In the not too distant future India, and much of the world, has been ravaged by pandemics, climate change, and violence.

Social media, virtual reality and reputation is everything. Although the most notable faces are merely pawns moved by the truly powerful behind the scenes.

Joey, a reality manager, knows all this but bucks her parents’ ethics to survive and take care of them.

Rudra’s family is a major player in the dark side of the new India. Something he wants no part of until he finds an opportunity to take them down.

Zaria is outspoken and often targeted with violence because of her activism. Can she make a change that sticks?

As I get older, I am starting to realize that I don’t like large chunks of exposition. This one just had so much exposition straight from the very beginning, but then it would flip and you would get a dialogue about the Flows that seemed to last forever. I never really got into a reading flow and overall just felt that I didn’t care about any of the characters or their scandals and betrayals.

I love the premise of this book. A near future where Reality Controllers basically control the social media that people consume and monitor the influencers on the web. I can honestly see something like this happening in the not so distant future in some countries and in other I wouldn’t be surprised if a government liaison to certain online stars didn’t already exist. Society is at the point where people would rather spend more time in a virtual reality than in the real world, and honestly there are already people like that. The topics explored are timely and interesting in themselves (climate change, government surveillance, reality vs. technology, influence of media), but it is all weighed down by absolutely massive dumps of exposition.

For me this book was basically unreadable. Between the large clumps of exposition, the somewhat awkward dialogue, and the sheer amount of subplots, half the time I didn’t know if things were up or down. Being confused isn’t really a problem for me, as long as I am still interested. Being bored in the middle of this was a larger problem for me. I got in a few really phenomenal naps in the middle of this relatively short book, which for me could have even been shorter. If edited down, I think this could make a smashing novella.

Overall, this just didn’t work for me. I liked the bigger ideas of the whole thing, but not really the writing and the execution. The characters are fine, but I’m not especially invested. The ending is left open, which means it could have a sequel, but I’m not sticking around for it. However, I would take my review with a grain of salt. A lot of reviewers seem to have enjoyed this book, but it just didn’t work for me.

Thanks, NetGalley for the ARC
This was a great dystopian novel with great quality starting from the chapter, I knew it was gonna be a good read. This was my first book by Samit Basu and I’m far from disappointed. Waiting for more books from him.

I love the initial world building in the beginning of this story. It is engaging and the setting is fantastic to delve into. The main characters are fleshed out but the secondary characters felt less complete. The story was engaging for the first 60% then fizzled a bit and the stakes didn’t feel very high. I think I probably would not have liked this story had I not been a person who loves dystopian fiction and also TikTok and the idea of Flowco was a great element of story telling. In the end I wished the story delivered a bit more but the initial world building is fantastic.

a brilliant and show stopping read!!!!!!! I am super impressed with this genre bending story, the characters were wonderful without sacrificing plot, and the writing style is extremely beautiful but still simple. WOW!

A competently constructed projection of a near future Delhi with some incredibly dense worldbuilding. While some interesting but not especially new concepts were explored, it was a struggle to wade through so much compacted exposition and ultimately left me feeling disconnected from the characters.

DNF at 7%
I was drawn to The City Inside for its cover, which is undoubtly stunning, and the title, which sparks intrigue, but I was left confused from the very synopsis, which was unfortunately a trend that followed into the narrative. The world building is extensive from the start, but with very little context given. But when Basu does focus on world building, it veers into info-dumbing with messy explanations that make very little sense. The writing style is convoluted and unpolished with names such as "Years Not To The Discussed" repeated constantly, which does nothing but give the impression this part of the world building was not thought out as well as it could've been.

This novel hits close to home as it portrays the aging millennial generation (in 20 years maybe) at a loss in the modern world, not quite understand the ramifications of what they are doing. It is exactly as now the millennials struggle to explain things to their baby boomer parents. Of course all this happens in totalitarian big brother Delhi... but it still talks. Amazing ideas, sadly very long winded narration. I felt like the introduction went on too long. There is a lot of exposition at the beginning which makes the plot a slow going. I think I particularly had trouble hanging to the storyline because I'm very character driven, and in this case I felt like we were kept at bay too much. I didn't care much for any of them, and that always makes it difficult for me to enjoy a story. If you are a big idea kind of person and enjoy futuristic world building this might be just for you.

The premise is okay but story is quite dragging. I liked the sci-fi feels of the modern day city but that doesn't catch or make it more interesting. It is like a contemporary story in a sci-fi setting..

This is one of the most unique books I have read this year, and I think it will find its target audience with people who enjoy speculative stories that somehow succeed at being relatable. I am excited for the release of The City Inside this summer and to see the reception it gets!

Thoughtful wordbuilding and a timely near-future premise make for an engaging read. The themes resonate as well.

Thank you for NatGalley and Macmillan-Tor/Forge for the ARC with an exchange of honest review.

This is my very first book from Samit Basu and I picked this book because it set in sometimes in the future, have dystopian genre and setting in India. I never read a book with India setting before so this is new for me and I excited to read this.

But, despite my excitement I can't connect with the plot or story. For around 30% I'm still not sure what kind of plot or conflict will be present before me. And even at the beginning I can't imagine what kind of world in this book because it pure chaotic and very hard for me to describe it. Really need a long time to get the conflict because we got so many description about the characters, job, the world and the author give us very little hint about the conspiracy that said in the blurb.

