Rate this book

Clear rating

1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars

River of Gods (India 2047 #1)

3.9 of 5 stars 3.90 · rating details · 2,174 ratings · 195 reviews

As Mother India approaches her centenary, nine people are going about their business-a gangster, a cop, his wife, a politician, a stand-up comic, a set designer, a journalist, a scientist, and a dropout. And so is Aj-the waif, the mind reader, the prophet-when she one day finds a man who wants to stay hidden.

In the next few weeks, they will all be swept together to decide...more

Hardcover, 597 pages

Published March 1st 2006 by Pyr (first published June 2004)

more details... edit details

Get a copy:

More…

Friend Reviews

To see what your friends thought of this book, please sign up.

Lists with This Book

Best Science Fiction of the 21st Century

45th out of 209 books — 1,242 voters

Best Science Fiction & Fantasy Books

491st out of 2,944 books — 12,411 voters

More lists with this book...

Community Reviews

(showing 1-30 of 3,000)

filter | sort: default (?) | rating details

Apr 18, 2013 Richard rated it 5 of 5 stars

This review has been revised and can now be found at Shelf Inflicted and Expendable Mudge Muses Aloud.

23 likes · like · see review

Apr 17, 2007 Res rated it 2 of 5 stars

Shelves: sff

The one set in a near-future India, where a non-natural object is found in the asteroid belt which is older than the solar system and contains pictures of three humans currently alive. Leadership and scientific struggles at the nation's largest power company; a religious revolt; a Muslim government minister brought down by his passion for an artificial third gender called nutes; AIs thousands of times more intelligent than humans, outlawed and hunted down by a police branch called Krishna Cops.

I...more The one set in a near-future India, where a non-natural object is found in the asteroid belt which is older than the solar system and contains pictures of three humans currently alive. Leadership and scientific struggles at the nation's largest power company; a religious revolt; a Muslim government minister brought down by his passion for an artificial third gender called nutes; AIs thousands of times more intelligent than humans, outlawed and hunted down by a police branch called Krishna Cops.

I would have been willing to sacrifice a good deal of this breadth for just a little depth. The characters are chessmen: they have a certain set of characteristics at the start of the book, a certain pattern of moves, and they make those moves, and at the end of the book their circumstances may have changed, but the characters themselves are entirely unchanged, unless they're dead.

This is a grand old SF characterization tradition, of course, and at least these characters are plausible, unlike the Buck Rogers-style SF characters -- but still, in the end they don't read as real people because they walk through their established paces without changing.

I found the politics completely opaque, but I'm ignorant of Indian politics (and even geography) and probably didn't read carefully enough.

I have a serious problem with the nutes. They should be utterly alien -- they've had all gender-related pathways removed from their brains and their body chemistry, in favor of a system by which they consciously control their hormone release (Tal decides it needs adrenaline, so it pushes a button) -- and yet they act either like very girly women or like very stereotypically diva-ish gay men.

Possibly this wouldn't trouble me quite so much if there were any actual gay people in the story, but there aren't. And except for Vishram Ray (who I find is the only major character I have any real affection for), there's really no normal sexuality in the book -- when arousal is reported, most of the time it's related to cruelty or danger.

The thing that interests me most -- the AIs and their stories -- is covered in about three pages at the end and then rushed offstage.(less)

7 likes · like · see review

Aug 23, 2007 Rob rated it 4 of 5 stars Recommends it for: Indians, British, Americans

Shelves: singularity, science-fiction, 2007

When you pick this up and hold the hard cover in your hands, its heft is a little intimidating. When you put it down 597 pages later, you’ll wonder how he managed to keep it so focused, how he kept it from wandering all over the place. Not that it doesn’t have a tremendous scope (borders on “epic” but I feel I must reserve that adjective for a space opera review) but McDonald keeps it moving at an aggressive pace. Every back alley detour and out-of-town foray is very deliberate and very much par...more

8 likes · like · see review

Dec 11, 2012 zxvasdf rated it 5 of 5 stars

It's one of these things that make you pause and think... is it right if a man writes from a woman's perspective? If a perfectly healthy man acts as a disabled man in a movie? If a farang writes intimately about a country in which he doesn't live?

These questions are moot, because this book is so well done it doesn't matter if you've been to India or not. If it isn't authentic (if feels like it!) then it's an alternate world. As books always are. We view a slice of time in 2047 India through many...more

2 likes · like · see review

Nov 28, 2011 Sławomir Molenda rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: science-fiction, uczta-wyobraźni

