Writing

NOVELS

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DEVOURERS - cover

THE DEVOURERS

 

For readers of Neil Gaiman, Margaret Atwood, China Miéville, and David Mitchell comes a striking debut novel by a storyteller of keen insight and captivating imagination.

NAMED ONE OF THE BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR BY THE WASHINGTON POST

On a cool evening in Kolkata, India, beneath a full moon, as the whirling rhythms of traveling musicians fill the night, college professor Alok encounters a mysterious stranger with a bizarre confession and an extraordinary story. Tantalized by the man’s unfinished tale, Alok will do anything to hear its completion. So Alok agrees, at the stranger’s behest, to transcribe a collection of battered notebooks, weathered parchments, and once-living skins.

From these documents spills the chronicle of a race of people at once more than human yet kin to beasts, ruled by instincts and desires blood-deep and ages-old. The tale features a rough wanderer in seventeenth-century Mughal India who finds himself irrevocably drawn to a defiant woman named Cyrah—and destined to be torn asunder by two clashing worlds. With every passing chapter of beauty and brutality, Alok’s interest in the stranger grows and evolves into something darker and more urgent.

Shifting dreamlike between present and past with intoxicating language, visceral action, compelling characters, and stark emotion, The Devourers offers a reading experience quite unlike any other novel.

 

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THE NEW YORK TIMES BOOK REVIEW

N. K. Jemisin

“A chilling, gorgeous saga that spans several centuries and many lands . . . The all-too-human characters—including the nonhuman ones—and the dreamlike, recursive plot serve to entrance the reader. . . . There’s no escaping The Devourers. Readers will savor every bite.”

PUBLISHERS WEEKLY

Starred Review

“Das’s brutal, intoxicating, and gorgeously visceral debut merges an often mythic sensibility with an appreciation for the coarse beauty of the everyday.”

2015 SHAKTI BHATT FIRST BOOK PRIZE

Short-Listed, 2015

2017 LAMBDA LITERARY AWARD, BEST LGBTQ SF/F/HORROR

WINNER, 2017

2016 CRAWFORD AWARD

Short-Listed, 2016

  • It’s a beautifully imaged, richly felt flash of feeling and scene, capturing the adolescent head-rush joy-agony of first love so marvelously that it almost feels like the speculative element (the protagonist’s first love is capable of shattering the spacetime continuum and sending him dancing through time) might just as well be an expression of a young person’s euphoric hyperbolic way of seeing the world and experiencing emotion.
    Sam J. Miller, Nebula Award-nominated and Shirley Jackson Award-winning authoron 'Karina Who Kissed Spacetime'
  • Astonishing... A narrative that takes possession of you and pulls you along in its wake.
    M.R. Carey, author of The Girl With All the Gifts, and DC/Vertigo Comics' Luciferon 'The Devourers'
  • I like the prose here, the lyrical quality of some of the images. Rather than future-looking, it looks back at the past. The images of spacetime are less SFnal than a metaphor for the branching paths our lives must take, for asking ourselves in hindsight: would I have done the same, knowing the outcome? (RECOMMENDED)
    Lois Tilton, Locus Online on 'Karina Who Kissed Spacetime'
  • Set on a tidally locked planet where the frozen and eternally dark Nightside is slowly being explored--and conquered--by explorers from the Dayside, this is an evocative, sensitively characterized, and lyrically written story that reminds me of something by Gene Wolfe--no faint praise in my book.
    Gardner Dozois, Nebula Award-winning authoron 'Weep for Day'
  • This is an intense and thrilling novel spanning centuries of Indian life, injecting into that immense history a kind of under-story or inner story that casts a new light on everything we thought we knew. Das’s writing is powerful and precise, it grabs and propels you.  I’ll be looking forward to reading more by him.
    Kim Stanley Robinson, Hugo and Nebula Award-winning author of the Mars Trilogy and The Years of Rice and Salton 'The Devourers'
  • 'Weep for Day' was published in Asimov's, and is evidence, if anyone needs it, that Asimov's is still a leader in the field . . . The world is changing over the lifetimes of the characters and that gives the story an elegiac tone, and an underlying power.
    David G. Hartwell, editor of Year's Best SFon 'Weep for Day'

SHORT STORIES

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THE MOON IS NOT A BATTLEFIELD

INFINITY WARS (SOLARIS)
2017

Join Elizabeth Bear, Indrapramit Das, and more in an exploration of the furthest extremes of military science fiction…

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THE WORLDLESS

LIGHTSPEED MAGAZINE
2017

Every day NuTay watched the starship from their shack, selling satshine and sweet chai to wayfarers on their way to the stars.

