Title | : | Ram-2050 |
Author | : | |
Rating | : | |
ISBN | : | - |
ISBN-10 | : | 9780986291418 |
Language | : | English |
Format Type | : | Paperback |
Number of Pages | : | 362 |
Publication | : | First published April 6, 2015 |
From rain forests of Hawaii to hidden coves of the Caribbean, this story brings futuristic technology to an age-old battle between good and evil. In this innovative retelling of the classic Ramayana epic, CEOs replace kings, sects of professional geeks replace sects of priests, and the hero has superhuman abilities from genetic engineering rather than divine intervention. This action-packed, yet philosophical tale explores the boundary separating humans from animals. It envisions a world where humans and animals work to promote the common good.
“Evolutionary biologist Roughgarden [Evolution’s Rainbow] reaches back two millennia to turn the Ramayana into science fiction, changing its poetry to hard science… staying faithful to the essence of the original stories… [Ram-2050] should satisfy fans of technical and naturalistic SF.”
— Publishers Weekly
“gripping” — Marc Bekoff, University of Colorado
“relevance” — Mandakranta Bose, University of British Columbia
"humorous” — Freddy Christiansen, Aarhus University
“delightful” — Simon Levin, Princeton University
“imaginative” — Chase Mendenhall, Stanford University
“fast-paced” — Anil Menon, Science Fiction Writer
“radical” — Barbara Smuts, University of Michigan
“positive” — Jeremy Van Cleve, University of Kentucky
“wisdom” — Michael Weisberg, University of Pennsylvania
For full text of blurbs and other reviews, please visit Ram-2050.com.
Joan Roughgarden is an evolutionary biologist and ecologist from the University of Hawaii and Stanford University. She has published fieldwork from eastern Caribbean islands and the rocky intertidal zone of California. She has authored or edited eight nonfiction texts and monographs, including Evolution’s Rainbow, winner of the 2005 Stonewall Prize for nonfiction from American Library Association. Ram-2050 is her first novel.
Ram-2050 Reviews
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I received this book through Goodreads First Reads.
Although I never fully read the original epic Ramayana , it was immediately obvious to me that this book is nearly a direct translation of the original, with the exception of incorporating the story into a futuristic setting. Ram-2050 obviously takes place in the year 2050, and the societal conflicts taking place in this decade do seem to be an accurate prediction of the future. For example, the characters in this book deal with dilemmas involving homophobia, racism, misogyny, and the disrespect and mistreatment of animals. These conflicts are very much the same conflicts with which we deal in real life, only in Ram-2050 these conflicts are exaggerated to fit the time frame and storyline. Several technological advances described seem somewhat realistic considering the current pace of humanity's evolution. This is what impressed me most about Ram-2050 . One of the greatest examples of this is that in Ram-2050, thanks to science, females are able to control their own reproductive system. However, several concepts and virtues in this book are horrendously outdated and old-fashioned. The social norms in this world perfectly reflect those of ancient India. Polygamy, the virtues of war, the high emphasis placed on female chastity and of the perfectly devoted wife, and the high call to fulfill one's 'duty' are just a few of these outdated social norms.
One of the biggest changes made in Ram-2050 from the original epic is that kings are replaced by CEOs and kingdoms by corporations. Imagine transferring all of a kingdom's characteristics over to a corporation. Believe it or not, that is exactly what Joan Roughgarden attempts. The new 'kingdoms' are the Apple Kingdom and the Google Kingdom. I wasn't sure whether or not Joan was being intentionally comical with this, but I found it amusing all the same. The Apple Kingdom and the Google Kingdom are at 'war' against one another. This would make an awesome plot for a children's book.
Joan Roughgarden tries to bridge the gap between humans and animals in her book. Joan's creativity in doing this is what I enjoyed most about this book. Several moral issues are examined, the greatest being what rights should be extended towards animals, and why these rights are currently being restricted in today's society'.
Ram-2050 is more than just an enjoyable fictional read. It is a heartbreaking tale that teaches several valuable lessons, and it analyzes human behavior and what motivates humans, as well as the lasting effect of one's upbringing. The final chapter of the book concludes the lessons that can be learned from Ram's successes and failures. The final sentence of the book makes the simple statement, "There is much to be learned from the story of Ram." This sentence nicely summarizes Joan's intentions behind her retelling of the Indian epic Ramayana .
Overall, I enjoyed reading Ram-2050 for its inventiveness, moral applications, and for its relation to the original epic. -
(Note: I received a free copy of this book through Goodreads First Reads.)
A few essential points about this book:
1) It's a reworking, set in the near-future, of the Indian epic Ramayana. (I'm not terribly familiar with the original, so I can't comment on this book's relationship to it.) Characters who were great kings in the original are now CEOs of massive corporations; characters who were respected priests are now "geeks" (a term the author uses to represent any sort of expert; "history geeks", "financial geeks", and so forth).
2) Some of the plot elements, transplanted from the distant past to the near future, are downright bizarre. Imagine, for instance, the CEO of Microsoft declaring, "Anyone who wishes to court my daughter must first pass a test of strength before I will introduce my daughter to him." In many cases, this makes the book quite funny.
3) Roughgarden peppers the book with many interesting speculations about how technology will develop in the near future, from the profoundly exciting (technology that allows women to control when they ovulate! No more unwanted pregnancies!) to the profoundly silly (bioelectric cats that generate storable electricity when you brush them? Just how much time do you plan to spend brushing your cats?) Genetic engineering of babies, developing robots that can communicate with animals, use of stem cells to stimulate rapid healing... the list goes on and on.
4) The prose, especially the dialogue, is absolutely cringeworthy. I suspect this is the result of trying to mimic the prose style of the original. Regardless of its intention, though, whenever the book wasn't making me giggle or stimulating my mind with interesting technological speculation, it was so painfully bad that I quickly started to wonder why I was bothering to keep reading it.
5) This is especially a problem during the second half of the book. By this time, Roughgarden has largely finished introducing fascinating ideas, and has turned her attention to resolving the plot. The main character's wife has been kidnapped by the head of a criminal syndicate, and he has recruited an army to battle the syndicate to get her back. There's a seemingly endless series of dull battles where a syndicate lieutenant ventures out of their stronghold, kills some monkeys (oh, yeah, the hero's army consists of mostly monkeys), gets killed by the hero or one of his lieutenants, and then the good guys exchange high fives. Then they do it again. And again. And...
Overall, there was a lot to enjoy here, and I don't regret reading it. But I'd hesitate to recommend it to most readers. You'll enjoy it best if you have a strong interest in speculative fiction, and don't care much about niceties of style. -
A fascinating re-telling of the Ramayana myth set in the future where genetic technology serves to create Ram and kings are replaced by CEO's. The author's deep background in evolutionary biology makes this a deeply informative as well as entertaining read. I've never read anything like it as it combines sci-fi with mythology and hard science.
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Thanks to Goodreads First Reads for the copy of Joan Roughgarden's "Ram-2050". It was an interesting concept to modernize a classic epic tale such as "Ramayana". I have not read a translation of the original tale and I am sure the author was trying to remain true to it's context. The scenes were descriptive and the characters were well established. I felt that the dialog between characters was unnatural. It also tended to drag in some places. All in all I enjoyed the book.