Od dawna nie miałem takiego problemu z oceną książki jak przy tym, pierwszym zresztą, spotkaniu z Ian'em McDonald'em. Osadzenie akcji w Indiach nie byłoby prawdopodobnie niczym niezwykłym, gdyby nie mnóstwo zapożyczeń z hinduskiego i wyjątkowo precyzyjne budowanie tła powieści. Do tego autor zadbał o bogate przedstawienie historii wielu postaci, które na początku zupełnie niezależne, po jakimś czasie zaczynają się coraz bardziej przenikać. Osiągnięcia myśli ludzkiej dotyczące sztucznej inteligen...more Od dawna nie miałem takiego problemu z oceną książki jak przy tym, pierwszym zresztą, spotkaniu z Ian'em McDonald'em. Osadzenie akcji w Indiach nie byłoby prawdopodobnie niczym niezwykłym, gdyby nie mnóstwo zapożyczeń z hinduskiego i wyjątkowo precyzyjne budowanie tła powieści. Do tego autor zadbał o bogate przedstawienie historii wielu postaci, które na początku zupełnie niezależne, po jakimś czasie zaczynają się coraz bardziej przenikać. Osiągnięcia myśli ludzkiej dotyczące sztucznej inteligencji oraz fizyki zostały potraktowane niebanalnie, co wszelki fanom hard sf powinno szczególnie przypaść do gustu. Czytając "Rzekę Bogów" można się w pełni zanurzyć w przedstawiany świat, ponieważ jest on bardziej ekstrapolowany z naszego obecnego, niż zupełnie wymyślany od początku. O tyle to przyjemne, co i wiarygodne.

Pod względem rozmachu fabuły, jakości języka i czysto literackim to jest dzieło wybitne. Momentami niestety cholernie męczące. Przebrnięcie przez początek książki było już pewnym wyzwaniem, a i późniejsze skakanie przez autora między różnymi wątkami wymagało dużo skupienia. Główna fabuła były przerywane czasem zbyt niespodziewanie, co sprawiało, że chciałem przeskoczyć do innego miejsca książki. Bohaterowie momentami sprawiali wrażenie, jakby każdy z nich musiał na siłę mieć poważne problemy, ale pewnie bez tego nie było by całej dramaturgii. A jest ona mocno nakreślona, przez co Ian McDonald uzyskał zresztą odpowiednią głębię.

Mimo tych paru braków i czasami przydługich "przerw", pomysły fantastyczne, jakie można znaleźć w "Rzece Bogów", są wyjątkowe i wręcz genialnie opisane. Do tego mamy kilka scen seksu, które po prostu trzeba przeczytać. Ostatnie sto stron książki jest dużo szybsze, ożywcze i kontrastujące z powoli wciągającym początkiem. Zakończenie też było świetne i nie zgadzam się z opiniami, że zbyt dużo powstało niedopowiedzeń. Tak miało być ;)

Książka na pewno nie jest dla większości fanów sf czy hard sf, nie jest to łatwa lektura. Ale tych, którzy nie przestraszą się kilku pierwszych rozdziałów, czeka później nie lada uczta. Czołówka najlepszej fantastyki.(less)

1 like · like · see review

Nov 01, 2007 Logan rated it 4 of 5 stars Recommends it for: Sci-Fi Fans Everywhere

Shelves: dystopian-fiction, scifi-fantasy, india

A unique science fiction tale of India at its centenary told through the inter-locking tales of nine extremely different characters. There is Mr. Nandha,the Krishna cop tasked with exterminating artificial intelligences (or aeais as the book terms them) who break beyond their programming restrictions to a higher threshold of intelligence. There is Shiv, a gangster fallen on hard times forced to work for genetically-engineered titans. There is Tal, a nute (or neutral-gendered person) drawn into i...more

3 likes · like · see review

Nov 28, 2008 Eric rated it 5 of 5 stars

This is one substantial story - both in sheer mass of the book, and in the plot itself. McDonald tells the story of India, 50 years into the future. I find his speculation on what may happen to India is believable, and his spec fic elements are plausible. The culture of India seems particularly suited to McDonald's storytelling style - he brings together all of his plots coherently, finding a certain underlying theme to the chaotic and disparate subplots he's working with.

The tale is voyeuristic...more

2 likes · like · see review

Apr 14, 2013 Stephen Thomas rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

STREAM OF DEMIURGES (OR DANGER OF OXBOW LAKES)

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 th...more

like · see review

Feb 19, 2013 Smcleish rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Originally published on my blog here in November 2004.

India is, as pretty much everyone says, a fascinating place. Full of the ancient and embracing the modern, united by a colonial power yet, independent, maintaining that unity in the face of massive pressures both internal and external, home to hundreds of millions of people, who believe in thousands of gods and demons and live in conditions ranging between as poor and as wealthy as anyone on the planet. There have been massive changes since i...more Originally published on my blog here in November 2004.

India is, as pretty much everyone says, a fascinating place. Full of the ancient and embracing the modern, united by a colonial power yet, independent, maintaining that unity in the face of massive pressures both internal and external, home to hundreds of millions of people, who believe in thousands of gods and demons and live in conditions ranging between as poor and as wealthy as anyone on the planet. There have been massive changes since independence in 1947 (as chronicled by writers such as Salman Rushdie and Arundhati Roy) - so a natural question is what will India be like in about fifty years time, on the hundredth anniversary of independence? Of course, no one currently knows, but Ian McDonald has given us his image of what the subcontinent might be like at that point, woven into an extremely traditional science fictional plot, the investigation of an alien artefact. The other main plot strand is the development - or, rather, evolution - of artificial intelligences known as aeais many times brighter than human beings, who are sought out and destroyed being considered a threat.

