Book Review: "Mumbai Singularity"

     I’ve just finished one of the best and most daring novels I’ve read in many a year: Nym Coy’s Mumbai Singularity.

     This novel is extraordinary. It’s hugely daring; it speaks of beings and things well beyond the human plane. Writing gods and pseudo-gods into a novel is always tricky, even when they’re really just imitations, such as the “gods” in Roger Zelazny's “Lord of Light.” But “Mumbai Singularity" goes beyond Zelazny's conception, into places no reader would expect.

     Three planes of existence and activity are depicted in this novel:

• The strictly material plane: the grubby reality of 22nd Century Mumbai;
• The “augmented reality” plane of the Mesh, which connects the people of Mumbai, and to which two persons of power and wealth seek to “ascend;”
• The divine plane where dwell the gods of the Hindu pantheon.

     The interaction among those planes is intense. Each resident of the teeming city of Mumbai is equipped with a spinal antenna that connects him to the Mesh continuously. But when the Mesh is married to Hindu piety, prayer, and the “distributed processing” of the minds of millions of Hindus, something unexpected arises: consciousnesses abstracted from other material expressions. Some of those were once human; others never were.

     Wounded first-person protagonist Krishna Mehta is genuinely attractive and affecting. His mother’s love for him comes through without distortion. The irony of her repeatedly nudging him toward piety and to find a wife is capped perfectly by his situation at the book’s end.

     The novel's Supporting Cast is more substantial than is usual for a speculative tale. Rahul is especially sympathetic. Captain of industry Arjun Malhotra and fading actress Aishwarya Kapoor make for good antagonists. Dr. Iyer, whose determination to hold onto her dead daughter Aanya kicks off the action, deserves mention as well.

     The gods depicted are just ambiguous enough. Are they “real?” One of them takes umbrage at the suggestion that they aren’t. But is their reality human-contrived, sustained solely by the beliefs and prayers of worshippers? Unclear! And what of still higher gods? Without the prayers of millions of Hindu faithful, would they exist at all?

     The resolution will stun anyone, regardless of which theocosmogony he was reared in. Yet it is entirely appropriate.

     I can’t praise this book highly enough. It’s the best tale I’ve read in years. If it faces an obstacle for achieving a wide and admiring readership, it would only be the profusion of Hindi terms. An American reader who wants full value for the experience would be advised to read it at his computer, so that he can Google the unfamiliar terms as he encounters them.

     Yet this is the author's first novel! What on Earth -- or off it -- could she do in a second one?

     Highly and unreservedly recommended!