When most writers look to the future, they envision it in terms of western society. Either the Americans or occasionally the Europeans (though less commonly in recent decades) have either launched themselves successfully into a space-faring future o are logical extrapolations of current trends and concerns. India itself has fragmented into a number of smaller countries along cultural, geographic and religious boundaries, reminiscent of the situation before the British unified it.

Most of the action takes place in Bharat on the Ganges, the capital of which is the holy city of Varanasi. The borders are unsettled. Water is the issue. The monsoon is three years overdue and the dam between Bharat and Awadhi is of strategic importance. Whoever controls the dam, controls the water supply to Bharat.

AI (aeai) technology has developed to a point that most routine tasks involving machines, from household cleaners to fighter aircraft and factory robots are controlled by them. However, the fear of machine intelligence outstripping that of the human race has lead to edicts banning machines with a high IQ. Mr Nandha is a Krishna cop.

He leads a squad that destroys illegal aeais and any that have gone rogue. He and his team suspect there is at least one GenThree aeai on the loose in Bharat, as the country is one of the few where the research is not banned, even if it is controlled. Mr Nandha is one of ten characters whose lives are drawn together over the short period of time described in this novel.

Shiv is a victim of the advances in technology. He is not a particularly nice person. We meet him first on the banks of the Ganges just after he has harvested some ovaries for sale on the black market. Unfortunately, the bottom has just dropped out of the market due to the perfection of the technique for producing stem cells from any cell in the body. Almost immediately, he finds his debts being called in.

Tal is a willing victim of technology. Yt is now a member of the third sex, a nute. Drastic surgery has re-sculptured Yt's body into a beautiful, ethereal creature. Most people regard the few normal men who are attracted to them as perverts. So Tal is manoeuvred into an entrapment situation with Shaheen Badoor Khan, the Muslim advisor to Bharat's Prime Minister, Sajida Rana.

Tal is also a designer on the soap programme, ‘Town And Country’. The soap is watched daily by a very large section of the population and is in a position to influence ideas and fashions. It is created virtually and the characters are played by virtual actors adding another layer to the technology that invades everyone's life.

The Americans have not been forgotten and the larger picture of this future is not ignored. The United States is far more insular than now, but they still have a space industry. Lisa Durnau is taken up to view the strange object they have found in the heart of an ancient asteroid. They are not quite sure what it is, but it has generated three images: her face and those of her old tutor/lover Thomas Lull and that of an unknown woman. Lisa is sent to find Lull who has secreted himself away in Bharat.

Along with the political turmoil in this part of India, there are also commercial manoeuvrings. The owner of Ray Power, the organisation that provides most of the electricity for the country, has decided to hand over his empire to his three sons. Vishram, who gets the Research and Development section is not happy.

He has been snatched away from his chance of being a stand-up comedian, but with resignation decides to make the best of it, especially if it means denying his older brother the opportunity to control everything.

These seemingly disparate strands are slowly brought together. Even when they are not aware of it, they influence each other and what seems at first to be a random pattern, begins to make sense. The one constant is the River Ganges and the concern about water. This future and this novel have been carefully constructed. The setting is an extremely believable extrapolation and the ideas within it, thought-provoking.

It would be a cliché to say that all human life is here, but this is India and it is, as well as other sentient life in the form of the GenThree aeais. McDonald's India has much that is present now - high population, high hopes, vibrant life and colour. It would be a grave mistake for present politicians to forget the country. It also be a mistake for SF writers to do the same. India will be an important influence in our future.

Ian McDonald continues to outdo himself with each novel he writes.

Pauline Morgan