River of Gods
Encyclopedia
River of Gods is a science fiction
novel
by Ian McDonald
. It depicts a futuristic India
in 2047, a century after its independence from Britain, inhabited by ancient traditions as well as artificial intelligence
s, robots and nanotechnology
.
The novel won the British Science Fiction Award in 2004.
. This alternate India has become balkanized into smaller competing states, such as Awadh
, Bharat and Bangla. The global information network is now inhabited by artificial intelligences, called aeais in the novel, of varying levels of intelligence.
Aeais higher than level 2.5 (able to pass the Turing test
and pass as human) are banned, and their excommunication (destruction) is the responsibility of "Krishna Cops", like Mr. Nandha. While some pockets of the subcontinent are still steeped in ancient tradition and values, mainstream culture is replete with aeais in TV entertainment and robotic swarms in defense. During such a time, Ranjit Ray steps down from his control of Ray Power, a key energy company, and the responsibility falls on his son Vishram Ray. The playboy Vishram is struggling to make it on his own as a stand-up comedian when he is flown back to Varanasi
to assume this role, for which he finds himself terribly ill-equipped but eventually surprisingly effective. He learns that his company is working on harvesting zero-point energy
from other universes, and sees the particle collider built by his father with the help of Odeco, a clandestine investment firm.
After a prolonged drought, a severe water shortage threatens to jeopardize the peace between the subcontinental states. To avert this crisis, governments are melting glacier
s and modifying natural systems. To take advantage of the unrest, a Hindu
fundamentalist leader named N.K Jeevanji organises a "rath yatra" on a spectacular juggernaut
. He starts releasing key information to the press via Najia Askarzadah, an ambitious Swedish-Afghan reporter with a desire to be part of history as it is being made.
Lisa Durnau notices an apocalyptic crisis brewing in Alterre, a simulated evolution of earth created by AI scientist Thomas Lull, who is currently hiding in a South Indian coastal village. While Lisa is sent into space to investigate an asteroid
, Thomas Lull runs into Aj, a girl with mysterious powers that allow her to see into people's lives, pasts and futures. He decides to follow her and protect her during her quest to find her own true identity, but it is soon revealed that Aj's powers extend beyond mere mortals, when she brings a robot army to a halt with the raise of a hand.
Tal is a beautiful nute (of neutral gender) involved in the designing team of India's greatest 'soapi'
, Town & Country, some of the main stars of which are not human actors, but aeais. Tal falls prey to a conspiracy that compromises the career of Shaheen Badoor Khan, Private Secretary to the Prime Minister Sajida Rana, leading to her assassination and the fall of the government. All this leads to riots and popular fury against Muslim
s and transsexuals across Varanasi.
Lisa Durnau discovers that at the center of the mysterious asteroid is an 8 billion year old grey sphere, probably a black hole
remnant, or an alien artifact from another civilization. This "Tabernacle" communicates a message to the scientists, and this leads Lisa to India to find Thomas Lull, who alone can explain this phenomenon.
, which is analogous to the unceasing flow of time in Hindu mythology. Characters visit the river during the novel, and a large portion of the action takes place in the holy city of Varanasi
, which is traditionally associated with the Ganges, and is the focal point in the story.
Science fiction
Science fiction is a genre of fiction dealing with imaginary but more or less plausible content such as future settings, futuristic science and technology, space travel, aliens, and paranormal abilities...
novel
Novel
A novel is a book of long narrative in literary prose. The genre has historical roots both in the fields of the medieval and early modern romance and in the tradition of the novella. The latter supplied the present generic term in the late 18th century....
by Ian McDonald
Ian McDonald (author)
Ian McDonald is a British science fiction novelist, living in Belfast. His themes include nanotechnology, postcyberpunk settings, and the impact of rapid social and technological change on non-Western societies.- Biography :...
