"The iGod" is a collection a prose fictional work. It contains a total of elven short stories which comprise a vociferous and persuasive exposition, climax and a resolution. The settings are well-formed. They give the when and where about of the story in black and white. The characters are super fantastic. They are well entrenched to the point that they appear one of us in our respective neighborhoods. They do give a good impression of somebody we know, if not ourselves. The words and expressions used in the story are well-thought-out. They are very well-coined codes carrying over the intended message of the author to the decoders.
Some of the stories in this book are a bit unique. First, the book involves machines as human beings. The first short story, for instance, is about a man living hand-in-glove with machines. It talks about what the future holds for humanity going forward. In this short story, you have human-like machines living with a man in harmony and one accord. Nevertheless, you also feel the fear of man as he keeps losing his freedom due to the fast-growing technology on the face of the earth.
That is a distinctive flavor, at least, for me. I have never encountered a short story of that nature before. And all the other short stories are packed with the tragedy of the day trying to prove as if a man is the worst evil ever. They all show the atrocity of man as a recurring truth of the day. These stories reflect several life situations that the author has observed from around the world, with a focus on Ethiopia. Love and abhorrence, life and death, and freedom and precincts are among the various collective subject matters that are unfolded and echoed in the book.
The author has such wisdom in playing with words. As said above he has coined them very well. They mean what they are intended to say. They don't only tell us the story but they also show us the crux of the matter. They have the power to fully engage the readers and hit the bottom deep in their hearts.
There were times when I was taken up by the truth and the emotion in the stories and ended up in tears. All eleven stories are concise and brief. They can all be taken at one go in a sitting. They are short shots of the reality in our contemporary world.
The title of the book is another point that took my attention. I have never thought about the internet god until I read the first short story. This story talks a little about our contemporary world where man and machine are dwelling together. Though I didn't get into why the author picked that topic, I strongly feel his fear of the pending future in depth.
The book exhibits these feature covertly from the perspective of the human mind which inhales and analyzes information and exhales and examines revelation. According to the author, information can be done by machines with better precision.
Nevertheless, he intensely emphasizes the fact that it is only humans who can do with revelation. Information needs memory, revelation works without it. Information makes us intellectual, and revelation makes us intelligent, which we are already.
In other words, the time has come for us to run through with our mind irrespective of memory than sticking to the mind that counts on memory. In this short story, the author tells us about the future as it is not.
The future is now. It is already but not yet. It is all here but not even there. It seems a paradox but it is a reality. Let's live this moment and stay still. Then, only we will realize that we are the life, nothing else.
If we keep struggling with past recollections and future imaginations, we can't live now. Now is our time. We are the life that there is. Hence, let us live. Life is us, and we are everlasting. Life, according to the author, does not die. It only lives. Likewise, death can't live but always dies.
Life, in short, has nothing to do with memory and/or information. It is not limited to a given time and a specific place. It is I in ALL a
