“The Gollancz Book of South Asian Science Fiction” by Hachette India is a collection of contemporary sci-fi stories, focusing on themes such as dystopia, climate change, space travel, the arrival of aliens and man’s quest to find sustainable ways to live.
These are some tales from the masterful minds of some of the most inventive minds, and barring a few pieces here and there, all of the narratives were exhilarating and thrilling.
🐝
The book being first of its kind of a selection of historical sci-fi and new age dystopia from the South Asian subcontinent to appear in the twenty-first century, did hold a lot of potentials and it was able to live up to the hype albeit by simple yet effective narratives that one can enjoy and be left with something to ponder on at the same time.
🐝
Some of the anecdotes didn’t work for me, because of their long, tedious and unnecessary description, but the others more than made up for the experience, especially in the latter half of the book.
I absolutely loved the last one, a hypothetical future where a group of young scientists is trying to find a way to combat climate change by coming up with ideas such as sustainable colonies and to seek a way to communicate with the forest even though the web of life has reached a point of destruction.
🐝
Read it with an open mind and overlook the minute nitty gritty and I am sure you are in for a culmination of laughter, wonder, amuse and intrigue.
Rating: ⭐⭐⭐⭐/5
Genre: sci-fi, south-asian-lit, short-stories, future
Reading Difficulty: ⭐⭐⭐/5