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Aniket Jaaware: Neon Fish in Dark Water (2007, MapinLit, an imprint of Mapin Pub.) 5 stars

All the stories in this volume are set in the year 2050, in The City. …

These are an excellent set of short stories written by late philosophy professor Aniket Jaaware. The stories are set in the year 2050 in a city called the City. Even though geeky, there aren't science fiction. Jaaware crafts a diverse set of characters in this short collection, offering a wide range of human experiences. The stories are immensely readable; they are open ended with a light touch of humor. At the same time they offer a poignant critique of the negative aspects of large metropolises, more so from the point of view of the marginalized, the destitute, the homeless. What I liked the most about this collection is that characters from previous stories make brief, fleeting appearances in the later stories. I will highly recommend this story collection to anyone with a nerdy side to them.