Kundo Wakes Up

Djinn City #4

by Saad Z. Hossain

In this standalone follow-up to the fan favorite The Gurkha and the Lord of Tuesday Saad Z. Hossain continues to mix futurism with fable, and shows how strange our lives might become.

While Gurkha introduced us to the techno utopia of Kathmandu, Kundo takes us to Hossain’s native Bangladesh, to the fading city of Chittagong, which is slowly crumbling into the sea as even Karma goes silent. But Kundo’s contemplation of his dying city is interrupted when his wife leaves him and then goes inexplicably missing, and soon Kundo starts to connect the dots between a number of disappearances. But this is Hossain, and so there’s more afoot than techno shenanigans. Kundo will find that the veil between worlds is paper-thin, and the djinn have their own stake in the matter.

Filled with enough ruminations on tea and coffee to wake anyone up, this mystery/fantasy/science fiction/myth is a genre-breaker with something for everyone to love.

Genres: Fantasy, Science Fiction, Fiction, Novella, Dystopia, Speculative Fiction, Science Fiction Fantasy

208 pages, Paperback

First published March 15, 2022

Reviews

[K.J. Charles]

A wonderful, strange addition to Hossain's climate-collapsed world of djinn and nanotech. I adore these books, and this is a fabulous addition. Kundo is a painter in a drowning city, determined to find out why his wife left. He puts together a team to search that includes a djinn, a single mum with toddler, an officially dead lady, and a gangster with Alzheimer's. This is peak Saad Hossain, but it's also a strikingly moving story of loss, love, friendship, and building something real in a broken world.

Can be read as a standalone, but why you wouldn't read the whole lot (start with Djinn City) escapes me. Marvellous, imaginative, vivid, and always unexpected.

[Gerhard · Rating 5 out of 5]

For all the people we have lost; I hope there are other worlds where they thrive.

If you have not read The Gurkha and the Lord of Tuesday, then I definitely suggest you read that first. Yes, you can read Kundo Wakes Up without having done so, but many past events referenced in the background will go over your head and you’ll lose a lot of the texture as a result. Texture is key here, as Saad Hossain’s second foray into his AI/djinn techno-utopia is surprisingly gritty and melancholic, as opposed to the superhero antics of the first novella. At first, I did not know what to make of Hossain’s quietly meditative tone, but the story accretes slowly around you like a secretive coral reef, building to an elegiac and satisfying resolution. Hossain’s work kind of reminds of the Dead Djinn Universe series by P. Djèlí Clark. Maybe this now constitutes an official subgenre!

[Para (wanderer) · Rating 4 out of 5]

Oh, this was delightful. Same batshit dystopia world as The Gurkha and the Lord of Tuesday (if in Chittagong instead of Kathmandu), but a plot that's less wild and more character-focused and introspective. I liked it. Kundo, a once-famous artist, sets off to find out what happened to his disappeared wife and makes a lot of quirky new friends along the way. When the plot started going in the direction of immersive games (which Kundo's wife liked) and hacking, I was afraid my interest would drop off, but it didn't, which is really a testament to Hossain's skill as a writer. The pacing, the characters, the amount of plot, the ending, everything is just as it should be, and I'm looking forward to more.

Since the setting and the main characters are different, the novellas can be read in any order.

Enjoyment: 4/5
Execution: 4.5/5

More reviews on my blog, To Other Worlds.

[Jenia · Rating 4 out of 5]

It has a bit less of that frantic pace I love so much about Hossain. Ah well. I'm obsessed with this odd, dystopic but also very positive world Hossain has created. And I love that his characters are often very unexpected heroes - a mother with a young baby who's good at video games, an old former gangster with Alzheimer's...

[Cozy Reading Times · Rating 4 out of 5]

4.5*
Even though it took me some time getting into it, in the end I loved Kundo Wakes Up even more than The Gurkha and the Lord of Tuesday.

CW: drug abuse, depression, suicidal thoughts, suicide (off page), corpses, body horror, corpses, cyberstalking, vomiting, mention of necrophilia

There are two things I have to mention first:
1. While it's not required (as this works as a standalone novella), I do recommend you read The Gurkha and the Lord of Tuesday first. There are several mentions and minor spoilers of that story in here.
2. Compared to The Gurkha, this book is much darker, especially in the beginning. It's narratively somewhat of the opposite to that novella, with this story starting out bleak and hopeless but getting more hopeful throughout the plot.

