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Transmission
A Novel
by Hari Kunzru


8.0

based on 15 reviews
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Transmission, Hari Kunzru's novel of love and lunacy, immigration and immunity, introduces a daydreaming Indian computer geek whose luxurious fantasies about life in America are shaken when he accepts a California job offer. Lonely and naïve, Arjun Mehta bides his time as a lowly assistant virus tester, pining away for his free-spirited colleague Christine. Despite building digital creatures in a feeble attempt to enhance his job security, Arjun gets laid-off like so many of his Silicon Valley peers. In an act of desperation to keep his job, he releases a mischievous but destructive virus around the globe that has major unintended consequences. As world order unravels, so does Arjun's sanity, in a rollicking cataclysm that reaches Bollywood and, not so coincidentally, the glamorous star of Arjun's favorite Indian movie. [Dutton Books]

Dutton Books, 288 pages
05/24/2004
$24.95

ISBN: 0525947604

Fiction
General Literature & Fiction

All reviews are classified as one of five grades: Outstanding (4 points), Favorable (3), Mixed (2), Unfavorable (1) and Terrible (0). To calculate the Metascore, we divide total points achieved by the total points possible (i.e., 4 x the number of reviews), with the resulting percentage (multiplied by 100) being the Metascore. Learn more...

Publishers Weekly

With this taut and entertaining novel, London native Kunzru paints a satirized but unsettlingly familiar tableau.

Washington Post Michael Dirda

Utterly captivating: a deliciously satirical, humane and very enjoyable novel.

TLS: The Times Literary Supplement Sophie Ratcliffe

A brilliant example of why the screen and machine still need the novel (which is itself a sort of machine), it does what novels are meant to do. It helps us think about why and how our emotional lives are formed, and - in the way that no cultural history can - it takes its place in forming it.

USA Today Edward Nawotka

It's a profound plot, as well as a wickedly entertaining treatise on the risks of our globalized digital culture. One only hopes it's a satire.

The Guardian Amit Chaudhuri

[Kunzru]'s written, expertly, a successful and intelligent piece of entertainment, a more compelling read, if anything, than his first novel.

The Independent Christopher Hart

There is so much to admire in this taut, dense, scintillating novel.

The Independent Charles Shaar Murray

Kunzru is fast, funny and observant. His narrative surfs along on a tide of good gags, sharp bon mots and perceptive insights into contemporary technology and culture.

The New York Times Janet Maslin

Good-humored even when it overheats into a conspiracy-theory finale, Transmission potently reaffirms this author's initial promise.

Booklist Michael Spinella

Kunzru proves again that he is a wry and talented voice who provides a nuanced and painfully brutal perception of modern life in a global economy. [1 June 2004, p.1701]

Daily Telegraph David Robson

Kunzru is an elegant and thoughtful writer, able to give his 21st-century fable a patina of 19th-century literary polish.

Daily Telegraph Carol Ann Duffy

Rather like early Martin Amis, only nicer, Kunzru combines a satirical comic gift with a cool prose style. And his storytelling is well plotted and compelling.

Houston Chronicle Nora Seton

As it is, the power of the storytelling overcomes a limp finish. We've been surfing a heady wave all through the book, and if the ending is a bit like getting dumped, well, the wave was dazzling and left us exhilarated and satisfied.

Kirkus Reviews

Kunzru lays on the technical detail thickly, and computer geeks will perhaps best appreciate the sinuous meanderings and misdirections here. But its antic vision of an all-too-easily imperiled global village has enough charm and bite to engage us all.

The New York Times Book Review Walter Kirn

Like an unsaved file on a computer, Transmission dissolves back into random electrons the moment one turns it off.

The New Yorker

The insistent trendiness of the novel's preoccupations risks becoming tiresome, but Kunzru's engagingly wired prose and agile plotting sweep all before them, as the characters career toward ruin.

The average user rating for this book is 8.0 (out of 10) based on 1 User Votes
Note: User votes are NOT included in the Metascore calculation.

Craigan U gave it an8:
Full of fantastical character connections (it would ruin the ending to write how it all ties together) and Kunzru's well-resarched, loose associations (Bollywood, the dot-com crash, open relationships, and jokes about software engineers being Aspergerian), this book employs a lot of gimmicks culminating in an entertaing read.

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Transmission A Novel by Hari Kunzru

Transmission
A Novel
by Hari Kunzru