. It depicts a futuristic India
India
India , officially the Republic of India , is a country in South Asia. It is the seventh-largest country by geographical area, the second-most populous country with over 1.2 billion people, and the most populous democracy in the world...
in 2047, a century after its independence from Britain, inhabited by ancient traditions as well as artificial intelligence
Artificial intelligence
Artificial intelligence is the intelligence of machines and the branch of computer science that aims to create it. AI textbooks define the field as "the study and design of intelligent agents" where an intelligent agent is a system that perceives its environment and takes actions that maximize its...
s, robots and nanotechnology
Nanotechnology
Nanotechnology is the study of manipulating matter on an atomic and molecular scale. Generally, nanotechnology deals with developing materials, devices, or other structures possessing at least one dimension sized from 1 to 100 nanometres...
.
The novel won the British Science Fiction Award in 2004.
Plot introduction
The sprawling novel follows a number of different characters' viewpoints around the date of August 15, 2047, the centenary of India's partition and independence from the colonial RajBritish Raj
British Raj was the British rule in the Indian subcontinent between 1858 and 1947; The term can also refer to the period of dominion...
. This alternate India has become balkanized into smaller competing states, such as Awadh
Awadh
Awadh , also known in various British historical texts as Oudh or Oude derived from Ayodhya, is a region in the centre of the modern Indian state of Uttar Pradesh, which was before independence known as the United Provinces of Agra and Oudh...
, Bharat and Bangla. The global information network is now inhabited by artificial intelligences, called aeais in the novel, of varying levels of intelligence.
Aeais higher than level 2.5 (able to pass the Turing test
Turing test
The Turing test is a test of a machine's ability to exhibit intelligent behaviour. In Turing's original illustrative example, a human judge engages in a natural language conversation with a human and a machine designed to generate performance indistinguishable from that of a human being. All...
and pass as human) are banned, and their excommunication (destruction) is the responsibility of "Krishna Cops", like Mr. Nandha. While some pockets of the subcontinent are still steeped in ancient tradition and values, mainstream culture is replete with aeais in TV entertainment and robotic swarms in defense. During such a time, Ranjit Ray steps down from his control of Ray Power, a key energy company, and the responsibility falls on his son Vishram Ray. The playboy Vishram is struggling to make it on his own as a stand-up comedian when he is flown back to Varanasi
Varanasi
-Etymology:The name Varanasi has its origin possibly from the names of the two rivers Varuna and Assi, for the old city lies in the north shores of the Ganga bounded by its two tributaries, the Varuna and the Asi, with the Ganges being to its south...
to assume this role, for which he finds himself terribly ill-equipped but eventually surprisingly effective. He learns that his company is working on harvesting zero-point energy
Zero-point energy
Zero-point energy is the lowest possible energy that a quantum mechanical physical system may have; it is the energy of its ground state. All quantum mechanical systems undergo fluctuations even in their ground state and have an associated zero-point energy, a consequence of their wave-like nature...
from other universes, and sees the particle collider built by his father with the help of Odeco, a clandestine investment firm.
After a prolonged drought, a severe water shortage threatens to jeopardize the peace between the subcontinental states. To avert this crisis, governments are melting glacier
Glacier
A glacier is a large persistent body of ice that forms where the accumulation of snow exceeds its ablation over many years, often centuries. At least 0.1 km² in area and 50 m thick, but often much larger, a glacier slowly deforms and flows due to stresses induced by its weight...
s and modifying natural systems. To take advantage of the unrest, a Hindu
Hindu
Hindu refers to an identity associated with the philosophical, religious and cultural systems that are indigenous to the Indian subcontinent. As used in the Constitution of India, the word "Hindu" is also attributed to all persons professing any Indian religion...
fundamentalist leader named N.K Jeevanji organises a "rath yatra" on a spectacular juggernaut
Juggernaut
A juggernaut in colloquial English usage is a literal or metaphorical force regarded as mercilessly destructive and unstoppable.Originating in ca...
. He starts releasing key information to the press via Najia Askarzadah, an ambitious Swedish-Afghan reporter with a desire to be part of history as it is being made.
Lisa Durnau notices an apocalyptic crisis brewing in Alterre, a simulated evolution of earth created by AI scientist Thomas Lull, who is currently hiding in a South Indian coastal village. While Lisa is sent into space to investigate an asteroid
Asteroid
Asteroids are a class of small Solar System bodies in orbit around the Sun. They have also been called planetoids, especially the larger ones...