I stuggled a little bit getting into this, as my favourite part of The Gurkha was Hussain's incredible sens of humour. Furthermore did I not click with Kundo ar first, he seemed spiteful and a little petty. It didn't help that the whole set up of this book is very bleak.

But then, slowly, did I find myself sliding into the story, understanding Kundo a bit better and getting invested. As the story gradually built up a weirdly wonderful found family around Kundo and we got to explore more of Chittagong (a city beaten but not dead yet), I felt myself falling in love.
The themes are the foremost reason that I suggest reading The Gurkha first, as it's the contrast to Kathmandu that showcases so profoundly what Chittagong is lacking and how much nuance there is to this world Hussain has created.

Aside from the at time very disturbing cyber punk elements (and Kundo's musings about his wife's hypothetical sex life with other men), this was an incredible read, moving, fascinating and definitely memorable.

To the return of the kPop-Retrogirl!

[laurel [the suspected bibliophile] · Rating 4 out of 5]

Not the ending or the climactic moment I was expecting, but it was exactly what I needed. And the author's acknowledgment was everything.

Full FTC.

I received this ARC from NetGalley for an honest review

[Lukasz · Rating 3 out of 5]

A solid satire about our addiction to devices and virtual reality. It blends Arabic mythology, futuristic technology, and throws lots of referencers to popular games in the mix

It's enjoyable and quick to read but not as good as Hossain's previous books.

[Ming · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is the 4th title by Hossain that I've read (and right after having read the 3rd one). He is extraordinarily imaginative. These sci-fi and fantasy stories feature characters from Bangladesh, and thus the perspectives are refreshing and innovative (I'm so glad he counters the white-dominant SF/F stories). SF/F is not my favorite genre but here, I am well entertained. He taps online gaming to craft an arc of a missing wife. The husband takes on an adventure to learn what happened to her. Along the way, he assembles a group of ragtag and unique individuals, each with an acerbic personality.

The writing is fun and funny.

This book is short and the pacing fast. The storycrafting is satisfying.

I would definitely read more from Hossain.

[Bina · Rating 4 out of 5]

Bit slower and more mellow than Hossain's other works I've read. But I still really enjoyed it, especially how he adds to the same universe, the character dynamics and the quest style.

[Nadine in California]

I was having an enjoyable time with this second installment of life in the dying, dystopian Bangladeshi city of Chittigong - enjoyable because the main characters are warm and engaging (not to be confused with always likeable) and they gave a positivity to the story that can't come from the setting. I was getting little whiffs of Snow Crash and Pizza Girl, a certain kind of videogame vibe that is cartoony-adjacent, but not cartoony. And then half way through I was hit with a blithely cruel bit of ageism that spoiled the whole experience, and I just couldn't continue. I may go back to it (I'd like to know where Kundu's wife is) but I'll need a break first.

Note: I don't think this book stands alone well - you need to read The Gurkha and the Lord of Tuesday first to understand the worldbuilding. It's also a short book you can breeze through in a couple of days.

[Sydney S · Rating 5 out of 5]

4.5 stars. Firstly, I know this is marked as a standalone, but please read the first book, The Gurkha and the Lord of Tuesday, before this one. You will appreciate it so much more, and things will make a lot more sense. There's also a character from the first book in this one.

Hossain is brilliant. I love how he mixes genres in absurd ways and infuses his stories with effortless humor. He's now on my auto-buy list.

[Kaa · Rating 3 out of 5]

3.5. Interesting read, but I didn't find it quite as captivating as the previous novella in this universe. I would still absolutely come back for another story, though.

[Wiebke (1book1review) · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was a different look at the world run by an AI after humans ruined the environment.
Okay this is exxaggerated, but here we see a different city where things aren't as rosy and perfect and it gave me quite a lot of food for thought and then there of course is the main plot of the quest for Kundo's wife who has disappeared - or just plain left him and he can't let go.
Really enjoyed the time with the characters.

