a variety of different viewpoint characters ranging from a genderless "neut" who works on a popular soap opera, to a would-be stand up comedian who suddenly inherits control of a major energy company, McDonald provides a panoramic account of the many different cultural, social, political, technological and religious differences that all play a part in the brewing conflict.In a collection of stories, CyberabadDays, that acts as a pendant to this novel, McDonald provides further perspectives, both before and after the events of River of Gods, that help to make this comprehensive portrait of near-future India even more convincing. River of Gods won the BSFA Award, and "The Djinn's Wife" from Cyberabad Days won the Hugo Award for Best Novelette. Together the books provide a rich and vivid portrait which makes it clear that the future is not just limited to one portion of the globe. Hugo Award for Best Novelette. Together the books provide a rich and vivid portrait which makes it clear that the future is not just limited to one portion of the globe.

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McDonald has been something of a globetrotter in his fiction. For instance,TheChaga Saga, which consists of Chaga, Kirinya and Tendeleo's Story (which won the Theodore Sturgeon Award) takes us to Africa, where an alien plague starts to transform the landscape. The story concerns the conflict between the First World response, trying to close off and control access to the Chaga, and the reaction of local people who are more comfortable adapting to the transformations and benefiting from the nanotechnology inherent in the plague.

Brasyl, which won the BSFA Award, tells three interlocking stories set at different times. One concerns the early days of colonial intrusion into Brazil, another concerns a reality TV producer in contemporary Brazil, while the third is set in the mid-21st century with the introduction of quantum computing which goes on to break down reality in such a way that the three different timestreams interact.

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Perhaps the most successful of these examinations of a non-Anglo-American future is The Dervish House. Intermingling the stories of several different residents of an old house in Istanbul in the near future. The plot starts with a terrorist bombing that, strangely, has no victims other than the bomber, but goes on from there to involve an investment scam, a quest to find a legendary religious relic, a religious awakening, among others. They come together in a complex mosaic that illustrates a way that Istanbul might embrace the new and preserve the old. It's a brilliant novel that won the BSFA and John W. Campbell Memorial awards.