Review: The Sentence by Gautam Bhatia

This is the story of Gautam Bhatia’s The Sentence.

Nila and her world take place in a rather unique setting. It is a completely mundane alternate world that is nonetheless, appears to be the only world. It’s not a colonized planet, it’s not the far past or far future of Earth. And yet it is a world that has no magic or even the hint or trappings of a fantasy setting, either. It’s just an alternate cradle of humanity, from all the textual evidence.

That said, the history of this world reflects, refracts and  rhymes with our own history. It takes place in a city on a subcontinent with a number of city states besides Peruma, where all of the action takes place. Peruma, once upon a time, was an Imperial power and dominated the entire subcontinent before a world with technology slightly ahead of ours.  A revolution in the imperial capital, freedom for the other cities, and we ar  left with a subcontinent of competing and jockeying city states, high in technology. Given the names of the other cities [ Chemur, Monara, Lubini, Jharna and Sampi], and other worldbuilding we get, this all gives the subcontinent that Peruma sits on a very Indian flavor.  However this appears to have been a homegrown empire rather than one imposed from without-- much more like the Chola empire, rather than the Mughals or the British.

The Empire, however, is four centuries in the  past. (this is the kind of novel that has a timeline of history up front). What is more relevant is a century ago. After the fall of the empire, the city of Peruma turned into a mercantile republic (republic in theory, anyway) wracked by revolts from the lower classes. Finally, a hundred years ago, Purul, the head of the republic, the Director, had a confrontation with a worker, Jagat R., was shot by Purul, leading to a revolution within the city, and its division into two halves.  Jagat R. was found guilty, but in a world where the death penalty had been ended, instead was put into cryosleep.  

A hundred years later, it is Jagat R’s sentence of murder that our POV protagonist, Nils, is asked to reopen and overturn, rather than what she really wanted:  joining the “Case of the century”, which is an examination of the treaty signed at the end of that same revolution.  

And thus our plot is up and running.

So while the ostensible plot is Nils trying to work on what is seemingly an open and shut murder case from a century ago, and one that literally is seen to have changed history, the novel is really about all of the questions that arise from the sociological and legal questions that the author poses in the narrative.  This is the real heart of the novel and what the author has our protagonist, and indeed, the entire society is grappling with.  The Sentence itself, the cryosleep that in a real sense is almost always just a slow motion death penalty (after about 100 years, someone put into cryosleep cannot be revived) is just one of the base questions. Questions of Justice, due process,  and equity in sentencing and representation (the Guardians are a fascinating legal idea) are part of the pie. 

Even bigger are the sociological and political questions that the novel raises. I didn’t mention that when half of the city broke away from the other after the assassination, that lower city’s revolution took its form of government in a radical direction that went all the way to an anarchic commune. A century later, it is still, mostly, following the precepts of its own revolution, but the upper city still holds a strong hand, and would definitely want to reintegrate it back into its political control. And, what is more, the commune;s future is already at stake. Someone upsetting the applecart of the fact of a lower city martyr, Jagat R., assassinating the director could be at best a destabilizing force on its very existence. 

And did I mention that Nila’s mother is an important member of the commune? 

So, The Sentence is The Paper Chase by way of The Paris Commune, set in a secondary science fiction world loosely based on the Indian subcontinent, with aircars, cryosleep, and a few other twenty minutes into the future level technologies. It’s a legal thriller, certainly, but even more it is a sociological and societal thriller that poses some not-easily-answered questions about justice, society, government, and the role of personal responsibility to all three. 

It makes the book hard to judge with its peers in the SFF community because it takes several uncommon subgenres of SFF (a legal thriller, a sociological piece, and a de novo secondary world unconnected even by hint to our own) and alloys them all together. There is definitely DNA of LeGuin here, but the deep study and appreciation and concern over the ideas and use of anarchism are far rarer in science fiction outside of LeGuin, and perhaps Doctorow and to an extent, MacLeod, and given the author’s setup here, The Sentence is much more in dialogue with things like The Dispossessed than anything else in terms of the anarchism (which does really feel like the beating heart of the book) but combined with the legal aspects and the sociology of the entire world), and it really is bolding striding into uncharted territory.

How it gets into that territory is, of course, the proof in the putting. The book is written cleanly and strongly and crisply.  but with a lot of overt worldbuilding, necessary because of  the nature of his world (I mentioned the timeline, before as just one example).  The writing is thus rich with setting detail of all kinds. One particular highlight is Unclean Hands, which is a fictional play within the setting that turns into a touchstone for Nila and other characters. It might be inspired by the real Dirty Hands by Sartre, but the two are distinctly different. 

 The other interesting highlight of this is the historical attitude and viewpoint of this society and how this entire society is framed and frames itself within it. The society has a theory of history that works on points of potential divergence, where the course of history was shaped, called Inflection Points. The entire society agrees that this is the standard model of how history is currently interpreted, looked at, discussed and debated. The assassination of the Director a century ago is seen as the Fourth Inflection Point in the post-Imperial era, and everyone seems convinced that this 100th anniversary of that assassination and the debate between the halves of the city, is destined to naturally be the Fifth Inflection Point. And that is even before it is revealed that Nila is going to try and reopen the case of the murder of the Director by Jagat R. 

Although the politics are extremely different, the only other recent works that really compare to The Sentence is The Broken Trust (Mazes of Power) series by Juliette Wade. That too takes place in a society that is not our own, and explores some thorny questions about sociology and anthropology as well. 

While there is intrigue, and some action sequences as efforts to dissuade Nila from handling the case get more and more blatant, overt, and dangerous, the real heart of the book is, in fact, Nila’s heart. She is faced with some very difficult decisions, morally, ethically and personally in the course of her legal investigation, with implications for the city, for society, and most importantly, the author points out, her own soul.  It makes The Sentence fascinating reading, and as of the writing of this review, frustratingly only published in India. This seems to be a wasted opportunity by UK and US publishers. The Sentence is the type of science fiction that begs a much wider audience.

Highlights: 

• A world not our own, with thorny and interesting sociological questions

• Strong legal framework and centrality to society and main character

• A book that will remain with you long after you read it.

Reference: Bhatia, Gautam The Sentence [2025 - currently only available as an import from its Indian publisher].

POSTED BY: Paul Weimer. Ubiquitous in Shadow, but I’m just this guy, you know? @princejvstin