[Alexandra · Rating 4 out of 5]

I read this courtesy of NetGalley.

Firstly, for those who have read The Ghurka and the Lord of Tuesday, this is set in the same universe but is not a sequel; so there's no pistachio-cracking Gurung, no Melek Ahmar getting furious about the world. One blurb describes it as a "companion"; it is still a world in which the climate crisis has reached epic proportions; in which some cities are run by an AI called Karma (a different version in each city, it seems); and humans can basically only survive when they're in sufficient numbers that the nanites they create are at such density that they can make the climate liveable. In Karma cities, there is no money; there's just points for good deeds, which you can 'spend' to get what you want. And when there's points, there's always going to be people who have none - who are zeroes... Oh, and also there are djinn.

This time, the focus is Chittagong, Bangladesh. And things are not going particularly well - either for the city, or for Kundo, once a famous-enough artist, now a man whose wife has left and whose life is such a stretch of nothing that he easily loses track of days. The focus of the story is on Kundo looking for his wife; I have to admit that I was a bit worried about where the story would go - there are good reasons for wives to leave, and Kundo admits he was never a great husband - but I shouldn't have been concerned; Hossain dealt with that aspect of the story skilfully. In the course of trying to find his wife, Kundo gets a team together - a struggling mum, a has-been underworld figure, and a junky coder. Together they try and figure out the world, and get enough to eat, and maybe some basic human dignity as well.

It's another really great story from Hossain. He explores the variety of humanity: what they need - and what they want; frustrations and desires and ways of relating; what's good for one but not for another... all in the context of quite a frightening view of the future, actually, that still manages to have some redemption and goodness in it.

I'm hoping that we get more stories from this world.

[Dan Trefethen · Rating 4 out of 5]

High technology is associated with the developed world; the rest of the world consists of consumers. At least, that's the paradigm.

But the development, adoption and adaptation of high technology in the rest of the world has a storied history in fiction, from the 'Arabic cyberpunk' of George Alec Effinger's Budayeen books, to...Saad Hossain's shared world stories of a Bangladesh and Kathmandu ruled by AIs, occupied by djinns, and populated by world-class gamers and coders.

Hossain has a clear vision of the future developing world he is creating, with some shared characters between the stories. His work features indelible characters, many of whom are quite funny, and some who are sort of hapless. The titular character, Kundo, is a semi-famous painter who has hit a stumbling block when his wife unexpectedly left him. Trying to find his wife is the plot driver, which leads him into the dark world of gaming and the mysterious world of the djinn.

Hossain's combination of a world of cyberpunk, gaming, and djinn-based magic is quite alluring. The borders blur when hackers (who are magicians, of sorts) start interacting with djinn. Computer coders are the new sorcerers. But as with the old sorcerers in the ancient stories of the djinn, you'd better be careful if you're going to deal with creatures of air and fire.

[Marjolein (UrlPhantomhive) · Rating 3 out of 5]

Review will follow!

[Rachael · Rating 4 out of 5]

Another fantastic book from Hossain - short but filled with deft world building and great characters. After a period of being 'fallow,' artist Kundo searches for his missing wife - perhaps lost to an immersive video game. On his quest he builds a community and finds a much bigger mystery.

[Nazmus Sadat · Rating 4 out of 5]

𝐑𝐞𝐚𝐝𝐢𝐧𝐠 𝐎𝐫𝐝𝐞𝐫 𝐑𝐞𝐜𝐨𝐦𝐦𝐞𝐧𝐝𝐚𝐭𝐢𝐨𝐧: Djinn City > Cyber Mage > The Gurkha and the Lord of Tuesday > Kundo Wakes Up.
(Each book can stand alone but reading them in sequence enriches the experience as past events are referenced).

