Jun
11
6:00pm
Samit Basu with Zen Cho, The City Inside
By Porter Square Books
Porter Square Books is delighted to host Samit Basu for The City Inside, a new dystopian novel set in near-future India praised as "brilliantly written, structurally inventive, completely immersive." Award-winning fantasy author Zen Cho will join Basu in conversation. This event will be free and open to all, taking place virtually via Crowdcast on Saturday, June 11 at 2pm ET!
A highly anticipated 2022 release for Polygon | The Nerd Daily | BookBub | The Portalist
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 large—yet never loses sight of the hopeful potential of the future.
“They'd known the end times were coming but hadn’t known they’d 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 Asia’s fastest rising online celebrities—who also happens to be her college ex. Joey’s job gives her considerable culture power, but she’s 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, now living in an impoverished immigrant neighborhood. When his father’s death pulls him back into his family’s orbit, an impulsive job offer from Joey becomes his only escape from the life he never wanted.
But 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, they must each decide how to do the right thing in a world where simply maintaining the status quo feels like an accomplishment. Ultimately, resistance will not—cannot—take the same shape for these two very different people.
Samit Basu is an Indian novelist. He's published several novels in a range of speculative genres, all critically acclaimed and bestselling in India, beginning with The Simoqin Prophecies (2003). His latest novel, The City Inside, was short-listed (as Chosen Spirits) for the JCB Prize, India’s biggest literary award. He also works as a director-screenwriter (Netflix, 2019), a comics writer, and a columnist. He lives in Delhi, Mumbai, and on the internet.
Zen Cho is the author of a short story collection and two historical fantasy novels, Sorcerer to the Crown and The True Queen. She is a winner of the Crawford, British Fantasy, and Hugo Awards, and a finalist for the Locus and Astounding Awards. Born and raised in Malaysia, she now lives in the United Kingdom.
hosted by
PB
Porter Square Books
share