I grew up in a small farming village in the middle of Illinois. Outside of my small town, we were surrounded by fields of corn or soybeans, whatever was in rotation. Our big trips was to the capital city of Illinois, Springfield. It’s population of, roughly, 100,000 people was huge to me. While I loved growing up there surrounded by family, my mind was always elsewhere. Often, not on Earth. Any of my aunts or uncles can tell you I was always imagining things, and a portion of my imagination was always elsewhere. Science fiction and fantasy provided exotic elsewheres that couldn’t be found on Earth. But on the few occasions where I traveled to places like St. Louis or Chicago, I found an even more exotic location, the big city. Despite my small town roots, I enjoyed the city because it wasn’t just flat. There were layers upon layers. It felt like a science fiction setting to me. Even though that feeling wore off very quickly in the real world, that feeling, that sense of wonder and possibility, stuck with me through science fiction and fantasy stories. Whether the streets of Jeff Vandermeer’s Ambergris or China Miéville’s New Crobuzon or Catherine Valente’s Palimpsest, I love a good city setting. In The Jinn-Bot of Shantiport by Samit Basu, I had that same sense of wonder as Lina and her brother Bador explore and adventure in the lovely city of Shantiport. This is a city that I want to visit again.
Disclaimer: The publisher provided a copy of this book in exchange for an honest review. Any and all opinions that follow are mine alone.
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TL;DR
The Jinn-Bot of Shantiport by Samit Basu is a fun adventure set in a wonderful science fiction city. Highly recommended.
From the Publisher
From international bestseller Samit Basu, The Jinn-Bot of Shantiport is an exuberant new sci-fi adventure with heart that reads like a mash-up of “Aladdin” and Murderbot—with gloriously chaotic results
Shantiport was supposed to be a gateway to the stars. But the city is sinking, and its colonist rulers aren’t helping anyone but themselves.
Lina, a daughter of failed revolutionaries, has no desire to escape Shantiport. She loves her city and would do anything to save its people. This is, in fact, the plan for her life, made before she was even born.
Her brother, Bador, is a small monkey bot with a big attitude and bigger ambitions. He wants a chance to leave this dead-end planet and explore the universe on his own terms. But that would mean abandoning the family he loves—even if they do take him for granted.
When Shantiport’s resident tech billionaire coerces Lina into retrieving a powerful artifact rumored to be able to reshape reality, forces from before their time begin coalescing around the siblings. And when you throw in a piece of sentient, off-world tech with the ability to grant three wishes into the mix… None of the city’s powers will know what hit them.
Review: The Jinn-Bot of Shantiport by Samit Basu
Tiger clan currently rules Shantiport, and they are in a three way power struggle with gangster Paneera and tech billionaire Shakun Antim. Tiger clan keeps close surveillance of the whole city, and extra special attention gets paid to Lina, Bador, and their mother. Zohra, mother to Lina and Bador, is a descendant of the once ruling clan, Elephant, and she married a member of the Tiger clan, Darkak. When they were young, Darkak and Zohra were idealists who sought to better the city and the plight of the people in it. However, Darkak disappeared one day and is presumed dead. That doesn’t stop Tiger clan from believing he betrayed them and that his family will also betray them. Lina and Bador have been raised to be careful, to be seen as good citizens. But they are as rebellious as their parents. Bador dreams of being a champion in a bot fighting tournament run by the gangster Paneera. He dreams of this because he is also a bot who currently wears the form of a monkey. Lina is a full human, and she has plans within plans. She has learned to adopt different faces to show the outside world in order to accomplish her goals. When Lina tricks her way into the graces of the son of Tiger clan’s ruler, she enters into a game of power that she’s not quite prepared for. Connected to it all is their father and the mystery of what happened to him.
The Jinn-Bot of Shantiport by Samit Basu is a first person point of view novel that follows Lina and Bador on their adventures through Shantiport. The main point of view is a hover bot whose purpose is to document the life of its user, and it’s chosen to accept Lina and Bador as its users. The book is a bit slow paced at first. The mysteries, characters, and world-building kept me glued to the page. Shantiport is a city that I’d like to return to.
Lina and Bador
Lina is fully human. Bador is a bot designed and created by his and Lina’s parents. They act throughout the book as siblings, and it’s great. Basu does a wonderful job depicting the complexities of the sibling relationship. At times they fight; other times they help each other. Small slights get blown up. They each vie for their parents affection and attention. Added to all this is the layer of Bador being a bot. He has a chip on his shoulder that he is treated differently because he’s a bot. This reminded me of every sibling argument about who the favorite was. I loved it.
These two are great characters, and at first it seems like their goals are different. Early in the novel, Bador notes that he fights for bot rights while his sister fights for human rights. This is an oversimplification of their respective goals, but it’s a good example of how they feel as if they’re working at cross purposes. But in the end they’re family because at its heart, The Jinn-Bot of Shantiport by Samit Basu is telling the story of their family.
Shantiport
I loved the setting of Shantiport. It combines the dystopian feel of far future science fiction cities with fun elements not usually given to dystopian settings. There’s a Kaiju versus giant robot battle in the beginning of the book. That by itself makes it a special setting. Basu doesn’t stop there, though. Shantiport has a lived in feel to it that extends to both bots and humans. There’s an entire neighborhood that was abandoned by humans and taken over by bots. In what we see, it’s a place of fighting, and a place of their own. The Tiger’s live in a palace. The buildings float as the rain floods the city. Plazas become lakes. Lower class citizens will scavenge in the mud for tech to sell. That’s where Bador finds the narrator bot. Lina works for a tour company. And surveillance is a constant that hovers at the back of people’s minds. Of course, with more privilege comes less surveillance. But cameras are everywhere; as are bot enforcers. Shantiport is a city that needs to be explored.
It would be amazing to see it come to life. I don’t know if a movie or TV series would do the setting justice or if a video game would be best. First, I pictured a Blade Runner type of setting with Indian influences mixed with the ecological disaster of flooding and sinking into the mud. Then I began to think of some of the artwork from Cyberpunk: 2077 with an Indian stylization. There are plenty of artists out there who could bring this lovely city to life.
The Narrator Bot
I have a confession to make. I almost didn’t read this book. For the first four pages, it reads like a third person point of view over Bador’s shoulder. It isn’t until the fourth page that I learned the narrator is another bot. I was so confused, and I almost quit. Because this was a review book, I started over, and I’m very glad I did. Because the narrator bot has an interesting journey in this book. At first, I believed the bot when it said its purpose was to monitor and record its user’s life. It’s a sort of persistent journal/vlog. As the story grows, so does the narrator bot. It changes beyond what the reader assumes its functions to be. Since this bot was found by Bador in the mud where its memory was erased, it’s difficult to say whether the changes were inevitable or if they came about through contact with Lina and Bador.
Being in the narrator bot’s head while it grew and changed drove as much of the story for me as the other aspects. Basu portions out these changes in the beginning until at one point the narrator bot is confronting Bador. The narrator bots journey added an extra layer to the story that I didn’t expect but was pleasantly pleased by.
Conclusion
Samit Basu’s The Jinn-Bot of Shantiport was an unexpected delight. Despite the rocky start, I dove into the book and loved it. Shantiport is an excellent setting that I wish to return to, and Lina, Bador, and Narrator Bot are characters that I want to meet again. Basu has given readers a treat, and I highly recommend you give this book a read. You won’t be disappointed.
The Jinn-Bot of Shantiport by Samit Basu is available from Tor.com on October 3rd, 2023.
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