𝐌𝐲 𝐓𝐡𝐨𝐮𝐠𝐡𝐭𝐬 𝐨𝐧 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐁𝐨𝐨𝐤: Saad Z. Hossain's latest installment "Kundo Wakes Up (Djinn City #4)” seamlessly blends fantasy, sci-fi, and cultural richness. The story follows Kundo, a determined painter who assembles an unlikely team to search for his missing wife in a city facing impending doom. The team includes a single (it's complicated) mother with a toddler, a former gangster with Alzheimer's, an officially dead (!!!) lady who was a famous code-writer, now living underground, and last but not least, a human-djinn hybrid. While the writer initially focuses on finding Kunda's missing wife, the narrative unfolds with unexpected complexities, exploring themes of loss, love, friendship, and building something real in a broken world. For those acquainted with Saad Z. Hossain's previous work, the novel promises a strikingly moving story enriched with references to past events. Both "The Gurkha and the Lord of Tuesday" and "Kundo Wakes Up" serve as aftermath narratives to the events of "Djinn City" and "Cyber Mage." These latter two books could be viewed either as companion pieces or as strategic groundwork for a larger narrative yet to come (I guess). The long-anticipated alternate dimension finally makes its appearance; though it’s surprisingly mundane nature makes me disappointed yet leaves room for speculation about future developments. Apart from that, with Hossain's signature Arabic mythology, futuristic elements, and references to popular games, Kundo Wakes Up is a captivating trip through an absurd yet thought-provoking alternate Bangladesh.

𝐏𝐨𝐬𝐭𝐬𝐜𝐫𝐢𝐩𝐭: Even after four books, several questions from the first installment remain tantalizingly unanswered: Will Indelbed reunite with his father, Mr. Kaikobad? Will he achieve his revenge against Mattera and Givaras? These lingering mysteries keep readers eagerly anticipating the next chapter in this unique series.

[Saba Khaliq · Rating 4 out of 5]

First off, it was less enjoyable than The Gurkha and the Lord of Tuesday. But the bladerunner vibes coupled with Saad's humor - chef's kiss. Till the very end, you'd be questioning the foundations of the world Saad's characters move in or are enclosed within.

Kundo's wife, a veteran gamer, goes missing with no clue and he's adamant on finding her even in the convoluted depths of Chittagong, ruled by a powerful AI, Karma. Slowly the curtain between a futuristic world and the djinndom begins to fall and we see all sorts of creatures (Djinn, human, cyborg) coming together to resist the tyranny of Karma and its beneficiaries.

There's a point right at the end of the novella where Kundo does find his wife after going through everything he's terrified of experiencing, but he doesn't walk to her, doesn't even say a word despite his team encouraging him and he just "leaves". That is the most powerful moment in the story, written in silence between two people who once loved each other ardently but then grew apart because they started seeing the world differently. Also, the last scene! My god it'll be a cinematic masterpiece if this series ever gets adapted.

[Yev · Rating 4 out of 5]

One year, 237 days ago Kundo's wife left him a note that simply read, "I'm leaving" and she hasn't been seen since. The famous painter who no longer paints tried all he could to find her, even hiring a hacker, but he then fell into a fugue state and many months slipped by unnoticed, and he became oblivious to the outside world. Eventually, one day Kundo Wakes Up and he decides to try living, and finding her, again. However, he's constantly assailed by intrusive thoughts about her, such as what if she's ran off her with online gaming guild members and she's cuckolding him daily by having constant orgies with them. Many other scenarios present themselves to him unbidden. The first step is to get back in contact with the hacker and see what he's found out. That's how the mystery of his wife's disappearance begins. In pursuit of her he'll enlist a motley band of misfits and travel to the figurative, or perhaps literal, end of the universe and beyond.

The blurb on the cover from Samit Basu provides an excellent summation: "Cyberpunk, high fantasy, climate catastrophe, and and its heart, a compelling story about broken people finding each other and a way to become whole again." Although this novella takes place in the same setting as the first, they're very different in almost any meaningful way. This one is an investigative mystery of a guy trying to find his wife as Chittagong, the city around him, is being lost to the waves, specifically the Bay of Bengal. Karma has declared the city a loss and is slowly withdrawing. Those who mostly remain are Zeros and the haplessly eccentric. Kundo's investigation is rather haphazard in that he hopes that in his stumbling about he'll find enough clues to point him in the right direction. Due to this lack of focus it often reads more like his daily life and the interactions he has with those he meets. That was kind of nice, but it lacked a certain something to make it definitively enjoyable. One of the main plot devices is a full immersion, literally and figuratively, VR gaming rig.

