Weirdly Tuned Antennae - by Radhika Singh (Paperback)

About the Book

Weirdly Tuned Antennae follows Navi in a postimperialist Himalayan future where bodily transcendence reshapes politics and intimacy. Confronting their rebel mother's legacy, a plant-based technology, and a lover born of it, Navi navigates monsoon-soaked mountains shaped by collective liberation rather than dystopian collapse, in luminous, character-driven prose and worldbuilding.

Book Synopsis

WINNER OF THE SUKENICK INNOVATIVE FICTION PRIZE

A postimperialist future shaped by revolutionary struggle and healing, where plant-based technology reshapes sovereignty and intimacy

Weirdly Tuned Antennae is a coming-of-age adventure story that hums with sensory detail, political force, and the uncanny beauty of nature in a profoundly transformed world. This speculative tale traces one person's attempt to explore how freedom is embodied, shared, and fought for, and how love can emerge from networks far older and stranger than the self.

Set in the monsoon-soaked Himalayan foothills in a near future, the story follows Navi on their quest to reconnect with their estranged mother, a freedom fighter in the ongoing battles for self-determination. Navi quickly gets entangled with a lineage of healer-witches who possess mastery over the spirit world and over the cell; a ubiquitous plant-based technology that channels energy and information, revolutionizing both political and bodily sovereignty. Navi's journey is soon distracted by a mysterious lover driven by an interplanetary longing for home that mirrors Navi's own search for belonging.

Rejecting the familiar arc of Western dystopia, Weirdly Tuned Antennae imagines a postimperialist future rooted in collective struggle, internationalism, and the liberation of human potential. Lush, moody, and deeply character-driven, it will resonate with readers who admire the speculative ethics of Octavia Butler and the quiet emotional force of Kazuo Ishiguro.

Review Quotes

"Weirdly Tuned Antennae is a hypnotic song of love and struggle delivered through electric, lyrical prose. Reminiscent of the best surrealist poetry and of its promise to both 'transform the world' and 'change life, ' this book takes us on a sensory journey toward a liberated future, delivering a vision so vivid it burns . . . and leaving us with the aching desire to get there--not tomorrow, but right now. Radhika Singh has gifted us with an epic for our times." --Marine Cornuet, translator of Algeria, Capital: Algiers

"In prose that dances, engages, alerts, and awakens, we are brought into a new realm, a place where people seek life and meaning, where technology borne of and rooted in the earth nurtures and expands instead of tracking down and destroying. Amidst the dregs and depletion of our hyperinflated language and culture, Radhika Singh's appearance makes evident just how much we've missed such a voice and vision." --Ammiel Alcalay, author of Controlled Demolition

"What a life-affirming vision of the future! I loved the cell as a device for exploring the possibilities of technology decoupled from capitalism. This ambiguous utopia questions our present and inspires us to work toward radically different futures." --Alaya Dawn Johnson, Nebula and World Fantasy award-winning author

About the Author

Radhika Singh is a writer and editor living in Queens, New York. She is author of the novel Earthly Playing Field, a sequel to Weirdly Tuned Antennae. Her fiction speculates on the presence of magic in this world, the connection to spirit and consciousness, and the power of the people to organize for collective liberation.