A review by meshell
The Jinn-Bot of Shantiport by Samit Basu
adventurous
funny
lighthearted
4.0
I loved this book, and I'd also love to read more in the world of Shantiport and Moku if I could.
There is a touch of the absurd in this book, or perhaps a lot of absurd. It's silly, and funny, and tense, and mysterious. I enjoyed the journey and the main characters, flaws and all. When books bill themselves as murderbot-ish I usually find that they fall flat (Murderbot from Martha Well's fantastic series is a gem), but there was genuinely something murderbot-esque about this, in a very good, and unique way - beyond the idea of bam here is a sarcastic death robot, or here is a human robot clone doing things - it had meaningful connections with people and other individuals, it was funny, it had villains, mysterious people, and sometimes robots that just don't know what's going on.
But it also had a richly described external world, a Jinn(bot) which was its own fun romp - especially if you have any familiarity with Jinn in Arabian mythology. And full of family drama, love, betrayal and more.
Thank you to the publisher and netgalley for the e-galley and letting me read this one early.
There is a touch of the absurd in this book, or perhaps a lot of absurd. It's silly, and funny, and tense, and mysterious. I enjoyed the journey and the main characters, flaws and all. When books bill themselves as murderbot-ish I usually find that they fall flat (Murderbot from Martha Well's fantastic series is a gem), but there was genuinely something murderbot-esque about this, in a very good, and unique way - beyond the idea of bam here is a sarcastic death robot, or here is a human robot clone doing things - it had meaningful connections with people and other individuals, it was funny, it had villains, mysterious people, and sometimes robots that just don't know what's going on.
But it also had a richly described external world, a Jinn(bot) which was its own fun romp - especially if you have any familiarity with Jinn in Arabian mythology. And full of family drama, love, betrayal and more.
Thank you to the publisher and netgalley for the e-galley and letting me read this one early.