, Thomas Lull runs into Aj, a girl with mysterious powers that allow her to see into people's lives, pasts and futures. He decides to follow her and protect her during her quest to find her own true identity, but it is soon revealed that Aj's powers extend beyond mere mortals, when she brings a robot army to a halt with the raise of a hand.
Tal is a beautiful nute (of neutral gender) involved in the designing team of India's greatest 'soapi'
Soap opera
A soap opera, sometimes called "soap" for short, is an ongoing, episodic work of dramatic fiction presented in serial format on radio or as television programming. The name soap opera stems from the original dramatic serials broadcast on radio that had soap manufacturers, such as Procter & Gamble,...
, Town & Country, some of the main stars of which are not human actors, but aeais. Tal falls prey to a conspiracy that compromises the career of Shaheen Badoor Khan, Private Secretary to the Prime Minister Sajida Rana, leading to her assassination and the fall of the government. All this leads to riots and popular fury against Muslim
Muslim
A Muslim, also spelled Moslem, is an adherent of Islam, a monotheistic, Abrahamic religion based on the Quran, which Muslims consider the verbatim word of God as revealed to prophet Muhammad. "Muslim" is the Arabic term for "submitter" .Muslims believe that God is one and incomparable...
s and transsexuals across Varanasi.
Lisa Durnau discovers that at the center of the mysterious asteroid is an 8 billion year old grey sphere, probably a black hole
Black hole
A black hole is a region of spacetime from which nothing, not even light, can escape. The theory of general relativity predicts that a sufficiently compact mass will deform spacetime to form a black hole. Around a black hole there is a mathematically defined surface called an event horizon that...
remnant, or an alien artifact from another civilization. This "Tabernacle" communicates a message to the scientists, and this leads Lisa to India to find Thomas Lull, who alone can explain this phenomenon.
Explanation of the novel's title
The title refers to the sacred Ganges RiverGanges River
The Ganges or Ganga, , is a trans-boundary river of India and Bangladesh. The river rises in the western Himalayas in the Indian state of Uttarakhand, and flows south and east through the Gangetic Plain of North India into Bangladesh, where it empties into the Bay of Bengal. By discharge it...
, which is analogous to the unceasing flow of time in Hindu mythology. Characters visit the river during the novel, and a large portion of the action takes place in the holy city of Varanasi
Varanasi
-Etymology:The name Varanasi has its origin possibly from the names of the two rivers Varuna and Assi, for the old city lies in the north shores of the Ganga bounded by its two tributaries, the Varuna and the Asi, with the Ganges being to its south...
, which is traditionally associated with the Ganges, and is the focal point in the story.
Main characters
- Mr. Nandha is a Krishna Cop whose job it is to excommunicate rogue aeais. Parvati is his wife, a country girl who tries to cope with boredom at home and the class dynamics of the big city.
- Vishram Ray is an aspiring stand-up comedian who finds himself controlling the energy giant Ray Power, after his father's sudden retirement into sanyaSanyaSanya is the southernmost city in China and is a part of Hainan Province. In 2006, it had a population of 536,000, making it, after the provincial capital , the second most populous city on the island. The city is renowned for its tropical climate and has emerged as a popular tourist destination,...
s. - Tal is a genderless nute working as a set designer for India's most ubiquitous tivi soapi - Town & Country, watched by millions.
- Shaheen Badoor Khan is a powerful civil servant, and direct secretary to the Prime Minister, Sajida Rana.
- Shiv and Yogendra are small-time hoodlums caught up in the larger flow of events.
- Najia Askarzadah is a Swedish-Afghan reporter who ambitiously jumps into the civil war brewing in the subcontinent.
- Lisa Durnau is a physicist who has been sent to an asteroid by the US government, to see what's inside the alien artifact.
- Thomas Lull is an AI genius living in exile in India, hiding away his past.
- Ajmer Rao is a mystical girl who can see into people's futures, and is searching for her biological parents.
Awards and nominations
- British Science Fiction Association Best Novel winner, 2004
- Arthur C. Clarke AwardArthur C. Clarke AwardThe Arthur C. Clarke Award is a British award given for the best science fiction novel first published in the United Kingdom during the previous year. The award was established with a grant from Arthur C. Clarke and the first prize was awarded in 1987...
