In episode two of season four, lawyer, author, and editor Gautam Bhatia returns!

When we last spoke to Gautam, he had just published The Horizon, the much-anticipated sequel to The Wall. Since then, he's published a variety of non-fiction books, helped curate and edit a new anthology, Between Worlds, for Westland Books, and published a new sci-fi novel: The Sentence.

The Sentence is genre crossing, with elements of political thrillers, murder mysteries, and old school science fiction. In it, the protagonist, Nila, is faced with an ethical, legal and political conundrum which will change the world as she knows it.

In this episode, we discuss the Indian science fiction landscape, Japanese-style murder mysteries, being fallible humans, the death penalty and carceral justice, and the big fat desi space opera.

You can follow Gautam on X @gautambhatia88

Read Gautam's Work:

The Sentence (2024)

The Wall (2020)

The Horizon (2022)

Between Worlds (2025)