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BREAKING WATER

TOR.COM
2016

Reprinted in The Year’s Best Weird Fiction (Undertow Publications, 2017) and nominated for the 2016 Shirley Jackson Award for Best Novelette.

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THE MUSES OF SHUYEDAN-18

ASIMOV’S SCIENCE FICTION MAGAZINE
2015

Published in the June 2015 edition of Asimov’s Science Fiction.

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PSYCHOPOMP

INTERFICTIONS ONLINE
2015

I look up at the godhead. The sand is white around my bare feet, a damp seal. There is no horizon . . .

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THE SUPPLICANT

BLink
2015

The Supplicant looks like a small tree at first glance. A tree shaped like a kneeling humanoid figure . . .

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A MOON FOR THE UNBORN

STRANGE HORIZONS
2014

Every night around 1 a.m. Earth-clock, I’d see the shadows of the camp’s dead children on the windows  . . .

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THE LITTLE BEGUM

STEAMPUNK WORLD (Alliteration Ink)
2014

Steampunk World is a showcase for 19 authors to invite you to experience the entirety of steampunk.

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KARINA WHO KISSED SPACETIME

APEX MAGAZINE
2013

Reprinted in:

The Mary Sue and StarShip Sofa.

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THE RUNNER OF n-VAMANA

BLOODCHILDREN: STORIES BY THE OCTAVIA E. BUTLER SCHOLARS (The Carl Brandon Society)
2013

This story was also printed in Mothership: Tales from Afrofuturism and Beyond by Rosarium Publishing.

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SITA’S DESCENT

BREAKING THE BOW: SPECULATIVE FICTION BASED ON THE RAMAYANA (Zubaan Books)
2012

Breaking the Bow is a collection of brilliant, original and beautifully told tales, guaranteed to enlighten and entertain.

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muo-ka’s CHILD

CLARKESWORLD MAGAZINE
2012

Reprinted in Aliens: Recent Encounters by Prime Books.

Ziara watched her parent, muo-ka, curl up and die, like an insect might on Earth. muo-ka was a giant of a thing, no insect. Ziara was the one who’d always felt like an insect around it . . .

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WEEP FOR DAY

ASIMOV’S SCIENCE FICTION MAGAZINE
2012

Reprinted in The Year’s Best Science Fiction: Thirtieth Annual Collection by St. Martin’s Griffin, Imaginarium 2013: The Best Canadian Speculative Writing by ChiZine Publications, Year’s Best SF 18 by Tor Books and XB-1 (Czech translation) by Clarkesworld Magazine.

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THE WIDOW AND THE XIR

APEX MAGAZINE
2011

Reprinted in The Book of Apex: Vol. 3 by Apex Publications and Soles Series of Stories (eBook) by Upper Rubber Boot Books.

Sanih tries not to scan the shores . . .

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EXOGENESIS

NEW SCIENTIST CULTURELAB
2010

Zukhela spread her wings and looked over the lights of Shukra City, star-bright under the blanketed darkness . . .

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LOOKING THE LOPAI IN THE EYES

REDSTONE SCIENCE FICTION
2010

Reprinted on The World SF Blog.

Earth almost looks like home, from here . . .

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KOLKATA SEA

FLASH FICTION ONLINE
2010

Reprinted on The World SF Blog. A Podcast reading is available by Canadian Fiction Podcast.

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OTHER PUBLICATIONS

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Film, TV, and Literary Criticism

SLANT MAGAZINE

 

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STRANGE HORIZONS

 

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VANCOUVER WEEKLY

 

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