It’s been a hectic week! In the best possible way for an author, too: you spend a year, or several years, under a rock muttering in languages only you speak, and suddenly, for brief periods, they take away the rock and then you’re blinking in the light but there are nice people up there too, and until they put the rock gently but firmly back down it’s quite the party.
Before we dive in, let me say that I’d absolutely LOVE to see more pics of The City Inside in non-Delhi cityscapes, or in bookstores in the wild, and would appreciate it very much if you sent me some.
This post is basically a long thread of links. If you follow me on any of the social things chances are you’ve seen some or all of these already. They’re also all up on The City Inside book page on my site, so putting them here just in case you’d like to skim through and see if you find anything interesting.
I’ve had the privilege of doing an online book tour with some favourite authors - Zen, Chana, Divya, Saad, plus a bunch of posts and interviews over the last month and a half, many of them in venues/platforms that I’ve wanted to be in for many years, so all of these were great. Most of these appeared online over the last week. There are a few more events/interviews/podcasts that I’ll upload when they’re published, and hopefully more (+ reviews) coming up, but I’m going to be away for the next couple of weeks and thought I should get up to speed before I vanish.
Had an absolutely splendid time, met a lot of generous and wonderful people. I hope I also managed to sell a decent number of books! If you’re among the people who picked it up, I hope it worked for you: if it did, I hope you’ll tell a friend it did. Let me know, too!
Updates:
Guest post on John Scalzi's The Big Idea
Tor.com essay: How to be a protagonist when you're not the Chosen One and the world is unsaveable.
Den of Geek interview/feature
My Favorite Bit guest post on Mary Robinette Kowal’s site
io9/Gizmodo essay: Immigration advisory for fictional dystopias
On the June reading list on Andrew Liptak’s Transfer Orbit
Got to chat with the amazing Arley Sorg for Clarkesworld
Mysterious Galaxy event with SB Divya (tech fails stop around the 6 min mark)
With Saad Z Hossein for Third Place Books
Interview with Misha Grifka for Ancillary Review of Books
Interview with Paul Semel
Keen On podcast on LitHub
With Adrian M Gibson for SFFAddicts podcast
Coffee in Space podcast
Interview with Marshal Zirangue
Reviews:
"There’s a chilling effect to Basu’s...near-future sf epic, set in a social media–glutted world...The novel’s theme, that the truth does not and cannot set anyone free, is as disturbing as it is thought-provoking." - LibraryJournal
"The reader’s immersion into their world is truly felt in the conflicts that follow in trying to find a way to be true to oneself when, as one character sums it all up, “What is the point of this tech if it can’t tell us the truth?”" - Booklist
“Part cyberpunk thriller and part lunatic satire, The City Inside imagines a surveillance-state version of Delhi beset by futuristic traps and wonders, at once claustrophobic and brimming with possibility.” - The Philadelphia Inquirer, best new books to read in June.
" As history might prove, the mass uprising of the poor, as envisioned by Indi, rarely affects a sustainable shift in the dynamics of power imbalance, especially against an insidious, all-pervasive system. Basu thus creates a cautionary tale of a possible future, leaving us only with an outline of how to navigate it." - SFRA Review
"Samit Basu manages to pack in a ton of great ideas, character development and worldbuilding. It’s also a book that contains a heaping pile of heart, humor and positivity, offering up some much-needed levity in these strange times we are in." - Fan Fi Addict
"The writing is an absolute treat. It’s dense, in the descriptive and absorbing sense; it’s deeply evocative; and still entirely readable. I enjoyed every minute of the reading even while I was completely horrified by the experiences of the characters." - Randomalex.net
"I couldn’t stop thinking about how much I was getting lost in the world. And the entire themes of cyberpunk and the ethical ramifications – I loved it. How Basu asks us how our value of reality, illusions, and truth change." - Utopia State of Mind
Near Future Duck Break
Back in a bit
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Since you scrolled all the way down here and I promised you a bonus dog let me treat you to a Tingmo photoshoot
But wait, there’s more…
We also have a bonus cat! The legendary and elusive Batman.