Title: The City Inside
Author: Samit Basu
Release Date: 7 June 2022
How I Got It: borrowed from the library
Rating: 0 Stars, DNF

The City Inside by Samit Basu sounds like it should be made for me. Near-future scifi with a cyberpunk feel, set in a vaguely fascist India…? Totally up my alley! And yet, I have gotten through 3 hours of the 9 hour audio and I’m just bored. Generally speaking, I try to give books a good solid chance to pick up before I decide to DNF. Depending on the length of the book, somewhere around a quarter or a third or so. The City Inside is not a large book. It’s not that long. I’ve given it a full third to hold my interest, and yet!

The world-building and layering of details is impeccable. And I still think the general premise is intriguing. It focuses on an Indian woman named Joey in Delhi who is a “Reality Controller” — she creates and edits filmed streaming content. When Joey suddenly offers acquaintance Rudra, the outcast son of a wealthy family, a job to save him from an awkward situation, the two accidentally stumble across a tangled web of conspiracies that could destroy their lives. This is a great premise! This should work for me! (Also, the cover art is PHENOMENAL!)

But it feels like almost non-stop exposition. A full third of the way through the book and I feel like NOTHING has happened. Certainly nothing to keep my curiosity or interest in any real sense. And, frankly, very large portions of the book (premise, character, and plot) feel like knock-offs of large parts of Moxyland by Lauren Beukes, and Snow Crash by Neal Stephenson, with a bit of Mona Lisa Overdrive by William Gibson thrown in for good measure.

This book might appeal to others. Maybe a gateway drug to more solid cyberpunk novels (like the three mentioned above). But honestly, my free time is at a premium and there are far too many books on my TBR pile to bother trying to slog through this one if it’s boring me this much. So, time to move on.

Verdict: DID NOT FINISH.