I think the conspiracy or the conflict is good and it really can be happen in this real life. But, when the story goes better, and I already can get a hang on the story suddenly the book is almost finished. I even don't see the solution or a way for the characters to clear it and here I thought that the main character will settle the conflict. So after I finished this book, I don't really get what is really happening in the book.

I requested a digital copy in order to sample the prose on my phone (since I don't have a eReader) before requesting a physical copy for review. I will update Netgalley once I read & review a physical copy.

My review will be based on the physical ARC I read.

Super fun read. I now love this book with my HOLE heart and will definitely read it about 10 times! This was a perfect book for me!

This was... incredible, and devastating, and gloriously written. And I'm not sure I have the words to properly explain how and why.

Firstly: if you're looking for an entirely straightforward, narrative-driven story, this is not for you. If you're interested in character and world development and fabulous prose (and a narrative that still has me thinking), then you're looking at the right book.

The first few chapters are all about setting up the world. It's the mid 20th century, I think; and it's Delhi; and things are both recognisable and completely unfamiliar. Joey is a Reality Controller at a Flowco; she has a smartatt on her wrist that monitors her health and suggests cat videos when she's stressed, and she regularly has to wear a mask when she's out and about. Confused? I was, a bit, when I started; but I was also intrigued and rapidly sucked in (and it took me a couple of seconds to understand 'smartatt' as 'smart tattoo' and then I was very impressed with Basu. Also terrified). The key thing to get your head around is the Flow, which takes the current ideas of infotainment and reality tv and influencers and life-casting and making it more massive, more pervasive, more curated and... generally just More. This is the big thing that's both familiar and not.

As an Anglo Aussie, I'm the first to admit I don't know all the ins and outs of current or past Indian political history, nor the concerns people might have for future directions. That's a big part of the background here: Joey's parents were involved in protests and suffer the consequences; things are unsettled and maybe tyrannical in Delhi and perhaps across the city. There are ongoing protests and various groups being oppressed. On the one hand, I am quite sure I missed a fair bit of political nuance that someone living in Delhi would just pick up almost without thinking (like a reference to politicians and onions for me). And that's just fine: there are always different experiences for different readers. Because even without that political knowledge, I could understand enough about the tensions to know that this is a world I wouldn't want to live in, with its fear of cameras everywhere and no trust of the government. And just to show how bitter things are: "her parents didn't know whether to blame the pogrom or the pandemic, because they'd known the end times were coming but hadn't known they'd be multiple choice" (p6).

The story follows Joey and colleagues and delves into the world of a Flowstar as well as tapping on parts of the broader world. Most people are out for what they can get for themselves and their families; some people are trying to buck the system; there is a massive gap between the haves and havenots. Much of the book is about following the characters and experiencing their lives... in much the same way that they themselves are producing a Flow for people to experience. Which makes me reflect in some horror on the explicitly voyeuristic nature of fiction and may send me into a tailspin if I get too worried about the privacy of fictional characters.

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.

Consisting of 10 extremely long chapters, The City Inside is a near-future sci-fi set in Delhi, India where heavy smog covers the land due to climate change and riots are happening all over the city.

While the premise sounds extremely enticing and bound to trigger some much-needed contemplation about our world, the book was quite difficult to finish. In fact, I almost didn't. The exposition is particularly heavy, making it quite difficult for me to fervently fly through the pages. It got to the point where I lost track of what the story's about and ultimately, my interest in it.

However, I did end up finishing the book on a second read (and with a clearer mind) and found that the story only gets a *bit* more interesting by the midpoint due to one of its subplots, that I don't feel any sort of attachment to the characters, and while the book does fulfil its premise, the impact is weighted down by all the expositionary details.

I will say that the topics it explores (climate change, never-ending surveillance, the blurring line between reality and technology, government and society) are quite interesting, especially its commentary on the latter topic.

Thanks to Netgalley and Macmillan-Tor/Forge for providing me the e-ARC in exchange for an honest review.

Quite a bit heavy on infodumps and the worldbuilding could be clearer. I found it hard to sit and read this book without getting distracted; it was hard to follow for me until I got used to the writing. Although I'd still say this was unique and inventive in its own right.

Full review to come and rating may change!

It was an okay book, I liked the characters because they were adorable and the whole setting, but the world building was overwhelming. i wanted a little to really get well versed with the functioning of the book, but here it was only info-dumping.
Most of the time it got confusing more me and i had to re-read quite a few times to fully analyze the what was happening.
To conclude, while this book had a great potential, I feel like it lagged quite a lot and the execution wasn't really done well according to me.

So I liked the concepts in here and the characters were good but my biggest issue was the way the technology and Worldbuilding was done. It was just very info dumpy and hard to follow, a lot of strange things were introduced without explaining them at first so I felt like I was constantly trying to understand what was going on.

DNF 25%.

So much info dumping. I couldn’t get a read on the plot because it was just paragraphs and paragraphs and paragraphs and paragraphs of info dumping. 2 stars because I feel like the author has the right idea and took a lot of time to construct this world, but the execution of it didn’t feel like a novel it felt like a textbook. It just couldn’t hold my attention.