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The City Inside
The City Inside | Samit Basu
7 posts | 2 read | 11 to read
The City Inside a near-future epic by the internationally celebrated Samit Basu, pulls no punches as it comes for your anxieties about society, government, the environment, and our world at largeyet never loses sight of the hopeful potential of the future. They'd known the end times were coming but hadnt known theyd be multiple choice. Joey is a Reality Controller in near future Delhi. Her job is to supervise the multimedia multi-reality livestreams of Indi, one of South Asias fastest rising online celebritieswho also happens to be her college ex. Joeys job gives her considerable culture-power, but shes too caught up in day-to-day crisis-handling to see this, or to figure out what she wants from her life. Rudra is a recluse estranged from his wealthy and powerful family, fled to an impoverished immigrant neighborhood where he loses himself in video games and his neighbors lives. When his fathers death pulls him back into his familys orbit, an impulsive job offer from Joey becomes his only escape from the life he never wanted. But no good deed goes unpunished. As Joey and Rudra become enmeshed in multiple conspiracies, their lives start to spin out of control, complicated by dysfunctional relationships, corporate loyalty, and the never-ending pressures of surveillance capitalism. When a bigger picture begins to unfold around them, they must each decide how to do the right thing in a shadowy world where simply maintaining the status quo feels like an accomplishment. Ultimately, resistance will notcannottake the same shape for these two very different people.
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review
Robotswithpersonality
The City Inside | Samit Basu
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Mehso-so

Okay, so it feels important to state first that I do not regularly read dystopian fiction. Quite palpably, the author does not want this book described as such, but based on the plot and the definition of the word, I haven't got a better one.
On my better days, I think I avoid reading dystopian fiction because I want to save my mental energy for ensuring real life doesn't turn out that way 1/?

Robotswithpersonality 2/? (or stay that way depending on your current interpretation for world events).
On my bad days, I avoid reading dystopian fiction because I don't need something to make the world feel any darker than it does already, to reinforce any suspicious about the worst in humanity and the irrevocability of any hinted decline.
6d
Robotswithpersonality 3/? While I am grateful for the strides towards change the ending of the book implies, I am, as usual exhausted by the detailed tour through yet another doomsday scenario. As I've said before, I gain more from galvanizing than demoralizing narration in fictional spaces and with books like this, the line's too blurry for my tender heart and easily stressed psyche. 6d
Robotswithpersonality 4/? If you're made of sterner stuff, I think it's a well done version.
I do want to clarify one thing that I'm not sure the synopsis or title/cover makes clear. This is not a book that primarily deals in virtual reality. The vast majority discusses the business and interpersonal end (backgrounded by more sinister political machinations) of a mashup of social media and reality tv on steroids.
6d
Robotswithpersonality 5/5 believe there are a total of three moments held in a virtual space and every one of them reads like a conversation with an exotic wallpaper described. 🤷🏼‍♂️
⚠️SA, violence, mention of genocide, torture, prison camps, all the things totalitarian regimes have done in history, racism, discussion of caste system
6d
9 likes4 comments
quote
Robotswithpersonality
The City Inside | Samit Basu
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Well, that dystopia quote makes a bit more sense now.

quote
Robotswithpersonality
The City Inside | Samit Basu
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“Dystopia: an imagined state or society in which there is great suffering or injustice, typically one that is totalitarian or post-apocalyptic.“
Having a cognitive dissonance moment.

Robotswithpersonality Yes, there have clearly been books in a genre broadly known as dystopian that have been more about action sequences and teen heartthrobs, but it is still an accurate description of a book that largely deals in a version of our world where things we feared would come to pass have done so, and people are struggling to live in the resulting broken society, which is a really good description for THIS BOOK! 😵‍💫 6d
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Robotswithpersonality
The City Inside | Samit Basu
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Inside? For fresh- okay, so we're in the darkest timeline.

Texreader Ok weird! 2w
10 likes1 comment
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Robotswithpersonality
The City Inside | Samit Basu
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Well that phrase is going to stay with me...

8 likes1 stack add
blurb
Branwen
The City Inside | Samit Basu
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An impromptu Barnes & Bible run yielded some bookish treasures! 😋💕📚

Clare-Dragonfly Those both look really intriguing! 3y
Branwen @Clare-Dragonfly Right?! I thought so too! 3y
59 likes2 comments
blurb
TracyReadsBooks
The City Inside | Samit Basu
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I know nothing about this book really EXCEPT that it has a gorgeous cover and a blurb from Kate Elliott. Is that enough to make me interested in it? Yeah, more than enough. 😬😂

Meshell1313 I‘m convinced! Added to my TBR! 3y
17 likes1 stack add1 comment