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River of Gods Paperback – 9 Jul 2009

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Ian McDonald (Author)
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Ian McDonald (Author)
4.0 out of 5 stars 27 customer reviews
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Product details

  • Paperback: 592 pages
  • Publisher: Gollancz (9 July 2009)
  • Language: English
  • ISBN-10: 0575082267
  • ISBN-13: 978-0575082267
  • Product Dimensions: 12.9 x 3.7 x 19.8 cm
  • Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (27 customer reviews)
  • Amazon Bestsellers Rank: 195,377 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Product Description

Review

'A staggering achievement, brilliantly imagined and endlessly surprising ... A brave, brilliant and wonderful novel' -- GUARDIAN --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

Book Description

A re-issue of the novel that secured McDonald's reputation as one of the most exciting voices in global SF.

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Customer Reviews

Top Customer Reviews

5.0 out of 5 starswoo hoo, woo hoo hoo
By Armin Salters on 20 Aug. 2004
Format: Paperback
Three years after the so-so Ares Express, but it's been worth the wait. This is a big steam-roller of a book --you don't so much read it as experience it; it's a shock to the system in almost every way. There's so much going on it it's almost impossible to adequately describe --Mysterious Artefacts in space, artificial intelligences, a completely computer generated soap opera (it's only a question of time really)weater wars, political intrigue, third-sex 'nutes', genetically engineered 'Brahmins': this is wide-screen SF. More than that, it has the feel of John Brunner's classics: Stand on Zanzibar, The Sheep Look Up, --it's a lived in future, not just a wam-bam story. And it's India! This is a world as alien as any you'll read in a wide-angle space-opera...
Great characters, who generate the story, rather than get pushed around by it, and a cosmic-scale denoument that is perfectly set up, but I for one didn't see coming.
Not the easiest book I ever read, but you come out of it with your head reeling and our world seems dull and pale by comparison.
Oh, and there's cricket too!
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5.0 out of 5 starsRiver of Gods
By johnfredcee on 19 July 2005
Format: Paperback
River of Gods marks a return to form for Ian McDonald, after the dissapointing Ares Express. It's set in a near-future India, splintered into smaller states. The book takes awhile to get going as there are several protagonists and we are introduced to each in turn, as the plot starts up. This takes time, but is rewarding as we see a multi-faceted view of the society that Indida has become in the near future, and the changes to the human condition that have come with biotechnology and climate change.
The plot is layered and keeps us guessing to the very end. I can't discuss it much here whithout giving too much away, but it's as satisfying and twisty-turny with the same mythic ties as the original Desolation Road, only the mythos here is Indian, not African, and a great deal more interesting. There are occasional passages where he holds up a latter-day mirror to the current-day West, but it's done stubly and doesn't interfere with a read as tightly plotted as a thriller.
In short, a very rewarding read.
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5.0 out of 5 starsRiver of Gods
By Bob simms on 13 May 2005
Format: Paperback
River of Gods takes you into an alien (at least alien to my western mind) world of India 50 years hence, with a mix of hi-tech gadgets and third-world slums, Hindu mythology and Bollywood artificial intelligences.
The book consists of the lives of several seemingly unconnected individuals all gradually colliding into a crescendo finish.
It takes a little effort to get into the story, especially as the book is littered with Indian terms mixed with future technology. The Glossary at the back was helpful, though even without it the general context of the phrases can be understood. But pretty soon I was hooked.
An excellent read.
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3.0 out of 5 starsStream of Demiurges (or Danger of Oxbow Lakes)
By sft on 23 April 2011
Format: Paperback Verified Purchase
This is quite a tough book to review. There's much to admire here and it deserves to be a wholly successful piece. But it isn't. McDonald has an impressive imagination and he weaves a complex and convoluted narrative. However, the complexity is purely character-based. There are many main characters and many plot threads, some of which, although quite interesting in their own right, are too obviously engineered to flesh out the story. The effect of this approach is that the minimal plot is made even thinner despite the scale of the work. This is more of a character study than anything else. Now there's nothing wrong with that: most fine literature is character-driven. And, in a genre that's constantly criticised for a lack of such depth, this is good to see. But RIVER OF GODS is something of a pretender. It teases the reader with the promise of a typically big SF story, and in the early stages of the book it appears it might deliver. But then comes the resolution, and it's a bit of a damp squib. My other reservation is that MacDonald's prose is often rather too florid. He tries too hard to impress and his language tends towards the profligate. On the whole though this is an impressive book and worth reading despite its flaws.
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4.0 out of 5 starsExcellent and expansive, dissapointing ending though....
By Damon Doyle on 3 Nov. 2004
Format: Paperback
A roller coaster ride with superlative character development and prose that really paints a picture of the difference in culture between east/west and the rigid societal and religious issues in India. Also greatresearch went into this book as it is authentic in its intepretation of Indian culture. Great SF elements to the story, although feel some of the ideas have been copied from other books (but thats inevitable....I liked this book alot and after spending most of the year reading mediocre old hash, this was refreshing. Good material for a film, maybe Bollywood can come up with something....BUT and its a rather large BUT.....after all the great writing, ideas and the pictures in your head he paints, the ending is something of a damp squib....should have been a bit more grandiose i feel to match the earlier parts of the book. Altogether though worth every penny and ill read it again....
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5.0 out of 5 starsAn instant SF Classic!
By A Customer on 15 Jan. 2006
Format: Paperback
Ian Mcdonald has quite simply written the first great SF novel of the 20th century!
First, when I mean SF, it does not mean that I am not reading this novel as closely as I would say a work of 'literature' by say Salman Rushdie. Infact be aware that this book makes substantial demands on the reader.
So why is this book a SF masterpiece? It is written in a great prose style, which perfectly realises India as a landscape. Yet it still retains it appeal to the ordinary reader. Especially, if you like the thriller, travel book, or detective genres.
But what is really important is that Mr Mcdonald has become a supreme exponent of observing humanities follies without destroying hope! Readers will return to this book to be refreshed!
I envy your first acquaintance with this book!
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Most Recent Customer Reviews