What is immediately interesting about McDonald's future is how little is actually different. Science fiction authors generally emphasise the changes; he gives more prominent to what remains the same. It is mainly the details that have changed - better computing, slicker entertainment (computer generated soap operas, personal aeai DJs to give you a customised soundtrack to the world); water has replaced oil as the resource to fight wars over, especially in a fragmented India where the monsoon has failed three years running; the ability to choose "designer babies" has created a Hindu middle class in which girls have suddenly acquired massive scarcity value, and where there is a neuter subculture vaguely like gay culture in the West today. None of these changes are terribly earth shattering in science fiction terms (compare this novel with Neal Stephenson's The Diamond Age, for example). And so as a result Indian society doesn't seem to have changed terribly much: most of what we read about would seem reasonably familiar to the characters of Midnight's Children.

While a science fiction fan like myself can definitely find "prior art" for the various elements of River Gods, McDonald has put them together to produce something which is convincing (if a little conservative), interesting and enjoyable to read. (less)

like · see review

Oct 20, 2012 Klytia rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Bharat, India, 2047. Tutti gli aspetti tecnologici della società sono controllati dalle intelligenze artificiali, le aeai, la cui capacità di diventare senzienti è limitata dal provvedimento Hamilton; i Dataraja, potentissimi hacker, sono però in grado di aggirare la legge creando aeai di intelligenza pericolosamente superiore; a loro si oppongono i Krishna Cops, un corpo di polizia specializzato nell’eliminazione delle aeai fuorilegge e che utilizza avatar con le sembianze e i poteri delle divi...more Bharat, India, 2047. Tutti gli aspetti tecnologici della società sono controllati dalle intelligenze artificiali, le aeai, la cui capacità di diventare senzienti è limitata dal provvedimento Hamilton; i Dataraja, potentissimi hacker, sono però in grado di aggirare la legge creando aeai di intelligenza pericolosamente superiore; a loro si oppongono i Krishna Cops, un corpo di polizia specializzato nell’eliminazione delle aeai fuorilegge e che utilizza avatar con le sembianze e i poteri delle divinità del pantheon induista. L’ingegneria genetica permette trasformare uomini e donne in esseri bellissimi e asessuati i “nutes” o di generare inquietanti bambini il cui invecchiamento fisico è artificialmente rallentato, non così quello mentale.
Ma una lunga siccità sta portando Bharat sull’orlo della guerra contro Awadh, uno stato adiacente, tensioni politiche scuotono la società di Varanasi e il sospetto che sia stata generata un’aeai di livello 3 sta creando fermento in non poche persone.
La forza di questo romanzo, dai temi puramente cyberpunk, è nel realismo con cui McDonald ritrae quest’India del futuro, estrema-mente tecnologica ma ancora afflitta da contraddizioni quanto mai attuali, e nella capacità di raccontare e intrecciare le vite di una decina di personaggi principali le cui vicende si alternano nei capitoli a loro dedicati. Tra loro spiccano sicuramente Tal, un dolce e ingenuo “nute”, e Shaheen Badoor Khan, potente consigliere politico che nasconde una pericolosa, politicamente e socialmente, perversione; esempi del talento di McDonald nel caratterizzare i personaggi.
Non si può che rimanere stupiti dalla cultura di McDonald, numerosi sono i riferimenti letterari e cinematografici ma anche storici e scientifici, e dallo straordinario talento di scrivere adeguando il registro stilistico e linguistico all’ambientazione indiana.
Scrivere qualcosa di più su questo romanzo significherebbe svelare troppo; non c’è un evento, anche tra quelli che apparentemente sembrerebbero slegati dalla storia principale, che non sia coerente con tutta la vicenda.
Ancora una volta McDonald non tradisce le aspettative(less)

like · see review

Apr 02, 2012 Ghee rated it 5 of 5 stars

River of Gods by Ian McDonald is a very good, although not perfect, near-future science fiction novel (the kind that was once called cyberpunk). The story is set in India in 2047, at a time when India has disintegrated into several states, some of which are on the brink of war against each other. The events take place mainly in the holy city of Varanasi, in the middle of a feud between two of the states, Awadh and Bharat, over water. The first part of the book is slow reading: there are half a d...more River of Gods by Ian McDonald is a very good, although not perfect, near-future science fiction novel (the kind that was once called cyberpunk). The story is set in India in 2047, at a time when India has disintegrated into several states, some of which are on the brink of war against each other. The events take place mainly in the holy city of Varanasi, in the middle of a feud between two of the states, Awadh and Bharat, over water. The first part of the book is slow reading: there are half a dozen parallel plotlines which seem to have very little to do with each other. The metaplot does not become apparent until the second half of the book. What kept me going through the first part was mostly the compelling characters that McDonald creates, and the setting, in which near-future scifi concepts such as robots and artifical intelligences (which permeat all aspects of life, down to being the stars of television soap operas) mingle with concepts taken from ancient Indian mysticism. Added into the mix are 'classic' Indian social problems such as religious and ethnic conflicts and caste discrimation; together with, for good measure, newish problems arising in modern day India, such as extreme water shortages and a shortage of women due to an excess of female embryos being aborted today. Another central and fascinating concept in the novel are the 'nutes' (neutrals), i.e. truly genderless people, obviously an evolution of the modern day Hijras.

