THE IMMORTAL KING RAO by Vauhini Vara In this alternate universe, a global, corporate-run government fused with an ever-present tech company runs the world, in which everyone is a Shareholder unless they opt out and live out their lives on the fringe. Athena, the sole child of King Rao, the most powerful man in the world, decides to risk everything by sharing her father’s life story, to which she has sole access after he transfers his memories to her mind. Can her father’s invention, after having consolidated power, provide power and freedom to the people? And as we experience increasingly dubious intersections of tech, government, banking, and surveillance, could this be similar to our own trajectory into what is to come? In The Immortal King Rao, Vauhini Vara explores this and more in her masterful blending of fact and fiction, wonder and doom, in a story that looks to our past, our present, and our potential future.