The newsletter Words for Worlds by Gautam Bhatia revealed a big lacuna in my bookshelf: science fiction. While I enjoy the genre, my acquaintance with it is woeful. So I tried to read more sci-fi this year. I’m glad I did because the two books I began with, The Three-Body Problem by Liu Cixin and The Calcutta Chromosome by Amitav Ghosh, were my most delectable reads of 2022.
The novels are similar in some ways. They have plots so electrifying, I often sacrificed my sleep to gorge on the next reveal. The worlds they built possessed my imagination and expanded the bounds of credulity. Both hark back to historical events and trace how they shape the present and future. And both have detractors aplenty — many reviews point to their poor character development. While I concur, I did not mind it because I was enraptured by their plots and intricate fictional universes.
In Cixin’s novel, nanotech engineer Wang Miao witnesses disturbing phenomena that seemingly have no explanation and contradict scientific laws. The mysterious deaths of scientists hint at a sophisticated conspiracy that governments across the world have united to investigate. As Miao infiltrates ‘Frontiers of Science’, a group that might be linked to the deaths, he comes across a virtual reality game. It is set on a planet where sudden temperature extremes extinguish civilisations and kill inhabitants who fail to ‘dehydrate’ in time. Players try to figure out patterns behind the chaotic climate.
What Miao eventually uncovers is far more horrific than the spooky incidents he initially encountered and has dire consequences that will unfold over centuries. If this intrigues you, dive into the book without reading any reviews, for most are generously laced with spoilers.
The Calcutta Chromosome has the most intriguing fusion of the scientific and supernatural that I have come across. It features the Nobel Laureate Ronald Ross, who established that mosquitoes transmit malaria. But Ghosh suggests that Ross might just be a pawn in the hands of a cult leading him to the “discovery” to achieve loftier goals. Flitting between colonial India, the 1990s, and an unspecified time in the future, it ties up characters across countries and timescales in unexpected ways. Horror and mystery jump aboard the sci-fi wagon to arrive at a thrilling, if perplexing, crescendo.
Syed Saad Ahmed is a writer and communications professional.
The newsletter Words for Worlds by Gautam Bhatia revealed a big lacuna in my bookshelf: science fiction. While I enjoy the genre, my acquaintance with it is woeful. So I tried to read more sci-fi this year. I’m glad I did because the two books I began with, The Three-Body Problem by Liu Cixin and The Calcutta Chromosome by Amitav Ghosh, were my most delectable reads of 2022.
The novels are similar in some ways. They have plots so electrifying, I often sacrificed my sleep to gorge on the next reveal. The worlds they built possessed my imagination and expanded the bounds of credulity. Both hark back to historical events and trace how they shape the present and future. And both have detractors aplenty — many reviews point to their poor character development. While I concur, I did not mind it because I was enraptured by their plots and intricate fictional universes.
In Cixin’s novel, nanotech engineer Wang Miao witnesses disturbing phenomena that seemingly have no explanation and contradict scientific laws. The mysterious deaths of scientists hint at a sophisticated conspiracy that governments across the world have united to investigate. As Miao infiltrates ‘Frontiers of Science’, a group that might be linked to the deaths, he comes across a virtual reality game. It is set on a planet where sudden temperature extremes extinguish civilisations and kill inhabitants who fail to ‘dehydrate’ in time. Players try to figure out patterns behind the chaotic climate.
What Miao eventually uncovers is far more horrific than the spooky incidents he initially encountered and has dire consequences that will unfold over centuries. If this intrigues you, dive into the book without reading any reviews, for most are generously laced with spoilers.
The Calcutta Chromosome has the most intriguing fusion of the scientific and supernatural that I have come across. It features the Nobel Laureate Ronald Ross, who established that mosquitoes transmit malaria. But Ghosh suggests that Ross might just be a pawn in the hands of a cult leading him to the “discovery” to achieve loftier goals. Flitting between colonial India, the 1990s, and an unspecified time in the future, it ties up characters across countries and timescales in unexpected ways. Horror and mystery jump aboard the sci-fi wagon to arrive at a thrilling, if perplexing, crescendo.
Syed Saad Ahmed is a writer and communications professional.