I love a good near future scifi! This one didn’t fully land for me, but I never fully connect with books that have excessive exploration and I think that’s just a personal preference. That being said, it you’re a fan of stories that aren’t plot driven &/or you’ve been looking for international Scifi settings, this could be a solid pick!

the ideas were not executed into a plot that intrigued me and the characters weren’t written well enough that I cared about what happened to them. And wow the ending, abrupt and too open ended.

On one hand super intriguing and well rounded characters and atmosphere, but on the other the story end abruptly just as the action begins, if this was a series that would be understandable but its a standalone. The story's just unfinished

This was a very cool concept, but just didn't quite work for me. I do think it would work for a lot of people. I love futuristic stories, but not ones that revolve around specific technologies - even though it's probably realistic! - like how this one revolved around livestreaming.

The writing was good and I just felt this needed to be a little longer to build out the world building properly.

Been trying to get into this for a while now but I just can't get into it - it's too confusing, and I'm not really vibing with the writing sadly!
Still, the worldbuilding in interesting as is the concept, the excecution just didn't work for me.

Okay, I'm pretty confused on how to rate and review this. The premise and the creativity into the plot is great! However the execution wasn't all that wonderful. There were wide info dumps instead of a natural world build. I have so many answers still once finishing.

An atmospheric read that just needed some help.

DNF 20% in.

The initial worldbuilding is immersive and dizzying, a firehose of terms as if to impress indelibly the near-future-ness of the setting. Unfortunately, it was too much for me to track, too quickly, and I stopped a couple of chapters in. If the goal was to communicate the stress the characters were under, it certainly did that, but not in a way I could keep up with.

I am sad to say that I struggled with this book. The City Inside by Samit Basu is not short on big ideas, but the execution left something to be desired. The world he created and the central themes are interesting, but he didn't seem interested in really digging into them. What this left me with was flimsy characters and plotting that dragged down the reading experience.

The City Inside is a sci-fi and dystopian novel written by an Asian author. The story is about a girl named Joey that lives in a "near-future Delhi" world working with technology and her ex. Joey finds it difficult to balance her work and life while trying to figure out what she wants. When Joey recruits Rudra, a guy that grew up wealthy but now lives poor, they become intertwined in conspiracies from work and the world. I thought that this book was pretty good. It almost felt life a debut novel that I would give the benefit of the doubt. I thought that the book had a bunch of neat additives and scenes that could have been played better and some that were played out perfectly. The potential and ideas were there, but I'm not sure they were carried to their full potential. Overall. the book was pretty good. A nice read but one that might leave you with some questions.

This book had so much potential, and I was so excited for the futuristic India setting, but I ended up DNFing it because I was just so bored. The story was confusing and I just didn’t care about the characters. A couple of years ago I would’ve pushed through to see if it got better, but I don’t have the time or the patience for that anymore. There are just too many other good books to read, and unfortunately this book wasn’t one.

“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.

This is one of those books that is gut-wrenching to read because it's so flipping plausible. That said, this book is great and the writing is phenomenal, and I would recommend it! It's quick and it will suck you in.

Thanks so much to the publisher for the review copy!

I gave this one a good shot but it just did not vibe with me. I still wasn't interested after the first few chapters so I put it down for good. The synopsis wasn't really that intriguing to be in the first place.

I just didn't care about any of the characters. Aside from that I just couldn't get immersed in the story and I couldn't visualize the city.

okay loved this a lot. need more. short stories are my Thing now.

- thanks to netgalley and the publisher for the free e-ARC.

The City Inside is an interesting and densely written near-future dystopian reality SF novel by Samit Basu. Originally published in India in 2020 as Chosen Spirits , this reformat and re-release by Simon & Schuster on their Tor imprint is 256 pages and is available in hardcover, audio, and ebook formats. Paperback release is due out from the same publisher in second quarter 2023. It's worth noting that the ebook format has a handy interactive table of contents as well as interactive links and references throughout. I've really become enamored of ebooks with interactive formats lately.

