Alif the Unseen starts out as a very different book from the one it ends up being. The first few chapters are in the realist mode, telling us about the Arab-Indian hacker Alif and how he provides security services for clients who want to evade surveillance. The story includes compelling details about life in a Persian Gulf state (cell phone shops with their names in Tamil; marriage certificates printed from the Internet as cover for having sex; why low-class girls who wear a veil are considered "uppity") and reasonable programming details.
However, the book takes a significant turn once Alif comes under suspicion from the State. Before you know it, he's on the run with wise-cracking jinns and building elaborate metaphorical computer programs that make no sense. The realism turns on a dime into cartoonish action, with the kind of "clever" dialog and plotting that I'd expect in a young adult novel or Dean Koontz book.
The author has an ambitious plan in Alif the Unseen. First of all, she is a Westerner trying to write an Eastern book -- something one of the characters suggests has never been done. She also wants to explore how the new online world relates to social change, and how cyberspace is similar to the unseen world of the jinn. In my opinion, though, she fails to meld these ideas into a coherent style. The book-cover comparisons to Philip Pullman, Neil Gaiman, and Neal Stephenson are overly generous.
However, the book takes a significant turn once Alif comes under suspicion from the State. Before you know it, he's on the run with wise-cracking jinns and building elaborate metaphorical computer programs that make no sense. The realism turns on a dime into cartoonish action, with the kind of "clever" dialog and plotting that I'd expect in a young adult novel or Dean Koontz book.
The author has an ambitious plan in Alif the Unseen. First of all, she is a Westerner trying to write an Eastern book -- something one of the characters suggests has never been done. She also wants to explore how the new online world relates to social change, and how cyberspace is similar to the unseen world of the jinn. In my opinion, though, she fails to meld these ideas into a coherent style. The book-cover comparisons to Philip Pullman, Neil Gaiman, and Neal Stephenson are overly generous.
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