The author: Ian McDonald, who lives in Ireland, has been writing serious science fiction for decades. He is best known in recent years for writing River of Gods, a book about a future India. He then wrote one about a future Brazil called Brasyl.
The book: Cyberabad Days (2009) is a collection of short stories, all centered in the future India of River of Gods.
The story: Sanjeev is a kid in school when they hear that the robots are coming to put down a rebellion outside their town. The robots do in all their glory and Sanjeev becomes obsessed with them. Shortly thereafter, more rebels come in the night and sow plagues that kill all the town's crops and animals. And so Sanjeev's family moves to another town, which houses a unit of these robot and their pilots, teenaged boys who live like anime rockstars. Sanjeev meets the group when they order pizza from his father's pizza stand. They hit it off and Sanjeev is invited to work with them, cleaning up their residence and running to get them food. Eventually, he is allowed to pilot a robot himself, but then the war ends when the Americans come. The kid pilots, robotwallahs ("wallah" is Indian for someone who is involved in something. So a laundrywallah would be someone that does laundry, etc.), have nothing to do. One of them steals a robot and takes Sanjeev back to his home town, which is still emptied out because of the plagues. The story ends when others cam to take them and the robot away.
The verdict: A great story. I loved the descriptions of the robots, like mecha from some Japanese cartoon. There are different kinds and they have recon bots that free themselves from the main robot and swarm around to gather information. It's all pretty cool. I also liked the description of how the rebels came and sowed the plagues in the town.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
No comments:
Post a Comment