Another aspect that makes the book slow reading for a non-Hindi speaker is the staggering amount of Hindi words that are used throughout the text. The author's obvious goal is to tell the story from an Indian point of view, not from an outsider-looking-in one, a task at which the author succeeds and which creates a fresh approach to a sci-fi setting (although I wonder how convincing the Indian characters are for Indian readers....). However, at times the use of Hindi terms feels overdone - I've certainly read books by English writing Indian authors who use less Hindi words in their narrative than McDonald does.

When the various storylines come together in the second half of the book, the plot picks up immensely, and the last few hundred pages are fascinating and quick to read. In the end, some storylines are resolved in a more satisfactory manner than others, but overall the ending is well done, even more so as it integrates the plot into Hindu cosmology.

Overall a very good, well written and intelligent book with a few weaknesses. I'd give it four and half stars but since that's not possible, I'll settle for five.(less)

like · see review

Sep 18, 2011 Guy rated it 3 of 5 stars

Shelves: science-fiction-and-fantasy

My first book by Ian McDonald, and it was good, but not great. Set in India in 2047 it is in a way like India itself: very large, multi-faceted, crowded with too many characters and a confusing mixture of languages, rich with dazzling inventiveness, but lacking the developmental follow-through required to really profit from its genius.

McDonald writes lovely prose, but needs to work on his plotting: the plot lines of the nine main characters, despite the promise of an "ensemble" chapter at the e...more

like · see review

Aug 28, 2011 Matt rated it 2 of 5 stars

Shelves: sci-fi, fiction, cyberpunk

I respect what Ian was trying to do with this novel, I really do, but his ambition, I think, exceeded the execution to the point of muddling ambiguity. Mr. MacDonald's a wordsmith, there's not doubt about it, and some of his descriptions are small morsels of pure prose desert. He is truly a master of the language and plays with it beautifully. The issue, however, is that one will read pages, perhaps a chapter, and realize how very little actually occurred in the scene and how little it contribut...more I respect what Ian was trying to do with this novel, I really do, but his ambition, I think, exceeded the execution to the point of muddling ambiguity. Mr. MacDonald's a wordsmith, there's not doubt about it, and some of his descriptions are small morsels of pure prose desert. He is truly a master of the language and plays with it beautifully. The issue, however, is that one will read pages, perhaps a chapter, and realize how very little actually occurred in the scene and how little it contributes to the overall story. It's very self-indulgent, like an arena-band guitar solo. He's showing off and we can all tell. It scrambles the story and by bombarding the reader with lengthy Indian names, it makes the reading tedious. By including an inadequate glossary in the back, it's almost admitting the problem. Yes, Mr MacDonald, we're aware of your fountain of Indian cultural knowledge, but by beating us over the head repeatedly... it comes off as a bit of a middle-finger.

And to the story and plot itself... The novel's why too long. What could have been accomplished here, could have been accomplished without four or five of the main characters, and a cool 350 pages as opposed to epic level 580 pages. By attempting to cover too many esoteric pontifications on reality and this AI polyverse extrapolation, he more or less draws and quarters his plot, leaving the remnants a bloody incomplete blob. So many questions get thrown at the reader with so very few answers, with little over fifty pages left to go in this overwritten beast, I had that uncomfortable 'Lost' feeling a few episodes before its series finale. A sloppy attempt is made at tying up the loose ends, but when it comes to the characters resolutions, the reader's left cold.

When it came to the 'future-shock' element, Ian wasn't able to deliver. This did not have that Neuromancer cyberpunk strangeness. Sadly, for a book meant to take place in 2047, too many pop references felt dated in 2010. The Zeitgeist of this novel is definitely 2005, not 2047. I have not been to India, but the one described in City of Gods, felt very 00's, more or less the India of today but with robots and gadgets... the cultural shift wasn't there.

For that type of fair, I would recommend Paolo Bacagullupi's The Windup Girl, a similar setting in Thailand, but the world is truly a product of its future era, the detail much more ironed, less extrapolation and more futurism.

