River of Gods

McDonald has become well known for setting his stories outside of the traditional Euro-American context of most science fiction, and the effect is to lend an air of the exotic and strange to the near future he imagines. This novel, set in a balkanized India at the middle of the century, follows that pattern. Be warned that it starts slowly with a subplot that is somewhat removed from the main action, and it takes a long time to really get to the meat of the science fiction that drives the story. Like all McDonald novels it is very well written, with language that is often surprising in the way that good poetry can be, but it also flows languidly, just like the Ganges River from which it takes its title, taking its time to gather together the life streams of its many complicated characters. This is only sporadically a book of intense action and high excitement, but it is thought provoking and well crafted, with a nice twist at the end to resolve the major mystery at its heart. In the process it wrestles with big themes about the nature of intelligence and the meaning of life, drawing extensively from the cultural history of India and Hinduism in the process. Indeed, one of the major negatives about listening to this book rather than reading it is that you don’t have access to the excellent and informative Glossary included at the end. The narration is generally excellent, although Jonathan Keeble isn’t consistently good at American accents. All in all this is definitely worth a listen.

Set in the near future artificial intelligence is emerging. There are different generations getting more and more advanced and regulated.

This specific story has so many mosaic pieces that it began to feel like a collage of stories layered in. If it was structured differently as a collection of novellas all taking place in one world, the layers wouldn't be so loosely connected.

The metaphysical warping of the space time continuum altering the perception of straight progression of cause and effect, was an interesting application... but in my cynical mind, I could also see it as a corner the author backed himself into.

It was an interesting concept overall.

Definitely. It's rare to find a book about India, let alone a science fiction book. As an anthropology student of the subcontintent, I was pleased that McDonald just jumped into use of terms like bindi, crore, etc. without explanation (it wasn't until I hit the glossary at the end that I realized it even existed -- one of the few limitations of audio books).

The philosophy of self and the great portrayal of India.

I would have happily done so. I usually listen to books on my commute, but I found myself putting on my headphones at home whenever I could steal a few moments to listen.

I have a huge issue with readers (and directors!) who let pronunciation issues slip through. It seriously irked me that McDonald's phonetic shortening of "artificial intelligence" to aeai got pronounced as "ah-ay-ee". It's Ae-ai. Æ-I. A.I. Artificial Intelligence. Someone should have caught that and made a correction the first time it was uttered so strangely. It's like the director didn't even read the book.Keeble's performance was otherwise great -- doing distinct voices and accents for that many characters is more than admirable and I look forward to finding more books read by him.