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A review by tony_from_work
The Immortal King Rao by Vauhini Vara
4.5
While there were some parts of "The Immortal King Rao" that didn't totally land for me, the parts that did land riveted me more than any new novel I've read in several years.
This is a complicated book, and it's hard to summarize in an elevator pitch. But it basically tells the multigenerational story of King Rao, a talented Dalit boy born into a large family on a coconut plantation in Southern India, who emigrates to the US, becomes a tech pioneer, and ends up massively altering the course of human history through his innovations. The book is narrated from the future by Rao's daughter, whose brain has been altered by her father to both connect to the internet and contain a cache of all her father's memories. The story jumps between roughly three time periods: King Rao's youth in India, King Rao's ascent through the US tech world with his wife and collaborator, and the adventures of King Rao's daughter in a dystopian/utopian future. See? Hard to describe. And that was a very superficial summary of this cornucopia of a book, which can barely contain all it has to say.
"The Immortal King Rao" is about the myths of meritocracy and "Great Men," the different meanings and uses of capital across cultures and classes, the relationship between humanity and technology, and the role of memory in the individual and society. With all these Big Ideas and all this plot, it would be easy to assume "The Immortal King Rao" is dry, academic, or pretentious. For the vast majority of the book, nothing could be further from the truth. This book is driven by feeling and passion. The characters are vivid, and the storytelling is tight and purposeful. Most of the world-building is delivered organically with incredible economy, and despite a zillion things to keep track of, I was never confused. Most importantly, I couldn't put it down. The split timeline is deployed brilliantly, and the information revealed and withheld in each thread complicates and deepens the others.
I said there were parts that didn't totally land for me. Unfortunately, there is a patch in the third quarter of the book that doesn't live up to the standard it set for itself. For a while, summary replaces scene, exposition dumps replace drama, and the political allegories become too on-the-nose. You'll notice it when you get there. It comes off a little bit like a Wikipedia entry on an alternate history mixed with a series of ham-fisted stand-ins for contemporary figures in pop culture, politics, and technology. That being said, the book is never bad. This weakest section is kind of par for the course in contemporary speculative fiction. But amidst so much brilliance, it sticks out for indulging in the lazier impulses that the rest of the book deftly avoids.
Luckily, "The Immortal King Rao" recovers, and the last quarter returns to the intimate and thoughtful tone established in the first half. I wish I had nothing negative to say at all, because I really, truly, loved this book. It's full of beautiful vignettes that could almost stand alone as short stories, and everything builds to an insightful and nuanced portrait of how when one person appears to change the world, they really exist at a complicated nexus of history, culture, family, science, and money. You should read it!
This is a complicated book, and it's hard to summarize in an elevator pitch. But it basically tells the multigenerational story of King Rao, a talented Dalit boy born into a large family on a coconut plantation in Southern India, who emigrates to the US, becomes a tech pioneer, and ends up massively altering the course of human history through his innovations. The book is narrated from the future by Rao's daughter, whose brain has been altered by her father to both connect to the internet and contain a cache of all her father's memories. The story jumps between roughly three time periods: King Rao's youth in India, King Rao's ascent through the US tech world with his wife and collaborator, and the adventures of King Rao's daughter in a dystopian/utopian future. See? Hard to describe. And that was a very superficial summary of this cornucopia of a book, which can barely contain all it has to say.
"The Immortal King Rao" is about the myths of meritocracy and "Great Men," the different meanings and uses of capital across cultures and classes, the relationship between humanity and technology, and the role of memory in the individual and society. With all these Big Ideas and all this plot, it would be easy to assume "The Immortal King Rao" is dry, academic, or pretentious. For the vast majority of the book, nothing could be further from the truth. This book is driven by feeling and passion. The characters are vivid, and the storytelling is tight and purposeful. Most of the world-building is delivered organically with incredible economy, and despite a zillion things to keep track of, I was never confused. Most importantly, I couldn't put it down. The split timeline is deployed brilliantly, and the information revealed and withheld in each thread complicates and deepens the others.
I said there were parts that didn't totally land for me. Unfortunately, there is a patch in the third quarter of the book that doesn't live up to the standard it set for itself. For a while, summary replaces scene, exposition dumps replace drama, and the political allegories become too on-the-nose. You'll notice it when you get there. It comes off a little bit like a Wikipedia entry on an alternate history mixed with a series of ham-fisted stand-ins for contemporary figures in pop culture, politics, and technology. That being said, the book is never bad. This weakest section is kind of par for the course in contemporary speculative fiction. But amidst so much brilliance, it sticks out for indulging in the lazier impulses that the rest of the book deftly avoids.
Luckily, "The Immortal King Rao" recovers, and the last quarter returns to the intimate and thoughtful tone established in the first half. I wish I had nothing negative to say at all, because I really, truly, loved this book. It's full of beautiful vignettes that could almost stand alone as short stories, and everything builds to an insightful and nuanced portrait of how when one person appears to change the world, they really exist at a complicated nexus of history, culture, family, science, and money. You should read it!