I would like to read more of Ian's stuff, but would hope I could find something more to the point, less characters, and less overwrought. This novel was just to self-indulgent and I think undeserving of its high praise.(less)

1 like · like · see review

Brian Richardson Thanks for helping me prioritize my queue...have this sitting on the shelf amongst about 40 others so I'm thinking it's near the bottom.
Sep 05, 2011 11:22am

Tfitoby it's easy to say i wish i'd read your review before picking up the book as i find myself agreeing with everything you've said after finishing the nove...more
Dec 04, 2011 03:13am

Phani I'm curious... what kind of a cultural shift were you expecting from the book. I understand what you're saying about India not feeling very different...more
Sep 14, 2012 10:09am

May 07, 2011 Pat rated it 4 of 5 stars

I seem to read a lot of Ians (Ian McDonald, Ian Rankin, Iain M. Banks, etc.) which has nothing to do with this book, but was worth noting... River of Gods is a tricky book. The opening was catchy, and the first little nibble was quite delicious, and then once I got into the real "meat" of the story things slowed down considerably and I found myself wondering if I was going to bother finishing it. Not that it's a bad book, at all, I read it through and the end picked up speed again, but it's the...more I seem to read a lot of Ians (Ian McDonald, Ian Rankin, Iain M. Banks, etc.) which has nothing to do with this book, but was worth noting... River of Gods is a tricky book. The opening was catchy, and the first little nibble was quite delicious, and then once I got into the real "meat" of the story things slowed down considerably and I found myself wondering if I was going to bother finishing it. Not that it's a bad book, at all, I read it through and the end picked up speed again, but it's the same problem of exposition that every writer has to face at some point-- how to get the large amount of detailed information that makes up the bones of the action to the reader as quickly and painlessly as possible. I liked McD's mosaic style, which is one I use in my own works, but the expository "middle" of the book just drags on and on and on until it seems like you're only making about five pages of progress at a time. The ending redeems the middle, with a few almost-unexpected twists (no twist is really 'unexpected', it's just a question of whether you picked up on the clues beforehand) and a satisfying resolution. And not, I might add, a very optimistic view of what it means to be human. This one's a near-future SF tale, genetic engineering and AIs and killer robot drones, that sort of thing, but it's also a novel about Indian society, which just makes me feel all touristy (as in, I'd really like to go visit India before the damned yuppies ruin it for everyone) and provides just enough "different" that normal Western-world expectations don't always ring true. I found, after I'd finished the book, that I even enjoyed reading the little glossary of Indian terms at the end. And amusingly enough, McD provides a little note about the soundtrack he listened to while composing the novel and/or the soundtrack to listen to while reading it, and I found myself going through that list going "got that, got that, liten to that regularly, love that, hey maybe I should check that band out..." Which was a nice treat, but utterly non-essential. All in all, an excellent book, even with the slow middle.(less)

like · see review

Apr 25, 2011 Emily rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: fiction

In August in 2047, in the city of Varanasi in the country of Bharat in central India, nine people converge on one singular event that changes everything for mankind. For some, it's an asteroid containing the alien relic the Tabernacle. For others it is chasing down AIs. And for others, it is about finding themselves in the midst of a water war when the monsoon rains no longer come and the Ganga runs dry.

The good: River of Gods does very interesting things with the arc of the growth of computers...more In August in 2047, in the city of Varanasi in the country of Bharat in central India, nine people converge on one singular event that changes everything for mankind. For some, it's an asteroid containing the alien relic the Tabernacle. For others it is chasing down AIs. And for others, it is about finding themselves in the midst of a water war when the monsoon rains no longer come and the Ganga runs dry.

The good: River of Gods does very interesting things with the arc of the growth of computers and computing into every corner of life. Even the very popular soap, "Town and Country," is completely computer rendered with fake AI actors having fake AI-based weddings and entire "People Magazine"-like publications fawn over the imaginary private lives of the AIs inhabiting the rendered soap opera. Everyone has a cellphone-like device, even the most poor. Everything is wired together. And AIs (called aeais in the book) fill every corner of existence -- driving cars (but apparently not the taxis), running heating and cooling systems, injecting themselves into medical devices, everywhere. One of the main themes of the book is hunting down rogue AIs, those who have somehow "evolved" through illicit programming or through happenstance to become "Generation Three" AIs, those AIs that have developed full native intelligence. The question the book grapples with is not only how these beings come about and flow through the interconnectedness of all computers, but how they see existence and how their consciousness is represented by copying millions of copies of themselves. The other is how humans react to the super intelligent AIs, hunting them down, and "excommunicating" them with huge EMP pulses and destroying all the copies hiding in the machines.

Another bit of good comes from grappling with how humans are forcing their own evolution through selective breeding, gene therapy, and remaking themselves with extensive surgery. From this comes a shortage of women, strange children who age at 1/2 the rate of regular human beings called Brahmins who have no empathy for the human race, and nutes -- a group of people who have surgically removed all gender. The reaction from normal humans is revulsion but the book implies this is the forward trajectory of humanity and the normal people will soon be an out-bred relic of the past.

The bad: I generally like books with multiple viewpoints but River of Gods has nine and it felt overdone. The themes of the book were focused over the actual characterization of the characters. Only the nute Tal really stood out as a distinct personality. The rest of the characters tended to flow together into one amorphous mass. All the characters _do_ get a different view of the actions during August 2047 to give a perspective on how the whole plot comes together in the end -- with a little bit of Science Fiction Plot Device thrown in.

The science fiction is a little too precious at times. Sometimes it wants to be Arthur C. Clarke and sometimes it wants to be Blade Runner with just a dash of the original Philip K Dick and it doesn't seem to know which is which.