3.0 out of 5 starsFascinating but frustrating

The good: a vividly described setting, rounded characters, interesting ideas about artificial intelligence. Read more

Published 7 months ago by S Litton
4.0 out of 5 starsIndia 2.0

This is my second Ian McDonald, after "The Dervish House". I thought that one was good, but this one is better, probably because it isn't only a projection of a particular part of... Read more

Published on 24 Jun. 2014 by DB
3.0 out of 5 starsA difficult read

Good story. Heavy on character. I couldn't get the flow going with this because I kept tripping up over the long and unfamiliar Indian words. Read more

Published on 17 Jun. 2014 by Ged
5.0 out of 5 starsQuite possibly the best science fiction I've ever read

Quite possibly the best science fiction I've ever read...and I've been reading SF since the early 70s. Read more

Published on 11 Jun. 2014 by V. A. Millett
5.0 out of 5 starsOne of the two stand out books in McDonald's developing world future...

Amongst many other works Ian McDonald has produced a series of mostly unconnected books set in the future of a range of developing or BRIC countries. Read more

Published on 4 May 2014 by P. J. Dunn
4.0 out of 5 starsCulturally and technologically rich, almost too much

Ian McDonald is a new author for me and my picking up the tome which is River of Gods was a daunting endeavor. Read more

Published on 11 Aug. 2013 by 2theD
2.0 out of 5 starsLutulent and boring.

The alien discovery part is barely touched, and disappears amid a gangean overflow of plots, subplots, and loads ofcharacters for the most part uninteresring, some frankly... Read more

Published on 12 July 2013 by Ventura Angelo
4.0 out of 5 starsComplex and well written

Complex and well written, with a clever interweaving series of first person narratives I enjoyed this and also purchased Brasyl and Cyberbad days. Read more

Published on 16 Sept. 2010 by Orion
3.0 out of 5 starsToo many plot threads

The premise behind this book is indeed interesting, and could have made for a very interesting novel. Read more

Published on 4 Sept. 2010 by just another customer
5.0 out of 5 starsA masterpiece

Ian McD writes beautifully, and has created an incredible vision of India in the future. The characters are full, and real, and his attention to detail to culture in the... Read more

Published on 1 Aug. 2010 by HeecheeRendezvous

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