Best Novel nominee (2005) - Hugo Awards, Best Novel nominee (2005)
Trivia
- An upload of Bill GatesBill GatesWilliam Henry "Bill" Gates III is an American business magnate, investor, philanthropist, and author. Gates is the former CEO and current chairman of Microsoft, the software company he founded with Paul Allen...
' consciousness, created in an attempt to cheat death, is kept as a servant by the dataraja Ramanandacharya. - Ian McDonald has also written several additional stories set in the world of River of Gods, including The Little Goddess and The Dijinn's Wife; these stories are collected in Cyberabad Days (February, 2009).
- On seeing the Tabernacle appear at the Ray Research & Development site, Lisa Durnau exclaims, "It's a Boltzmon!" which is an indirect reference to the Boltzmann brainBoltzmann brainA Boltzmann brain is a hypothesized self-aware entity which arises due to random fluctuations out of a state of chaos. The idea is named for the physicist Ludwig Boltzmann , who advanced an idea that the known universe arose as a random fluctuation, similar to a process through which Boltzmann...
.
Release details
- 2004, United KingdomUnited KingdomThe United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern IrelandIn the United Kingdom and Dependencies, other languages have been officially recognised as legitimate autochthonous languages under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages...
, Simon & SchusterSimon & SchusterSimon & Schuster, Inc., a division of CBS Corporation, is a publisher founded in New York City in 1924 by Richard L. Simon and M. Lincoln Schuster. It is one of the four largest English-language publishers, alongside Random House, Penguin and HarperCollins...
ISBN 0743256700, Pub date January 2004, PaperbackPaperbackPaperback, softback or softcover describe and refer to a book by the nature of its binding. The covers of such books are usually made of paper or paperboard, and are usually held together with glue rather than stitches or staples... - 2004, United KingdomUnited KingdomThe United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern IrelandIn the United Kingdom and Dependencies, other languages have been officially recognised as legitimate autochthonous languages under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages...
, Simon & SchusterSimon & SchusterSimon & Schuster, Inc., a division of CBS Corporation, is a publisher founded in New York City in 1924 by Richard L. Simon and M. Lincoln Schuster. It is one of the four largest English-language publishers, alongside Random House, Penguin and HarperCollins...
ISBN 0743-256697, Pub date June 7, 2004, HardcoverHardcoverA hardcover, hardback or hardbound is a book bound with rigid protective covers... - 2005, United KingdomUnited KingdomThe United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern IrelandIn the United Kingdom and Dependencies, other languages have been officially recognised as legitimate autochthonous languages under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages...
, Simon & SchusterSimon & SchusterSimon & Schuster, Inc., a division of CBS Corporation, is a publisher founded in New York City in 1924 by Richard L. Simon and M. Lincoln Schuster. It is one of the four largest English-language publishers, alongside Random House, Penguin and HarperCollins...
ISBN 0743404009, Pub date April 4, 2005, PaperbackPaperbackPaperback, softback or softcover describe and refer to a book by the nature of its binding. The covers of such books are usually made of paper or paperboard, and are usually held together with glue rather than stitches or staples... - 2006, United States of AmericaUnited StatesThe United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
, Prometheus BooksPrometheus BooksPrometheus Books is a publishing company founded in August 1969 by Paul Kurtz, who also founded the Council for Secular Humanism and co-founded the Committee for Skeptical Inquiry. He is currently the chairman of all three organizations. Prometheus Books publishes a range of books, including many...
ISBN 1591024366, Pub date March 2006, HardcoverHardcoverA hardcover, hardback or hardbound is a book bound with rigid protective covers...
External links
- Agony Column review by Rick Kleffel
- Strange Horizon review by Mark Teppo
- SciFi Dimensions review by Carlos Aranaga
- Infinity Plus review by John D Owen
- Review by Russ Allbery
- The Zone review by Jonathan McCalmont
- SFF World.com review by Rob H. Bedford
- River of Gods at Worlds Without End