The Hindi sprinkled through is not much of a challenge. However, the kindle version of the book lacks bookmarks so looking up terms in the back of the book is a major challenge. Also, the kindle version is sprinkled throughout the text with enough typos for it to be called out.

The ending is about middling for a science fiction book. It's not awful. It's no Sphere. It's not a total collapse like Snow Crash. The book ends very definitively.

River of Gods by Ian McDonald is an awful lot of book. It's big. In parts it goes on and on and on and on. Some of it drags in places when it goes BEHOLD MY INDIA OF THE FUTURE! For an easy comparison on pure word count, it's about 1 Red Mars. Figure out how long it took to read Red Mars, add a tax for having to look up all the words in Hindi in the appendix in the back, and that's about how long it takes to get through River of Gods.

So, not bad. I made it all the way through. It definitely does have some good ideas and it is one of the better science fiction novels floating around. It's in the "pretty good" category but it's not Childhood's End or anything. It's a decent read but it's not one of those science fiction novels that lays hooks in your brain that lie there and fester until they get disgorged in some argument one day. I give it about a 3.75 stars but the rating system isn't that fine grained so I round it up to a four. It's not quite a four star book. It's very much a 3.75 star book. (less)

1 like · like · see review

Mar 18, 2011 Patrick J. rated it 5 of 5 stars

I love this book. I was incredibly confused when I started reading it, due to the changes in view point every chapter and all of the Hindi words and phrases. I was flipping back to the glossary once or twice per page at first. Not to mention some of the odd technology. In any case, once I got into the flow and I could tell where things were headed I couldn't put it down. I want to go as far as to say this book is brilliant, but I'm probably not the best judge since I am biased toward Sci-Fi and...more

1 like · like · see review

Dec 25, 2010 Patricia McLean rated it 5 of 5 stars

India is a river, constantly moving, changing, bewildering, giver of life and taker of life. It is most likely that a westerner or non-Indian Asian, perhaps even Indians themselves, cannot truly comprehend the depths of India. In the West, we regard Mesopotamia as the cradle of civilization, but that is western civilization. In Mesopotamia, we learned how to stand still. We stopped roaming around gathering food and started planting and reaping. India contemplated the mind and spirit and grew the...more

2 likes · like · see review

Aug 16, 2009 Paul rated it 4 of 5 stars

Nominated for the 2005 Hugo Award for best novel (losing to Susanna Clarke's Jonathan Strange and Mr Norrell), River of Gods is an ambitious look at 2047 India by Ian McDonald.

As India approaches its 100th birthday, it has balkanized into a number of semi independent nations. Technology runs high here, higher than in some parts of the world. Artificial Intelligences reach for above-human sentience even as "Krishna cops" try and prevent them from doing so. The lack of a monsoon for years has cau...more Nominated for the 2005 Hugo Award for best novel (losing to Susanna Clarke's Jonathan Strange and Mr Norrell), River of Gods is an ambitious look at 2047 India by Ian McDonald.

As India approaches its 100th birthday, it has balkanized into a number of semi independent nations. Technology runs high here, higher than in some parts of the world. Artificial Intelligences reach for above-human sentience even as "Krishna cops" try and prevent them from doing so. The lack of a monsoon for years has caused two of the nations to go to the brink of armed conflict. And in space, the Americans have discovered an asteroid is actually an alien artifact, seven billion years old, which inexplicably has a tie to several of the characters...

As I said, its an ambitious novel, with a large cast and a large canvas upon which McDonald draws. In an almost Bollywood like fashion, all of the plotlines and characters, disparate at first, eventually have their stories draw together.

McDonald pulls no punches and immerses the reader immediately in unfamiliar culture, terms, customs and societies. It takes a lot of work to keep up in this novel, but once the basics are down, the novel starts to sing. (This is definitely not a novel to give to a first time reader of science fiction). In point of fact, with its numerous characters at all sorts of social strata, its social commentary, and its vision of the future, the novel feels to me like McDonald's attempt to re-write Brunner's Stand on Zanzibar (but without the New Wave experimental narrative and textual techniques).

I don't think the novel quite lives up to its ambitions, and a few of the characters did not much appeal to me as much as the main plot did. However, the vision of India's future is wall-to-wall, engrossing and interesting. Throw in some snazzy technology, and even a bit of humor (I dare you not to laugh when you discover the fate of Bill Gates in this timeline)

Mcdonald has a collection of stories set in this world (Cyberdad Days) which, on the strength of this, and my enjoyment of it, I fully intend to buy and read.

Recommended.(less)

like · see review

Nov 28, 2008 Noah M. rated it 5 of 5 stars

First, a warning: There is a goddamn glossary in the back of this book. I did not realize this until I was about 300 pages in. A lot of the Hindi words became clear through contextual clues, but some stuff I still am not sure about. I didn't bother to consult it (once I learned of its existence) because I was more than happy to just let the atmosphere wash over me and try to absorb meaning as I went.

