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| (Cover Artist: Elena Romenkova) |
A review I wrote of Nikhil Singh's novel Dakini Atoll is currently up in the most recent edition of Strange Horizons. This book was a very complex and fascinating story that skips between several different interconnected narratives, all of which are ultimately woven together into a work exploring themes of mass media and the nature of human awareness.
The main storyline follows an actress named Delilah Lex, who as the novel opens realizes she has become trapped within the simulated reality of the television program she currently stars in (a virtual TV show called "Good Morning Delilah!"). However, this surreal narrative is also interspersed with the experiences of Anita--a corporate agent working for a quasi-religious organization called "Angelinc." There is also a storyline following a friend of Delilah's--a movie director named Fortunato who unexpectedly becomes drawn into an investigation of a mysterious global plague, as well as a subplot regarding a matriarchal island nation whose leadership is overthrown in a corporately sponsored coup that has seemingly been conducted by a non-sentient robot.
Like I wrote in the review, my impression of this book is that the eclectic nature of all of these narratives eventually became an expression of Dakini Atoll's core themes, with Singh using the disorienting nature of these storylines to further the book's larger examination of the nature of mass media, and (ultimately) the potential limitations of conscious thought. An excerpt from the review is below.
As these summaries probably demonstrate, Dakini Atoll jumps between dozens of outwardly unrelated narratives, to the point where at times the book resembles more an anthology of short stories than a singular novel. Rather than causing the resulting work to collapse under the combined weight of its many disparate plots, Singh writes all of these stories so that points of commonality emerge naturally as each story unfolds. All of the characters of Dakini Atoll, whether or not they realize it, are people shown to be trapped within restrictive systems they cannot fully perceive. Singh explores this theme by fragmenting even the reader’s perspective of this story and producing a work which often seems intended to evade complete apprehension.
While I wasn't familiar with Singh's other novels prior to reviewing this book, they are definitely an author whose stories I now want to read more of in the future. The full review which I wrote for Strange Horizons can be found on their site at this link.