See the hottest books publishing this Summer

What do readers think of The Immortal King Rao by Vauhini Vara? Write your own review.

Summary | Reviews | More Information | More Books

The Immortal King Rao by Vauhini Vara

The Immortal King Rao

A Novel

by Vauhini Vara

  • Critics' Consensus (5):
  • Readers' Rating (22):
  • Published:
  • May 2022, 384 pages
  • Rate this book

About this book

Reviews

Page 2 of 3
There are currently 22 reader reviews for The Immortal King Rao
Order Reviews by:

Write your own review!

Lynn D. (Kingston, NY)

From India to Seattle
I recommend this book highly to science fiction fans. What happens when IT is unchecked and the Algorithm controls society? Technology that was designed to connect us and make us equals has led to greater divisiveness. And then there's Hothouse Earth as we failed to solve climate problems.
The contrast of King Rao poor youth in India with his large extended family with his success in high-tech Seattle is well done. I wish the other major characters had been more fully developed. There's plenty of satire here, too, which is fun.
Marion M. (Mishawaka, IN)

Not an Ordinary Book
Ordinarily, I would not read a dystopian book, but this is not an ordinary book. I was attracted to the title because of the technology and India connections. There are actually three tales in one that generally alternate from India to technology to dystopian society. All can be read separately as a stand alone, but read together the result is a complicated thoughtful novel that interweaves assorted societal issues: dalit (untouchable) caste, artificial intelligence, mental Internet, hothouse earth, intertwining of government and industry, social profiling, dissenters and demonstrators. One is left to wondermore
Patricia W. (Desoto, TX)

The Immortal King Rao
This is a thought-provoking story with timely treatments of climate change, economic systems, wealth disparity, resistance, and the influence of technology. Vara writes of a new government in which people of the world become "Shareholders" and build up social capital in corporations that replace the government. The new government derives from a computer company that is founded by a man that was born a Dalit in India and immigrated to the United States for graduate school. His early life in India is interspersed in the story. I found this story to be both fascinating and disturbing.
Randi H. (Bronx, NY)

The Immortal King Rao
The Immortal King Rao is seemingly about technology and how, in the future, tech has become the overarching world political authority. However, it is also about family relationships and how we are tethered to our family. I enjoyed the story of King Rao, a Dalit in India who becomes CEO of the global government before his downfall. Interspersed with his story is that of his daughter, Athena, who chafes at the ties holding her to her father.
Jill S. (Durham, NC)

Memories will endure
There was something déjà vu in reading The Immortal King Rao not long after finishing Jennifer Egan's Candy House. Both books, at their core, are about brilliant tech entrepreneurs who invent ways to gain access to every memory ever had.

Egan's version is a new technology called Own Your Unconscious – sharing every memory in exchange for access to others. Vara's version is an Internet-connected device called The Harmonica, which provides access to all memories. Both books present estranged citizens who have rejected the new way, called the "eluders" in Candy House and the "exes" in Immortal King Rao.

I am notmore
Helia R. (Goodlettsville, TN)

Too many themes to count
As much as I wanted to love this sprawling, inventive, and ambitious novel, it wasn't for me. It reads like five books rolled into one, and I found the frequent scene/time/story-line hopping exhausting to follow. By the time I got into the groove (and just went with it), the book ended.
There is so much brilliance and profound knowledge in this tale, but I wish the author had saved some of her ideas and characters for another book instead of cramming them all into this one.
Bonne O. (Hartwell, GA)

King Rao's New World Order
Initially, the story was tedious trying to follow two story lines over a half a century and keeping track of a large Indian families trials and tribulations. However, partway through the book significant parallels of King Rao's world and escalating current issues of today's world began to emerge. To solve all worlds' problems, the author presents sophisticated technological solutions, via King Rao. As a result, the various consequences to achieving a new world order can be unsettling. Anyone in the field of technology would be totally absorbed by this story.
Julie P. (Fort Myers, FL)

The Immortal King Rao
How to describe this debut? Is it dystopian fiction about biotechnological innovation? Is it historical fiction about a family in newly independent India in the 1950s? Or is it science fiction about a new world order where citizens are shareholders? It's a back and forth mish-mash of all three, at times confusing, with the author constantly throwing more characters into the mix. Much of the book is about King Rao's childhood on an Indian coconut plantation, intermingled with his later creation of a personal computer, the Coconut (Apple?), which changes how the world is governed. Can this technology lead to themore
  • Page
  • 1
  • 2
  • 3

More Information

Read-Alikes

BookBrowse Book Club

  • Book Jacket
    The Ghostwriter
    by Julie Clark
    From the instant New York Times bestselling author of The Last Flight and The Lies I Tell comes a dazzling new thriller.

Members Recommend

  • Book Jacket

    Erased
    by Anna Malaika Tubbs

    In Erased, Anna Malaika Tubbs recovers all that American patriarchy has tried to destroy.

  • Book Jacket

    Songs of Summer
    by Jane L. Rosen

    A young woman crashes a Fire Island wedding to find her birth mother—and gets more than she bargained for.

Who Said...

Show me the books he loves and I shall know the man...

Click Here to find out who said this, as well as discovering other famous literary quotes!

Wordplay

Solve this clue:

B a L

and be entered to win..

Your guide toexceptional          books

BookBrowse seeks out and recommends the best in contemporary fiction and nonfiction—books that not only engage and entertain but also deepen our understanding of ourselves and the world around us.