Welcome to the Blog Tour for Idolatry, a recently released speculative book by Aditya Sudarshan. I’m pretty picky about the blog tours I join, but when I read the description of Idolatry, I immediately knew I wanted to read it. Set in a near-future Mumbai, Idolatry imagines a world where religion has been completely reinvented by corporations using virtual reality and AI. It’s a subversive, irreverent look at religion and society told in a way I haven’t seen explored in sci-fi literature before.

Goodreads / Amazon

Synopsis:

A near future apocalyptic vision of the everyday in Mumbai, India featuring the threat of personal technology in a world of confusing religious motivations.

Idolatry, set in Mumbai in the near future, is about a novel technology, Shrine Tech, which enables everyone to worship a god of their own preference. The story follows a disaffected young actor, who is hired as a marketing rep by the company that owns the Tech. It is run by a man calling himself Mister Happy Maker. Soon, the young actor is plunged into the crucible of a society altering in strange and insane ways, in which ordinary individuals (a building society secretary, an indie film-maker, an aged priest, among others) are living their dreams, nightmarishly.

Review:

Idolatry‘s main character is Saionton, a young actor in Mumbai. Only, there aren’t a lot of acting jobs to go around anymore, other than advertisement jobs. When Saionton interviews for a position at Shrine Tech, it’s not exactly the job he was hoping for. Instead of an acting position, it’s more of a marketing job. Shrine Tech has completely commercialized and revolutionized religion in India. The technology allows people to envision and create their perfect god using a technology similar to AI or virtual reality. People who can afford their own Shrine Tech machines do so. Poorer neighborhoods or groups of families share a machine. With Shrine Tech, your god can take any form you want it to – it can look like the gods you previously worshiped, like your current crush, or like your favorite celebrity.

The story that unfurls around Saionton and Shrine Tech is poignant, fascinating, and wholly unique. Most of all, Sudarshan’s voice shines throughout. If you’re looking for a fresh take on the speculative genre with a heavy religious twist, Idolatry is the book for you!

About the Author:

Aditya Sudarshan is a Mumbai-based fiction writer. His books include A Nice Quiet Holiday and Show Me A Hero. He is also the author of a number of produced plays, including The Green Room, winner of the Hindu Metroplus Playwright Award for 2011. He writes political satire for NDTV’s The Great Indian Tamasha and literary criticism for The Hindu Literary Review.

Huge thanks to Random Things Tours and Anne Cater for inviting me to participate in this blog tour and to Flame Tree Press and Aditya Sudarshan for providing me an ARC of Idolatry for review.

Challenges:

#COYER