Vishnu on the War of Schism - Vishnu at the Cat Cirsus And mothers at their daughters', and the sisters feud and the brothers fight and the cousins uncles aunts all take sides and the family shatters like a diamond along the faults and flaws that gave it its beauty. I can understand the War of Schism: that India was like one of those big, noisy, rambunctious families into which the venerable grandmother drops for her six-month sojourn and within two days sons are at their fathers' throats. I guess the main character from Vishnu at the Cat Circus describes the process best. When he does refer to it, it is usually briefly. McDonald is much more interested in the impact of technology and science on society. The focus of the stories is not so much on the politics of the break up of India however. We see the fractured sub continent from various places.

Some start a bit earlier and one overshoots the novel by decades. Most stories are set in the 2040s in various places in India. The collection contains seven stories, all but one published before in various magazines and anthologies. McDonald fleshes out some concepts used in the novel in these short stories. It isn't required reading to understand the stories in this collection but you will get a little more out of it if you have. It's a huge book, both in terms of ideas and page count. River of Gods may well be McDonald's most ambitious novel. The novel is set in India in 2047, one century after it declared its independence, and shows a subcontinent broken up into a dozen warring states. It is a collection of short fiction set in the same future as McDonald's novel River of Gods, published in 2004. The original piece showed I have gotten a bit better at writing reviews in the past few years so I have done a thorough rewrite.Ĭyberabad Days was the first work by Ian McDonald I've read. I have reread the collection last week but my opinion of it hasn't changed much. This review is a rewritten version of a piece I wrote in 2009.

Cyberabad days