I didn't enjoy this as much as the first novella, though it has its own charm. It's barely a 4. It takes place sometime after the first, but it's never made clear when that is. One character makes a return appearance, mostly for the purpose of commentary. The new cast is good, but lacks the vibrancy and zest of the former. The main problem for me is probably comparing it to the first, which may not be fair. The former was about over-the-top personalities and their outrageous antics. This is about a group of miserable has-beens who struggle to get through each day, yet still find some way to carry on for now, though not forever. I appreciate that it's a completely different perspective on the setting, though it's also a bit jarring because of that as well. The ending is poignant, that's for sure.

[Laura · Rating 4 out of 5]

Kundo Wakes Up is the second book by Saad Z. Hossain that I've read, and I enjoyed this one just as much as its predecessor. This book follows Kundo, a painter whose wife disappeared, as he searches for her & the reasons she left. The setting is a nanotech-powered AI-administered Chittagong that is slowly being overtaken by the rising sea; with 'green zones' safe and 'red zones' abandoned to 'zeroes' who scavenge in hazmat suits, there are a lot of possibilities as to why over a thousand people seem to be missing. With themes of classism, fixation on digital worlds (here, video games), cyborg tech, and the combination of near-infinitely life-extending medical possibilities with a world that is increasingly unsafe, Hossain explores a lot of themes. At the book's heart, though, is a circle of unlikely people on an adventure together and a real sense of humour. Definitely recommend.

Content warnings: addiction, chronic illness, violence, death, suicide (not on-page or in any way graphic)

[Sheeraz · Rating 4 out of 5]

Another one in the bizarre yet fantastical series that combines dystopian sci-fi with djinn lore. Kundo, an artist of modest acclaim, has been searching for his wife who seemed to have disappeared along with many of her online gaming friends. While some think she just walked away from the marriage, Kundo suspects there might be more afoot and would at least like some closure. When his only lead, a hacker looking into the disappearance, also goes missing with a foreboding note, Kundo is convinced there is something mysterious going on. Calling on a favor from a mafia boss past his prime, and a new friend, he must get deep into the seedy underbelly of doped up gaming to learn how some people are just dropping off of the face of earth. What he doesn't know is that the answers he finds might shake up his entire world view.

These books are such an eclectic mix of genre but somehow still work! While this lacked the pace of its predecessor, there's still a lot to bite into, and the sense of adventure shines through. This series needs to keep going!

[Sarmat Chowdhury · Rating 5 out of 5]

The latest novella from Hossain, "Kundo Wakes Up" follows the story of the titutal character Kundo in Chittagong, Bangladesh, a coastal city that has fallen from grace due to the changes in the environment and society of Bangladesh, and the abscence of people and Karma (the AI seen in other books that Hossain has authored and Kundo begins to wonder about his wife having left and "disappeared" (even the PI that he had hired to track her down has also vanished when he goes to check in on him) and that is when he discovers that even within the VR game that many folks are playing in, there is a hidden game that pits players against each other to be chosen by an entity going by Horus (a Djinn) to be taken to anther world.

The book has an eclectic cast of characters, mostly new but with some familiar faces returning to continue the story. While the story and characters are a strong part of why the book works, its also the juxtaposition of Bangladesh, its culture, and the blend of technology and the change for humanity and those challenges that make the books by Hossain in this series so enthralling. Can't wait to see what he comes up with next.

[Runalong · Rating 5 out of 5]

Another very great piece of storytelling that in the best ways possible this mix of SF, fantasy and characters with heart reminds me of Pratchett. Well worth your time

Full review - https://www.runalongtheshelves.net/bl...

[Peter Tillman]

Novella, I think.

[Thurm · Rating 5 out of 5]

85

Kundo stands on the shoulders of many other cyberpunk stories, but manages to stand far enough apart from those influences to be immensely enjoyable. It serves as something of a reimagining of Robert Nozick's "experience machine" thought experiment from the 70s. It's more readily digestible than Neuromancer but far more compelling and less reliant on nostalgia than Ready Player One.