Anyway, this is a hell of a book.

It's an absurdly rich portrait of India in the year 2050. The pr...more

2 likes · like · see review

Jun 15, 2011 Rafal Jasinski rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Wizja niedalekiej przyszłości, wspaniale nakreślona, oparta na kanwie dopracowanej, wciągającej i obfitującej w niezwykłe zwroty akcji fabuły. Idealnym dopełnieniem tej doskonale zaplanowanej opowieści o świecie, w którym sztuczne inteligencje stawiają swoje pierwsze i kolejne kroki ku autonomii, są nietuzinkowe postaci, które przeżywają swe małe prywatne dramaty, walczą ze słabościami, kochają i cierpią - pierwiastek ludzki ma niebanalne znaczenie w "Rzece bogów". Wszystko to, razem wzięte, spr...more

2 likes · like · see review

May 22, 2012 Catherine Siemann rated it 3 of 5 stars

I read about this book in a study of postcolonial science fiction, and was motivated to want to read it. It's vast and sprawling in a way that enables it to do justice to its subject. The setting is Bharat, a portion of what once was India, in 2047; Bharat is at war with one of the other former-Indian countries, sectarian violence continues, there is a long-term drought emergency, and meanwhile a flourishing entertainment industry. Most importantly are the aeai, the sentient artificial intellige...more

1 like · like · see review

May 18, 2010 Evan rated it 5 of 5 stars

I doubt it's intentional, but Ian McDonald seems to be translating the great treasures of magical realism into scifi, and doing it masterfully. Where Desolation Road reads rather like One Hundred Years of Solitude set on Mars, River of Gods feels like someone gave Salman Rushdie a time machine so he could rewrite Midnight's Children a hundred years later. The result is something completely new, and breathtakingly imaginative and ambitious. The plot reads like magical realism, but McDonald has ap...more

2 likes · like · see review

Sep 10, 2010 CScott Morris rated it 4 of 5 stars Recommends it for: fans of sci-fi and cyber punk

Ian McDonald creates a vivid and dark future India in this -punk sci-fi novel.
He follows nine different characters, from a politician to a street-punk to a reporter and an AI programmer, through crowded, twisting streets that almost mirror his crowded, twisting plot.
A lot is going on in this book, and none of it seems to be related until the end, when everything comes together a la Guy Richie.
Ostensibly, there is an ancient alien artifact in space, but after the first couple chapters you dont re...more

like · see review

May 09, 2012 Jose Solis rated it 4 of 5 stars

Fascinante historia. Me encantó la manera en que está contada, como se van entrelazando las tramas de cada uno de los personajes principales (como una docena en total), y la forma en que convergen en un final satisfactorio.

Lo mejor de todo es la ambientación. El mundo de la India, unos 50 años en el futuro, está increíblemente bien hecho y detallado: arte, cultura, ciencia, mitología, lenguajes, dioses, castas, lugares, todo dominado por el omnipresente río Ganges... Es claro que hubo una invest...more

like · see review

Apr 20, 2012 Mark rated it 4 of 5 stars

It seems to be a theme of books about India that they end in blood and death and ruin. River of Gods is no different. I like Ian McDonald's Bladerunner-esque portrayal of a modern India that has balkanized into cultural sub-countries, is coping with population explosion and environmental change, and is teeming with new technologies. I particularly like how McDonald weaves the near-future tech into the story, so that it's not quite the point.

In the end, though, this is a story about 8 or so chara...more

like · see review

Jan 04, 2011 Brian Storms rated it 4 of 5 stars

Well, I've been searching for new sci-fi that captures my attention and distracts me from the real world and makes me feel sort of smart that I am interested in continuing to read about it and maybe has some occasional nanotech or AI maybe taking over the world combined with alternate universe possibilities, a variety of characters ranging from interesting to mundane, sexy to just plain gigantic, and perhaps the occasional draw-me-in plot line and raunchy sex scene. And also, I would like to lau...more

like · see review

Jul 31, 2012 Donna rated it 2 of 5 stars

Shelves: read-in-2012, science-fiction, scifi-fantasy-ebook-club, scifi-dystopian-apocalyptic

This book just didn't work for me. I was lost and confused a fair portion of the time trying to grasp the politics and even the geography of this future version of India. I liked the idea of the intersecting plot lines, but they really never came together. I was halfway through the book and when a new chapter would start, I still had to stop and figure out who the character was and remember what their story was. Some of the characters didn't even seem to have any real purpose in the story and it...more

like · see review

Jun 25, 2012 Robert rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

There are not many writers whose work is as vibrant, intense and inspired as the science fiction novels of Ian McDonald. His novels are outstanding on so many levels: they are set in futures of countries that are not currently rich Western nations - Turkey, Brasil, and in this case, countries on the Indian subcontinent (after India itself is split up). The writing flows beautifully, with flair and rich vocabulary and real energy.

