Beyond the blue by Sukanya Datta
Rupa & Co. Pages: 201. Price: Rs. 195/-
The very term “science fiction” conjures up images of mind-zonking action involving inter-galactic conflicts, futuristic gizmos, and super-intelligent aliens with Achilles’ heels which our impossibly smart heroes/heroines are able to exploit in order to ward off impending perils. Actually, this ‘action-fiction’ belongs to sci-fi’s cyberpunk stream popularized by William Gibson. Writers in this genre like HG Wells, Edgar Rice Burroughs, and Aldous Huxley et al have become enduring household names. Right from Lucian of Samosata’s True History (approx 160 AD, that narrated a trip to the moon) the genre has spawned a corpus of variegated tales, viz., Thomas More’s Utopia, Jonathan Swift’s satirical Gulliver’s Travels, and in the post-industrial revolution scenario Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley’s Frankenstein (1818) explored the potential of science for good or evil. One detects shades of the last mentioned in Datta’s collection of fourteen short stories. For example, in the Completely Catswoman, an actress goes for designer genes to become physically more attractive, with tragic results. Then there’s the amusing A Good Breed wherein two boys try to make easy money by smuggling opium made from genetically modified poppy plants. The mystery thriller Beautiful and Armed revolves around the death of a wheeler-dealer that turns Lucky Shome into Sherlock Holmes.
However, that Datta is more a scientist than a fiction writer becomes evident from the rather copious scientific verbiage. Moreover, some of the tales, like Déjà Vu that has space journey as its plot, fail to conclude on a definitive and satisfying note. Nonetheless, this collection is bound to trigger off your imagination.
THE TRIBUNE
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