[Shannon (That's So Poe) · Rating 3 out of 5]

I am such a fan of the world building that Hossain has done in this series, an eco-dystopia with themes revolving around economic inequality, a mixture of science fiction and mythological djinn, all set in Nepal. It's also a bit cyber-punky with that heavy focus on a disillusioned guy at its center, which just isn't my cup of tea, but if you want to read some cyber-punk set in a fascinating new setting, this is a good one to pick up.

Content Warnings:
male gaze, stalking, infidelity, illness, addiction, suicide, ecological disaster

[Lana · Rating 3 out of 5]

Such a freshly interesting take on a sci-fi distopic future with AI governing a nation, but completely falls flat on its head at the end.

[Peter Hollo · Rating 5 out of 5]

What a delight.
After having no sign that Djinn City would have a sequel, we got one (Cyber Mage) alongside the related novella The Gurkha and the Lord of Tuesday.
And now comes this, which manages to be a sequel to ALL of them. It's a very sweet tale of coming to peace with yourself.

[Brandon · Rating 3 out of 5]

Gurka and the Lord of Tuesday was a raucous romp that took no prisoners and gave no quarter. It was rapid paced in a cathartic, binge watching way. In this second novel, the pace is still very rapid, but it's not really in a humorous or fun way. The whole novel wraps up in the last 20 or so pages in a totally bizarre sort of Neal Stephenson sprint, pulling plot elements out of your ass all the way to the finish line. But it had a nice theme and a happy ending and was engaging to read.

Kundo is a sad sack washed up artist who has just sort of zonked out of his own life for the past year or two after his wife left him. Suddenly he gets a bug in his ass to go find the wife who mysteriously left him more than a year ago. And wandering around, he makes some friends and see how people w/out his riches are struggling to survive in a city he had previously been content to watch crumble.

One overall theme of the book is how we can sleep through our own lives. Hossain holds up the sci trope of a society retreating into the virtual world of dopamine hits in games while the real world crumbles. He frames it as a fairly horrific and sad possibility. Hossain returns to his biting condemnation of false paradises in this book, painting Chitagong as a failed society that citizens are virtually absenting themselves from, rather than contributing to its maintenance and revival. The sea is slowly swallowing the city while the automated infrastructure struggles to cope, the citizens feel politically disempowered and unbothered to do much. There is as much a struggle for meaning as means of living. Meanwhile the rich continue in privileged lives. But the rather bizarre sci-fi explanations for stratified hierarchies in a "post-scarcity" world are less developed or applied in Kundo compared to Gurka.

Anyhow Kundo slowly realizes how his wife was generally unhappy and unfulfilled living with him - how he neglected her and how she had unfulfilled needs for meaning and engagement that he didn't provide while he was out pursuing his art. Ultimately she went out looking for a better life. And, in the end, Kundo is able to accept that and realize she didn't need him anymore, and that the best thing he could do was to accept and live his own life. A nice theme here too. Eventually he decides to live in the real world, instead of pining after fantastic worlds (and this is all a metaphor for not playing too many video games. Though it seems like Hossain probably games a fair bit, given the structure and pacing of this book). But this ending also feels like it slips away from the structural element of his world building - that society is now built on having enough human bodies to manufacture nano-bots to combat the hostile environment. The ending is presented as a sort of cheerful acceptance of change, finding solace in neighbors even as society crumbles. But that's the really challenging thing - trying to find purpose to keep a society together when a previous sharaed sense of purpose is shattered. I think I'm left feeling pretty disatisfied with Hossain's ending, after thinking about it a bit. Having a beer and painting the waves lapping at the base of your high rise as the city population diminishes is maybe how one person can enjoy the dystopic future. And I guess that's fine for Kundo. It seems like a crap way to go for the many citizens of Chitagong. But I guess the underlying political message is that, given some freedom choice between a politically repressive regime that allows for zero self-governance and departing to alternative places, people will vote with their feet. Again, ok if the city is being swallowed by the sea anyway. Doesn't seem like a good message/mentality for places that can be saved by people waking up and getting politically involved. But I guess that's my bias in 2025 thinking about the dangers of political disengagement and apathy. Or perhaps that's what Hossain wanted to spark readers to think about... Mmmmm, nah I'm not giving that much credit.