River of Gods is set in Bharat, a nation on the Indian subcontinen...more There are not many writers whose work is as vibrant, intense and inspired as the science fiction novels of Ian McDonald. His novels are outstanding on so many levels: they are set in futures of countries that are not currently rich Western nations - Turkey, Brasil, and in this case, countries on the Indian subcontinent (after India itself is split up). The writing flows beautifully, with flair and rich vocabulary and real energy.

River of Gods is set in Bharat, a nation on the Indian subcontinent, during a time of terrible drought - the river Ganges has virtually dried up - and a far future where artificial intelligences (aeais) are deeply embedded in technology, and genetic- and bioengineering have changed (for tiny, wealthy minorities) definitions of humanity. Like all his novels that I've read so far, this is an ensemble piece. We follow a criminal trying to rise above his lowly background, two scientists, a young man suddenly called upon to become a corporate executive in the family firm, a Krishna cop (basically, a Blade Runner who hunts down murderous or illegal aeais), a high level Muslim public servant, a nute (bioengineered person who is gender-free, anime-like and with direct control over yts emotions and feelings via a user interface on its skin) and a journalist as their various plotlines criss cross through Varanasi, occasionally intersecting.

Ian McDonald's writing is, for me, on a par with China Mieville's (the casual use of vocabulary that is alien to most readers, the flair, the flights of description...), the settings are unique in science fiction literature, and the futures are imagined with foresight and intellect, while the science fiction sounds convincingly feasible in many ways (comparable to the science fiction works of Greg Egan). Oh, and the stories are gripping and exciting. The only thing that, for me, started to get a little grating is how many of his characters are uber-confident and incredibly, greedily hungry for success. His books are set in dog-eat-dog worlds, I suppose, but his characters are often the sort of people I would not get along with or want to be around in the real world, so they can grow a little tiresome even in a novel.

Still, River of Gods is a fantastic novel. Entertaining throughout, and with enough fascination for four or five novels by lesser writers. Definitely a writer who deserves to be a bestselling author / award winner / every success. (less)

like · see review

Jan 30, 2012 randy rated it 5 of 5 stars

Okay, this is what fiction should be like.
What a wonderfully inventive book.
This is a story of India at 100 years old. It is a story of a billion and half people and at least a billion gods. It is not an easy read, but it is worth every second of it.

Imagine if when humanity creates artificial intelligence that the AIs take on the characteristics and avatars of gods. Sounds intriguing? Well this is the book for you.

There are at least 8 distinct points of view the story is told from and each one...more

like · see review

Sep 10, 2011 Christina rated it 3 of 5 stars

Shelves: sci-fi

Hmm. Okay. I'm always pleased when it's clear that the author has the end in sight from the very beginning & weaves each scene & character with purpose & direction.

The bits & pieces in the beginning were intriguing. Things started to come together, & I was getting excited and anticipating the big revelation & pay off. In these types of books, I can't wait to see where every little detail fits into the masterpiece.

Well, it fell flat for me. Some books/authors 'show' the...more

like · see review

« previous 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 … 99 100 next »

new topic
Discuss This Book

There are no discussion topics on this book yet. Be the first to start one »

Recommend it | Stats | Recent status updates

combine
Other Editions (15)

More editions...

Genres

Science Fiction

182 users

Cultural > India

26 users

Science Fiction > Cyberpunk

25 users

Speculative Fiction

11 users

Fantasy

11 users

Science Fiction > Dystopia

10 users

Science Fiction Fantasy

9 users

Science Fiction > Near Future

7 users

Book Club

4 users

Novels

3 users

See top shelves...

Readers also enjoyed similar books

Air
by Geoff Ryman
Distraction
by Bruce Sterling
Learning the World: A Scientific Romance
by Ken MacLeod
Light
by M. John Harrison
The Quiet War
by Paul J. McAuley

About Ian McDonald

Ian Neil McDonald (1960-) is a British science fiction novelist, living in Belfast. His themes include nanotechnology, postcyberpunk settings, and the impact of rapid social and technological change on non-Western societies.

McDonald was born in 1960, in Manchester, to a Scottish father and Irish mother, but moved to Belfast when he was five, and has lived there ever since. He therefore lived throu...more

More about Ian McDonald...

Books by Ian McDonald

More…

Share This Book

Facebook Twitter Your website

Trivia About River of Gods

1 trivia question

More quizzes & trivia...

Quotes from River of Gods

“There's never been a rule of human behavior that hasn't been broken by someone, somewhere, sometime, in some circumstance mundane or spectacular. To be human is to transcend the rules.” — 4 people liked it

More quotes…

title link	preview: River of Gods
avg rating	preview: River of Gods Goodreads rating: 3.90 (2174 ratings)
small image	preview: click here [close]
med image	preview: click here [close]
BBCode	[url=http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/278280.River_of_Gods?utm_medium=api&utm_source=blog_book][img]http://d.gr-assets.com/books/1365462862l/278280.jpg[/img][/url] [url=http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/278280.River_of_Gods?utm_medium=api&utm_source=blog_book]River of Gods by Ian McDonald[/url]

River of Gods (India 2047 #1)

Friend Reviews

Community Reviews

Share This Book

Share This Book on Your Website