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Transmission is not the book that I expected it to be. From the descriptions I read I thought it would be sort of a globalization-comedy about a young Indian programmer who gets a job in America and finds it is not the dream come true that he expected. That description is true of the main character, Arjun Mehta and when the book starts out with his story it is pretty enjoyable although it veers more into tragedy than comedy.

Unfortunately, too much time is spent with the books other characters - an unlikeable British entrepeneur, his beautiful, underappreciated girlfriend, and the teenage Bollywood film actress who is the star of a little .exe file that Arjun places into a virus in order to get his employer to change their minds about laying him off during downsizing. These characters all cross paths with each other but not directly with Arjun himself and since their stories are cliched and uninteresting it makes you wonder throughout the book things like: how will these characters tie back to Arjun? When is the author going to get back to Arjun? And is this really the book that I wanted to read when I downloaded it from Audible? Though it had it's moments, it really wasn't.

Posted at October 5, 2005 01:32 PM