Science-fiction books from India?

February 12, 2016 12:13 AM

Hi guys, does anyone have recommendations for titles or authors to discover Indian "sci-fi" books or authors?

I loved the Three Body Problem, which to me seemed like sci-fi from a Chinese perspective, I love Stanislaw Lem for his east-european outlook and recently had an afro-futurism period... Now I'm curious, is there an "Indian" Three Body Problem / Lagoon / Solaris out there?

posted by gmm to Society & Culture (14 answers total)

It's a short story collection rather than a novel, but check out The Woman who Thought She was a Planet by Vandana Singh
posted by kbuxton at 12:33 AM on February 12, 2016

Amitav Ghosh's Calcutta Chromosome?
posted by tavegyl at 1:11 AM on February 12, 2016

Ian McDonald is British, but he wrote two books set in a future India: River of Gods (which won a British Science Fiction Association award) and Cyberabad Days (a collection of short stories and a novella).
posted by neushoorn at 1:43 AM on February 12, 2016

While not strictly sci-fi, you should definitely check out Sunil Patel - I suggest either The Merger, and Marcie's Waffles Are The Best In Town as starting points.

In the interest of transparency, Sunil has been a friend for the last 15 years, but has nothing to do with this recommendation - I just think he's a wonderful author.
posted by cerulgalactus at 2:39 AM on February 12, 2016

Samit Basu's Turbulence is a fun superhero novel.
posted by yarntheory at 5:02 AM on February 12, 2016

Somewhat dated, and not really hard SF, but Professor Shonku adventures by Satyajit Ray.
posted by Dotty at 6:49 AM on February 12, 2016

Strange Horizons had this roundtable a couple of years ago, which I vaguely remembered but have not read in detail.

I am absolutely desperate to read Indrapramit Das's novel The Devourers, which is fantasy but, uh, fantasy is sort of connected to SF in the popular imagination?

This is a great question! I am going to share these recommendations with my SF class.
posted by Frowner at 7:12 AM on February 12, 2016

Also, I love The Woman Who Thought She Was A Planet. Just wonderful stuff.
posted by Frowner at 7:12 AM on February 12, 2016

Someone on Quora asked the same thing!
posted by mrmanvir at 7:14 AM on February 12, 2016

Are you looking for "Indian" as in southern Asia, or are you looking for "Indian" as in Native American or indigenous fiction?
posted by yohko at 1:48 PM on February 12, 2016

India the nation, primarly, but all of SE Asia is interesting too. Am not ignoring you, Americas, just, currently curious about India. Awesome answers so far!
posted by gmm at 3:08 PM on February 12, 2016

It's no longer updated, but you could check out the World SF Blog, edited by Lavie Tidhar and originally set up to promote a short story collection, now in four volumes, the Apex Book of World SF - I've only read the second volume which was pretty good. Looks like the 3rd and 4th have a bunch of authors from India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka...
posted by Pink Frost at 5:37 PM on February 12, 2016

Nilanjana Roy's The Wildings is an incredible book about a band of stray cats living in New Delhi.

The 3 anthologies of Blaft's Tamil Pulp Fiction feature some suitably over-the-top (but excellent) pulpy science fiction.

Seconding Ghosh's Calcutta Chromosome and Basu's Turbulence.

A few comic book recommendations:

The work of Sarnath Bannerjee might be of interest- weird, fantasy-esque comics set in modern Indian cities.

The Art of Charlie Chan Hock Chye is a comic book about a speculative history of SF/F comics from Singapore. It's hard to describe, but is easily one of the best comics I've ever read.
posted by beijingbrown at 1:17 AM on February 13, 2016

Thank you so much everyone, this is wonderful. I've marked all the answers as best, because you guys are the best.
posted by gmm at 2:00 AM on February 15, 2016