Chosen Spirits

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Chosen Spirits

Chosen Spirits

Author	Samit Basu
Illustrator
Publisher	Simon & Schuster India
Publication date	2020
Pages	482
ISBN	978-9386797658 Search this book on .

Chosen Spirits is a 2020 science fiction novel by Indian author Samit Basu. Set in a near-future Delhi transformed by advanced digital technologies, environmental instability, and pervasive corporate influence, the novel follows a group of young professionals whose lives become entangled with political intrigue, surveillance, and the blurred boundaries between physical and virtual realities. Combining speculative fiction with social satire, the novel explores themes including surveillance capitalism, social media culture, nationalism, climate change, identity, and the commodification of personal relationships.

The novel has been noted for its portrayal of a technologically mediated urban India and its engagement with contemporary political and social concerns through speculative fiction. Critics have praised Basu's ambitious worldbuilding, sharp commentary on digital culture, and depiction of near-future Delhi, while some have remarked on the novel's dense narrative structure and large ensemble cast.

Plot

Set in a near-future Delhi transformed by extreme heat, ubiquitous mixed reality, algorithmic media and increasing political authoritarianism, Chosen Spirits follows the intersecting lives of senior reality manager Bijoyini "Joey" Roy and Rudra, an editor estranged from his bourgeois family, as they navigate life in an increasingly surveilled society.

Joey works as the principal image manager and director for Indrajith "Indi" Mathew, India's most influential Flowstar, producing interactive mixed-reality broadcasts sponsored by major corporations known as "Flowcorps". Although professionally successful, Joey has grown disillusioned with the artificiality of the entertainment industry, where every relationship, controversy and public interaction is carefully manufactured to maximise engagement. She remains emotionally affected by her former romantic relationship with Indi, whose immense popularity has only reinforced his narcissism and dependence on constant public attention.

Rudra has spent years living in self-imposed isolation after becoming estranged from his wealthy family. He travels to attend his father's funeral but is refused entry to the family estate by security guards acting on his brother's instructions. After eventually gaining entry with the help of Joey's parents, who are also attending the funeral, Rudra discovers that his family's indifference towards him has remained largely unchanged. His brother attempts to persuade him to further the family's business interests, a role in which Rudra has little interest. He is later contacted by Joey, who recruits him as an editor for Indi's media company. Rudra's technical expertise allows him to manage and edit Indi's Flows while secretly living inside Indi's heavily monitored penthouse.

As part of a new reality-media project, Indi recruits Tara, an ambitious actress and content creator, to participate in a highly publicised competition to become his on-screen girlfriend. Tara is selected after the first-choice contestant, Uma, unexpectedly withdraws. Uma is later revealed to be the elusive underground performer known as Desibryde, whose provocative Flowstreams serve as acts of political resistance. By assuming the appearances of gods, politicians, celebrities and religious figures, Desibryde deliberately blurs the boundaries between the sacred, the political and the commercial, using performance art to undermine systems of censorship and social control.

Unlike the carefully scripted relationships expected by the production, Tara and Rudra begin a genuine romantic relationship. Although Tara insists that their affair will end once her short-term contract expires, the two become increasingly attached while attempting to conceal their relationship from Indi and the production team.

Meanwhile, Joey grows increasingly frustrated with Indi's behaviour and the ethical compromises demanded by her profession. Following the publication of rape allegations against Indi by one of his former stylists, supported by testimony released through fellow Flowstar Sharmila, Joey is compelled to defend him publicly despite her growing doubts. Disillusioned, she resigns from the company, but the management refuses to accept her resignation, forcing her to remain within the organisation.

After her contract concludes, Tara becomes determined to establish herself independently. She creates a deeply personal Flow centred on Rudra's traumatic childhood experience of becoming the unwilling subject of a viral video, believing that public vulnerability can foster genuine emotional connection. Although the production is critically acclaimed, it unexpectedly turns Rudra into a public figure and forces him to relive memories he had spent years trying to escape.

During this period, Rudra is drawn into the orbit of Zaria, an enigmatic operative involved with a clandestine resistance network. Rudra accompanies Zaria on a covert mission, and the two disappear without informing Joey or Tara. Their disappearance prompts Joey to investigate Zaria's activities, leading her towards a hidden network operating beyond the visible structures of politics, media and corporate power.

Joey's search eventually leads her to Delhi's Cyber Bazaar, where she meets Raja, an elite hacker who supports an underground network resisting the intertwined influence of political, corporate and technological elites. Joey is reunited with Rudra and learns that Zaria is part of a clandestine group of highly skilled operatives who carry out acts of sabotage, infiltration and intelligence gathering against powerful institutions. Raja shows Joey the unconscious Rudra and Zaria as they are medically prepared and equipped with advanced technology for a dangerous mission to uncover the hidden agenda behind Rudra's influential family.

