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Strange Worlds! Strange Times!
‘Here is a fine collection of escape hatches arrayed in front of you: all open, all leading far away from this reality. Why not climb through one and see where it takes you?�
What if machines meant to help humans took over their owners? Or if unending traffic jams forced Swedish detectives to levitate around the Indian city of Bluru? How did the deadly cyclone in the Bay of Bengal that had everyone on tenterhooks suddenly calm down? What does one do when killer zombies launch an attack in Chennai or when eager-to-please musical creatures refuse to go back into their pods? And did the giant Tetrahedron appear on the streets of New Delhi to help people see beyond their present reality?
Alternate worlds and futures—or pasts—have never seemed as full of potential or as visionary as in these stories by some of the best storytellers in the country, including Manjula Padmanabhan, Jerry Pinto, Vandana Singh, Srinath Perur, Rashmi Ruth Devadasan, J.C. Bose, Indra Das, Shalini Srinivasan, Zac O’Yeah, Sunando C. and Vinayak Varma. Satirical, humorous and thought-provoking, these mindboggling stories will amaze you with their depth of imagination and are a must-read for all sci-fi lovers!
What if machines meant to help humans took over their owners? Or if unending traffic jams forced Swedish detectives to levitate around the Indian city of Bluru? How did the deadly cyclone in the Bay of Bengal that had everyone on tenterhooks suddenly calm down? What does one do when killer zombies launch an attack in Chennai or when eager-to-please musical creatures refuse to go back into their pods? And did the giant Tetrahedron appear on the streets of New Delhi to help people see beyond their present reality?
Alternate worlds and futures—or pasts—have never seemed as full of potential or as visionary as in these stories by some of the best storytellers in the country, including Manjula Padmanabhan, Jerry Pinto, Vandana Singh, Srinath Perur, Rashmi Ruth Devadasan, J.C. Bose, Indra Das, Shalini Srinivasan, Zac O’Yeah, Sunando C. and Vinayak Varma. Satirical, humorous and thought-provoking, these mindboggling stories will amaze you with their depth of imagination and are a must-read for all sci-fi lovers!
200 pages, Paperback
First published November 10, 2018
1 person is currently reading
59 people want to read
About the author
Vinayak Varma
13Ìýbooks11ÌýfollowersVinayak Varma is the author of "Ammachi's Incredible Investigation"; the author-illustrator of "The Sunshower Song", "Angry Akku", "Jadav and the Tree-Place" (Pratham Books), and "Up Down" (Tulika Books); and the editor of the science fiction anthology "Strange Worlds! Strange Times!" (Speaking Tiger). He was the founding editor and art director of Brainwave, a science magazine for young readers. His illustrations have appeared in several YA and children's books, including "The Tenth Rasa: An Anthology of Indian Nonsense" (Penguin), "The Magic Store of Nu-Cham-Vu" (Puffin), "Phiss Phuss Boom", "The Vampire Boy" (Duckbill), and "Goodnight and God Bless" (Penguin). Vinayak is a recipient of The Hindu Young World-Goodbooks Award (for "Angry Akku") and the Publishing Next Digital Book of the Year Award (for "Jadav and the Tree-Place"), is a BSFA Award finalist, and has been shortlisted for the Commonwealth Short Story Prize. He lives in Bangalore with his partner Yamini and their cat-son Monkey. When not slumped at his desk pretending to draw and write serious things for serious people, he makes strange music for strange people. Follow Vinayak on Twitter @eyefry and on Instagram @moralpanicbutton.
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Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews
August 16, 2020
I think I'll just gush, because this, I guess, is what the entire "kid in a candy store" feeling is like! But to begin with, I have to confess I didn't read the first 20 pages! It was quite a coincidence that a book with this title mysteriously arrived without them. That meant that I missed the Manjula Padmanabhan story, and dove haphazardly into the Srinath Perur one. Jerry Pinto made me gaze up at the stars again with a delightfully profound take on "outer space and inner space" - a phrase that Vandana Singh uses in the last story in the book.
Zac O'Yeah manages to catch Bluru's little idiosyncrasies superbly and had me cackling away for quite a while. And then Rashmi Ruth Devadasan does the same to Chennai (?) with a dose of zombies. Vinayak Varma, who needs to be thanked separately for stitching this all up together, does a neat border town story with sniper shots at saffron and creation!
And there's a (translated) J.C Bose story. Oh yes, the very same, and a fascinating back story (actually stories) on how this work came to be. I have never been much into comics (though recently Kavalier & Clay did make me think deeply on the subject) but Sunando C's few pages of work were fascinating! A walking Taj Mahal, and telekinesis - Indrapramit Das' imagination is evident. Shalini Srinivasan gives us a dose of reality - a parallel one, that is. And to end it all, Vandana Singh writes a brilliant story involving dimensionality (I was reminded of Liu Cixin's sophons)
What made me love the book was the sheer diversity of texture and context. All the stories have an equal grounding in some part/aspect of India as they do in science/speculative fiction. And it's almost as if the writers have let themselves go at it in total abandon. Delightful and amazing indeed!
P.S. Loved it so much that I sent it to three unsuspecting folks!
Zac O'Yeah manages to catch Bluru's little idiosyncrasies superbly and had me cackling away for quite a while. And then Rashmi Ruth Devadasan does the same to Chennai (?) with a dose of zombies. Vinayak Varma, who needs to be thanked separately for stitching this all up together, does a neat border town story with sniper shots at saffron and creation!
And there's a (translated) J.C Bose story. Oh yes, the very same, and a fascinating back story (actually stories) on how this work came to be. I have never been much into comics (though recently Kavalier & Clay did make me think deeply on the subject) but Sunando C's few pages of work were fascinating! A walking Taj Mahal, and telekinesis - Indrapramit Das' imagination is evident. Shalini Srinivasan gives us a dose of reality - a parallel one, that is. And to end it all, Vandana Singh writes a brilliant story involving dimensionality (I was reminded of Liu Cixin's sophons)
What made me love the book was the sheer diversity of texture and context. All the stories have an equal grounding in some part/aspect of India as they do in science/speculative fiction. And it's almost as if the writers have let themselves go at it in total abandon. Delightful and amazing indeed!
P.S. Loved it so much that I sent it to three unsuspecting folks!
June 19, 2020
A collection of 11 short stories, which can be finished in a day.
I like science fiction ideas, but some sci-fi stories have the author introducing a lot of things, places and beings at the start. Here introduction means simply using the terms and leaving it to the readers to memorize, connect and understand them as the story progresses. So I usually get confused and stop. Luckily for me, these being short stories, didn't have such an onset of jargon, and I was able to enjoy them. As the editor points out in his very nice introduction, these are not conventional pulpy 'Bollywoody' stories; they are way cooler than that.
Special mention for Rashmi Ruth Devadasan's work, I liked it best.
I like science fiction ideas, but some sci-fi stories have the author introducing a lot of things, places and beings at the start. Here introduction means simply using the terms and leaving it to the readers to memorize, connect and understand them as the story progresses. So I usually get confused and stop. Luckily for me, these being short stories, didn't have such an onset of jargon, and I was able to enjoy them. As the editor points out in his very nice introduction, these are not conventional pulpy 'Bollywoody' stories; they are way cooler than that.
Special mention for Rashmi Ruth Devadasan's work, I liked it best.
Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews
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