Victory City

By Salman Rushdie,

Book cover of Victory City

Book description

She will whisper an empire into existence - but all stories have a way of getting away from their creators . . .

'A total pleasure'
SUNDAY TIMES

'Shows once again why his work will always matter'
NEW YORK TIMES

'Rushdie still has the gift of alchemy'
FINANCIAL TIMES

In…

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Why read it?

3 authors picked Victory City as one of their favorite books. Why do they recommend it?

I liked the insight into Vijayanagara, the real empire located in present day Karnataka, India that Rushdie fictionalizes in his magic realism fable. The character of Pampa Campana, the 250-year-old queen who never ages, is a proxy for the kingdom that lasted for that same amount of time from the 14-16th centuries. There are stories within stories here, exposing all the travails of medieval empires, replete with conspiracies, uprisings, internal turf-battles, colonizers, assassinations, and border wars between the Hindus and the Moghuls. A must read for someone trying to understand the multi-faced fabric of Indian history. It is also a…

I rarely re-read books, but Salman Rushdie’s Victory City will be the exception. It is a feast of magic, humor, exotic locations, goddesses, dynastic conflict, and wars of conquest.

Love and betrayal, tolerance, and bigotry compete as the story travels through two and a half centuries of the life of one woman. Favored by a goddess, she becomes the creator of a great kingdom, speaks with the goddess’s voice, and carries her magic through her long life.

In recounting the rise and fall of Victory City, its heroes, and destroyers, Rushdie lays out a magic carpet ride for his readers.…

I’m embarrassed to admit that, despite all the accolades heaped upon him over the years, I’d never read anything by Salmon Rushdie, but reading Victory City made it clear that all those accolades were well-earned.

It’s a spellbinding mix of history and fantasy, emotional reality, and Indian mythology, written by an author who is a born storyteller, a sorcerer of the printed page.

This book touched me, delighted me, and awed me. A masterful, magical novel.

Victoria Unveiled

By Shane Joseph,

Book cover of Victoria Unveiled

Shane Joseph Author Of Victoria Unveiled

New book alert!

Why am I passionate about this?

Author

Shane's 3 favorite reads in 2024

What is my book about?

A fast-paced literary thriller with a strong sci-fi element and loaded with existential questions. Beyond the entertainment value, this book takes a hard look at the perilous world of publishing, which is on a crash course to meet the nascent, no-holds-barred world of AI. Could these worlds co-exist, or will they destroy each other? And more importantly, how will humans tolerate their own creations, the robots, on this planet?

In this, his latest speculative fiction novel, Shane Joseph, returns to the “what if” questions facing humanity that he raised in After the Flood, a book that won him the…

Victoria Unveiled

By Shane Joseph,

What is this book about?

With Chatbots and Large Language Models changing the world of writing and publishing dramatically, what happens when we introduce a sentient robot capable of feelings into the mix?

Phil Kruger, inventor, and serial womanizer, believes he has the answer in his creation, Victoria, the first sentient robot in the world, imbued with beauty, knowledge, and strength and on a crash course to acquire human feelings through massive infusions of data. Arrayed against him are independent trade publisher Artemius (Art) Jones and his rebellious and sexually starved daughter, Paula, an editor herself, who is determined to take her father's failing press,…


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