Although Raja's network recognises Joey's exceptional ability to shape public narratives and suggests that her talents could aid their cause, she initially declines to join them and returns to Delhi.

In the epilogue, Joey has left Indi's production company and established her own Flow production studio. She secretly contacts Desibryde, who invites her to become a "smuggler"—someone who embeds hidden messages and subversive ideas within mainstream media. Although Joey remains part of the system, she has chosen to resist it from within, using her mastery of narrative to subtly challenge the structures of surveillance, propaganda and social control.

Themes

Surveillance Capitalism

Chosen Spirits explores surveillance capitalism by depicting a society in which personal experience is continuously transformed into data for commercial and political exploitation. Drawing on Shoshana Zuboff's concept of surveillance capitalism, Aman Deep Singh argues that the novel portrays digital platforms, biometric technologies, artificial intelligence, and influencer culture as mechanisms through which behavioural data is extracted, analysed, and monetised. Rather than relying on overt coercion, these technologies enable what Zuboff terms instrumentarian power, shaping and predicting individual behaviour through algorithmic systems.

According to Singh, Basu localises this global model of surveillance capitalism within the Indian socio-political context by introducing the concept of an "access-caste", a privileged class that monopolises digital infrastructure and informational power. The novel links data extraction with existing hierarchies of caste, class, and political authority, suggesting that digital technologies reinforce rather than eliminate social inequalities. Singh argues that Chosen Spirits uses its speculative setting to examine the intersections of data colonialism, algorithmic governance, and digital labour in contemporary India.

Instrumentarian dystopia

Louis and Chattopadhyay interpret Chosen Spirits argue that the novel depicts surveillance as an ec

onomic system rather than merely a political one. They contend that digital platforms continuously collect and process behavioural data, transforming everyday online activity into a source of profit while simultaneously shaping and predicting human behaviour. In this framework, power operates through algorithmic influence and data extraction instead of overt coercion.

The authors also argue that Basu rejects the idea of a uniformly oppressive dystopia. Instead, the effects of surveillance are distributed unevenly, with caste, class, and occupation determining individuals' access to technology and their vulnerability to digital exploitation. They identify this process as a form of "ubiquitous labour", in which routine online interactions generate economic value while reproducing existing social hierarchies, linking surveillance capitalism to India's entrenched systems of inequality.

Pandemic and social inequality

Rather than imagining a distant apocalypse, Chosen Spirits situates its dystopian future within conditions that closely resemble the COVID-19 pandemic. Anindita Shome argues that the novel demonstrates how crises intensify pre-existing social and economic inequalities, exposing the uneven distribution of security, mobility, and access to technology. The narrative contrasts the relative comfort of digitally connected elites with the increasing precarity of marginalised communities, suggesting that emergencies deepen rather than erase structural divisions.

Shome further contends that the novel uses speculative fiction to critique the unequal exercise of power during times of crisis. By depicting surveillance technologies, privileged urban enclaves, and widening socio-economic disparities, Basu presents the pandemic as a catalyst that accelerates existing systems of exclusion instead of creating entirely new forms of oppression. The novel ultimately frames dystopia as an extension of contemporary realities, warning that unequal power structures become more entrenched when societies respond to crises without addressing systemic inequality.

Publication History

Chosen Spirits was first published in India by Simon & Schuster India on 19 May 2020 in hardcover, with an ebook edition released worldwide in April 2020. The novel was shortlisted for the 2020 JCB Prize for Literature.

In 2022, the novel was revised and published internationally as The City Inside by Tordotcom (an imprint of Tom Doherty Associates/Macmillan) on 7 June 2022. Although substantially the same novel, the international edition features editorial revisions and an additional concluding chapter titled "Deleted Scenes". The City Inside was named one of The Washington Post's and Book Riot's best science fiction and fantasy books of 2022.

Reception

Reviewing the novel for Strange Horizons, Ishita Singh praised Chosen Spirits for its nuanced portrayal of class, caste, and surveillance in near-future Delhi, describing it as a warning rooted in contemporary realities rather than a conventional dystopia. While commending its political insight, worldbuilding, and hopeful vision of resistance, she noted that its emphasis on ideas occasionally came at the expense of plot and left several narrative threads unresolved.

In the SFRA Review, Ruchira Mandal praised Chosen Spirits for its unsettlingly plausible depiction of a near-future Delhi shaped by surveillance capitalism, digital distraction, and contemporary Indian politics. She argued that the novel's greatest strength lies in its rootedness in present-day socio-political realities, making its speculative vision both familiar and disquieting.

Some critics were more reserved in their assessment of the novel. Diyasree Chattopadhyay described Chosen Spirits as a genre-blending work that combines near future science fiction, political satire, and social commentary. She praised its depiction of surveillance, media manipulation, and corporate power, while highlighting its empathy and optimism, arguing that the novel ultimately presents hope and resistance rather than a purely dystopian vision.

References

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