Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

The history of Indian science fiction

altermag.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

21–30 of 44 posts

Re: The history of Indian science fiction

#21

Post by adityaathalye »

s_Hogg wrote: post #17

Probably worth drawing this thread's attention to the debate over whether ancient Hindu texts mention nuclear weapons and atomic war. Up to the beholder whether that makes those texts sci-fi or not, I guess.

Every great culture, over the millennia has imagined great weapons and unlimited godlike destructive power. You could, as you are doing now, retrofit our narrative on any of those if you wish. Make your own sci-fi fantasy. Those texts are not.

Example:

Gotham Chopra did that with what is now Virgin Comics: https://liquidcomics.com/

See the gorgeous Ramayan 3392 A.D. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ramayan_3392_A.D.

Also see the film Cargo, which turns mythological narrative into a rather watchable space opera https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cargo_(2019_film)

Re: The history of Indian science fiction

#24

Post by adityaathalye »

abundanceitis wrote: post #18
tomhow wrote: post #38

[stub]

this looks like India's answer to Works In Progress

They reference Works in Progress in their "pitch us" page: https://altermag.com/pitch-us

Though I wouldn't say "India's answer to..." that's just lazy hyperbole. Give the magazine's makers credit, not some arbitrary national identity.

Works In Progress is a Stripe production. Alter Magazine is a production by a parent company "Alt Carbon". That's the similarity.

Re: The history of Indian science fiction

#25

Post by adityaathalye »

ping00 wrote: post #4

Added all of these to my Goodreads -- as an Indian, I had no idea that these books existed. Great article (with some really cool UI choices); I'm looking forward to reading more from this magazine! Thanks for sharing.

Ditto... several titles they listed were alien to me! And I had no idea about Rokeya.

Alas, these will have to wait a bit until my next book-funding cycle... I accidentally overdid some Diwali discount book shopping and have a slushpile of about forty scifi titles to work through, and a fiscal deficit to repair :sweat-smile: :D

That said, my extant slushpile has Sci-Fi by contemporary Indian / Indian-origin authors...

Lavanya Lakshminarayan's Interstellar Megachef (next up in the reading Q, along with the Strugatsky brothers).

And SB Divya's books:

  Read and enjoyed and will recommend:
  - Meru (very cool embodiment of beings, mythologically-inspired)

  To-read:
  - Loka
  - Machinehood
  - Contingency plans for the apocalypse
Post reply on HN