Amazon.co.uk Review
This first SF novel from a Canadian author is steeped in the exotic scents, spices and religions of old India--but takes place in a far-future Indian subcontinent where many gods of Hindu myth are literally real. The great wheeled charioteer Jagannath (Juggernaut), for example, who smashes spectacularly through cities when summoned by incautious prayer...
Also real is the implacable pressure of dharma, duty or destiny, laid on the narrator Rakesh by the death-goddess Kali. This drives him on an insane mission to destroy the ape-faced Baboon Warrior, who's a national hero for peculiar reasons: "He killed one of your gods. [...] And this made him more popular with Hindus, not less".
Rakesh is helped and hindered by an irascible engineer companion, "Pragmatic" monks, the sensual Kama Sutra cult that's subverting the state, strap-on appliances that give you six functional arms like the god Shiva, a crazed veteran of the Astrological War, a woman who's made herself pregnant by pure will-power and even monstrous Jagannath himself--or itself. Dung-burning vehicles, turmeric bombs (useful for riot control) and silken passenger-carrying balloons mix with warped remnants of computer technology and genetic engineering. Even dharma may be negotiable, with a little knowledge of what human biochemistry has become. Or, then again, it may not.
Shiva 3000 is colourful, gripping and exhilaratingly different--a memorable SF debut. --David Langford
--This text refers to an alternate
Paperback
edition.
Product Description
During a quarrelsome journey across India two men in search of very different destinies encounter gods, demons and mythological creatures. The tale is set against a backdrop of animated machines, airships of silk and ancient legends brought to life.
