Reviews
A 2024 Locus Award Finalist! A 2024 Dragon Award Finalist!
A “Best Of” pick in BookBub | Lit Hub | Book Riot | The Mary Sue
Praise for The Jinn-Bot of Shantiport
“Somehow manages to be both a weighty study of the responsible use of power and a sidesplitting farce about robot fighters, gangsters, oligarchs and the titular jinn-bot.”–The Washington Post
“A fun, spectacle-filled adventure story with good quips from the wisecracking monkey-bot and occasional zingers from Moku.”–The Wall Street Journal
“So much fun!”–Ann Leckie, New York Times bestselling author and winner of the Hugo, Nebula, and Arthur C. Clarke Awards
“Ridiculously entertaining.”—Kate Elliott, New York Times bestselling author
“‘Aladdin’ like you’ve never seen it before. Samit Basu deftly weaves a tale that sparkles with the wondrous and wild possibilities of ‘Aladdin’ in space. This is a wild, funny, and exhilarating adventure with a huge heart.”—Tasha Suri, award-winning author of The Jasmine Throne
“Wonderfully entertaining—a heady and creative mix of excellent stories. The best of ‘Aladdin’ and Murderbot meet in Samit’s top-tier storyteller’s craft. Inventive, with witty dialogue, and utterly fun! All the heart of myths and the explorative commentary of sci-fi are masterfully shaped together in The Jinn-bot of Shantiport.”—R.R. Virdi, USA Today bestselling author
“A wildly exuberant mash-up of top-class storytelling, gleeful mockery, and engaging characters we care desperately about. Basu is playing with tropes and messing about with narrative, while at the same time telling a heartfelt story with high stakes and enthralling action. The most fun I have had with SF in ages.”—KJ Charles, author of The Magpie Lord
“An extravagant, expansive, inventive epic of a book, shifting modes deftly to set heroes of lore on a collision course with video game tropes—and I enjoyed every word of the resulting fireworks. Brainy, deeply felt, and entirely brilliant.”—Malka Older, author of The Mimicking of Known Successes
“Samit Basu is one of the smartest, most entertaining writers working in SF today — this was an utter delight from first to last, fizzing with ideas and originality.”—Zen Cho, author of Black Water Sister
“A finalist for this fall’s unofficial Best Book Title contest, The Jinn-Bot of Shantiport is the latest from Indian SFF specialist Samit Basu, who treats standard sci-fi tropes as dubious advice, best ignored. Mixing futurism and fantasy, his new book features streetwise protagonists, corrupt oligarchs, wry satire, and wish-granting tech. Oh, and monkeybots.”—Goodreads
“‘Aladdin in space’ is already an excellent elevator pitch for Samit Basu’s standalone novel, but he looks to be exploring every angle of the familiar story in this adventure set on a collapsing spaceport.”—Lit Hub
“‘Aladdin’ meets Murderbot is all we needed to hear to add Samit Basu’s science fiction novel—about a girl and her monkey bot brother asked to procure a reality-bending artifact—to our TBRs!”—We Are Bookish: Presented by NetGalley
“Just f***ing delightful from start to finish.”—Reactor
“[An] action-packed frolic . . . Basu’s sharp social commentary and sense of pageantry enhance this wild romp. Readers will have no choice but to get caught in the whirlwind.”—Publishers Weekly
“Samit Basu mixes elements of the story of Aladdin with the political machinations on a corrupt spaceport.”—Library Journal
“[A] fantastic, futuristic take on the “Aladdin” story”—Booklist
“From cinematic mecha fights to an aching romance set in the background of a city falling apart and all spiced with a healthy dose of humor, reading The Jinn-Bot of Shantiport was an incredibly fun experience.”—Bookish Brews
Selected praise for Samit Basu and The City Inside
“Basu’s chief strengths as a novelist are character development, lively dialogue and a pleasingly off-kilter sense of humour.”—Vogue India
“An instant classic”—Indra Das, author of The Devourers