This is a very intricate and densely layered fictional world. It's a difficult read in places due to the dreamlike, angry, and nuanced narrative. It's meandering and definitely a book to be experienced rather than read specifically for the story, which is not at all linear. Although a difficult read, the quality of the writing is very high and the author was not on my radar in any way previously. I appreciate Tor.com for their efforts publishing and promoting gifted international authors to English speaking audiences.

This is a worthwhile but not simple read, from an author who is clearly talented and who has a clear vision. My view during the read was not entirely unobstructed, but I am certainly intrigued enough to read more of the author's fiction.

The unabridged audiobook has a run time of 9 hours, 16 minutes and is capably narrated by Reena Dutt. She has a versatile and soothing voice and enunciates clearly and well. The sound and production quality are high throughout the read.

Three and a half stars. Intriguing and complex.

Disclosure: I received an ARC at no cost from the author/publisher for review purposes.

My rating: 3 of 5 stars—

My feelings on this one are so mixed. First off, I’m excited to have gotten to read this Indian take on the dystopian excesses of surveillance capitalism and influencer/streaming culture. There was a lot here to enjoy:

-It’s funny and satirical. I particularly loved the coffee shop menu items of Basu’s imagination—Polyamorous Matcha, Himbo Cheesecake, Microaggressive Mocha, Anxie-Tea

-It challenges readers of dystopia to do some self-reflection on why we’re drawn to the genre and the implications of our dystopic appetites. At one point, Basu calls dystopia pornographic and muses that it has to feel somewhat distant to be enjoyed.

-It has interesting details that feel like very realistic ways that technology could be used for social control in specific cultural context (e.g. chastity-enforcing apps controlled by a woman’s family, often used along racial and ethnic lines to prevent miscegenation)

-AMAZING insights into how tech and social media get adopted in different cultures with different social, racial, and economic histories hierarchies

All that said, I was hugely let down by a couple things:

-The ending! What even happened? I couldn’t tell you… It was very unclear to me how the protagonist was resisting. It seemed like she was doing some resistance within the system in juxtaposition with Rudra—another character who comes to different conclusions about how to fight back against oppressive systems. But that wasn’t super clear.

-How the poor are represented in this narrative. It seems that the only people who are capable of or interested in resistance have a lot of economic power and social capital. The poor are sort of portrayed as hopelessly vulnerable—they’re either going to be abducted and disappeared or brainwashed into complacency by social media and dreams of being an influencer.

Many thanks to Macmillan-Tor/Forge, and NetGalley for the opportunity to read this book in exchange for an honest review.

Gloomy yet entertaining. A futuristic sci-fi that casts cyber villains, political authority, speech suppression to create a world worth ending yet forced to live with some hope. The Indian-inspired backdrop carries more nuance in this dystopia and for readers of the region, it would resonate slightly more, in all honesty. The internal monologue often tires and the tech-heavy details might not draw everyone's attention, the plausible world building continues to hook. Especially once one starts to imagine such a future. Sadly, the plot impresses only so much because it often lets character dramas capture the space. Still, it's worth giving a try for the compatibility it establishes with the Indian possibilities and the large concerns for a future shared by all.

One of the things I enjoyed about the book was its unique concept. The idea of a city existing within a person's mind was intriguing and made for an interesting story. The characters were also well-developed and had their own distinct personalities and motivations.

However, I did have some issues with the pacing of the book. At times, it felt slow and dragged on, and I found myself struggling to stay engaged. Additionally, some of the plot points were predictable and not as surprising as I would have liked.

Overall, "The City Inside" was a decent read with an interesting concept, but it wasn't a standout for me. If you're a fan of science fiction and are looking for something a little different, it might be worth giving this book a try.

Pretty good near-future India dystopian novel. The world-building was a little confusing for me at times, and the long verses made it hard to keep up sometimes. The first part of the story felt more interesting.