Monday, October 10, 2022

SciFi/Fantasy Book Review: The City Inside by Samit Basu

 




The City Inside is a novel originally published in India by author Samit Basu.  It's a release I'd seen hyped up a bit, featuring a dystopian future India where progressive protesting movements failed and dystopian governments emerged in their place, who use incredible surveillance and camera technology to punish dissenters.  In this world, we find the daughter of such protestors, who tries to make a name for herself as the "reality coordinator" for the future equivalent of a famous instagram/tiktok influencer by managing his streams like no one else can as well as the son of a wealthy family who ran away and finds himself rudderless in a world as heartless and as artificial....and cruel...as anything else.  

The result is a really interesting novel dealing with how people cope with a seemingly hopeless dystopia, how they try to manipulate reality, and how they either fade into the crappy background or somehow find a way to make a stand.  You have empty relationships, media driven by what the viewers supposedly want to see, as well as games played by those in power to manipulate such desires...and the result deals with some really fascinating themes and ideas.  I'm sadly writing this review a few days after finishing it, which will make this review a bit more muddled than it should be, but trust me this is well worth your time.  



-------------------------------------------Plot Summary--------------------------------------------
Joey grew up under parents who protested and fought for a better India...but what came of it was an India under the control of autocrats who use surveillance technology - which is absolutely everywhere - to ensure that no such people remain to protest or fight for anything further.  And so at home she tries her best to keep her parents from doing anything rebellious, lest they be disappeared.  But at work, Joey is someone else entirely.

For what Joey is is India's best Reality Controller, capable of manipulating the Flows (livestreams) of Indi, South Asia's fastest rising celebrity, by tailoring his media to exactly what his fans actually want, no matter how inauthentic that might be in reality.  Joey doesn't have the final say, but Indi listens to her guidance and is thus able to dominate more and more of a market share, and so her place in the shadows is at least mostly enjoyable.  

But when Joey impulsively rescues the son of an old family friend Rudra from his wealthy, powerful, and dominating family by giving him a job, she and Rudra find everything falling apart.  For certain powerful people see Indi, and Joey's expert management of him, as the key to manipulating a new generation, and they will do anything to get Joey and Indi on board.  And so soon Rudra and Joey will find themselves at a cross-roads, where they'll be forced to accept continued complacency as their skills are used to prop up the rich and powerful....or to try and carve out some other path in a seemingly hopeless world....

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The City Inside takes place in a dystopian future that will be somewhat recognizable even to Western audiences, but which very clearly takes place in one that it is an Indian future rather than an American or European one - so it's a future in which purges of peoples of other religions (Muslims) or of lower castes has occurred numerous times, where Hindus of higher castes (Brahmans) use their status and wealth to take control....and where those who would dare criticize or protest the order openly find themselves disappeared.  It's one where tiktok/instagram have been replaced by Flows, which are basically livestreams of people's lives, and our protagonists are surrounded by and work on such a Flow, as a celebrity Flow-star Indi's stream isn't really their actual life, but a manufactured one designed (in full capitalistic style) to appeal to the majority viewer.  

And for our main protagonist, Joey, what her main skill is at managing to manipulate Indi's Flows so that they seemingly appeal differently to everyone, so as to maximize his appeal like no one else.  Joey is truly special at manipulating what Indi puts out, and at managing things like his potential girlfriends and their potential interests, the stores and things Indi does, as well as the people whose support Indi takes.  But Joey is still the person in the shadows despite her skill, and while Indi accepts her judgment and advice for the most part, she is still subject to his whims and cowardice, especially when people with power start pulling strings to force Indi into doing what they want - for political ends that Joey isn't comfortable with, the ends that her parents wish they could revolt against.  

Our secondary protagonist Rudra, is sort of the opposite of Joey - whereas Joey knows how the system works and has built a life within it to maximize her skills, despite coming from a poor family; Rudra instead comes from a rich family that thrives in this dystopian India and participates actively in its most horrid acts, acts of slave trading and such ilk, if only by other names.  Rudra however isn't comfortable with that, and after being humiliated by his family at a young age publicly, he ran away, and found himself wasting away time playing games, with seemingly no purpose.  So he has no clue what to do when he comes back to his father's funeral, or when Joey impulsively offers him a job so he can avoid being forced back into the family....and yet the world won't allow him to just continue to fade into the background, forcing him to make choices to protect or help others, and to possibly even take a stand...in a world where capitalism and caste won't just let a person like himself ignore his own money and resources.  

Rudra and Joey's plots in this capitalist Indian dystopia take them in different interesting directions, and how it gets there if fascinating, aided by minor characters who exemplify certain themes (Indi's selected girlfriend most notably plays the role of a girl who thinks she can camouflage herself while talking futurism in the most shallow of ways, like a lot of modern shallow liberal thinkers).  And it's not a unified direction - for Rudra that winds up with him taking a stand and joining a group dedicated to trying to fight back for the world so as to not continue it all in this direction; but for Joey it winds up with her rejecting such a path and instead taking charge of her own life and rebelling with her own skills over flows, manipulating people until only the flows she wants and she might genuinely choose can be put up...without her backers realizing that she manipulated them into it.  

It's a really interesting book, and I'm butchering my description of it, so really you should just read it.  Not an easy one to talk about, but definitely one you should read.  

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