“I must say that books in India are not only underpriced but are also undervalued,” says author Ravi Subramanian, who was in Chennai recently to launch his latest book at Starmark in Express Avenue . The thriller writer is visibly piqued by the fact that a paperback of Arthur Hailey’s Hotel costs as much as a samosa in a mall and that his week-old book is available at a 60 per cent discount on online stores. “What this does is it kills the independent bookstores and discoverability of new authors goes for a toss. Writing in India will not dramatically change till we learn to value books,” says Ravi.
As the author of five books based on the world of banking, Ravi’s latest is God Is A Gamer, billed as the world’s first thriller to revolve around bitcoins. The story is set in Mumbai, New Delhi, Washington D.C. and New York, and skilfully weaves together the lives of bankers, gamers, politicians and crooks and how the virtual currency plays a crucial role in their lives.
“I first read about bitcoins when the WikiLeaks issue was going on. It made me go ‘wow’. Here was something which no one knew about. If a bitcoin can do that, look at the ways it can evolve. So I started reading a lot about it, more out of interest and not for research,” he says. Around the same time, Ravi says that he heard about Silk Road, an online marketplace that allows anonymous access and trades through bitcoins and that’s when he decided the subject of his next book.
“It’s not research if you’re really interested in what you’re reading,” he quips, talking of the hundreds of articles that he read in order to understand the concept. “Most Indian authors feel the need to explain every single aspect of anything they are writing about. However, I stuck to explaining only what was necessary to the plot,” says Ravi. He also took the inputs of his friends working in companies like Zynga to get the idea of how online gaming works. “After reading the book, you will have an idea of why you get stuck on some levels in games like Candy Crush,” says the self-confessed online game addict with a laugh.
As in Bankerupt and The Bankster , this book too has a strong female character. Ravi explains: “After my first book, many of my readers came back to tell me that the female characters I had created were not strong enough. I have consciously rectified that in my next four books. In any case, it’s true that women run the world and men would do better to listen to them!”
God Is A Gamer is available online and in bookstores.