Sati (novel)

"Sati" is the name of a fantasy novel by Christopher Pike. It was first published in September 1990.

Plot summary

Michael is a trucker who picks up a blonde, blue-eyed, young female hitchhiker named Sati in the Arizona desert. Sati claims that she is God, to Michael's disbelief, and sets out to prove this by spreading this message through organized meetings, and convinces many people of her divinity. She is challenged numerous times, once by a fundamentalist preacher, but emerges unscathed in his claims. Meanwhile, Michael sets out to find out where this "Sati" came from, only to find nothing. The book opens as such:

"I once knew this girl who thought she was God. She didn't raise the dead or give sight to the blind. And she didn't teach me anything I didn't already know. Not really. However, she didn't want to be worshipped or ask for money. Given the high opinion of herself, some might call that a miracle. I don't know, maybe she was God. Her name was Sati, and she had blonde hair and blue eyes."

-Pike, Christopher. Sati. New York: TOR Publishing Company, 1991. (MLA)

Influences

Like many other books written by Pike, this book is clearly influenced by The Bible, and Hindu mythology as well as modern day Christianity, Hinduism and Buddhism, as shown in Sati's philosophy and persona which is a mixture of these beliefs.

Interestingly, there are many similarities between the character Sati and the similarly-named Sita from Pike's "The Last Vampire" series written later: both are blonde, blue-eyed young females with supernatural powers, and have beliefs similar to those of Hinduism (Sita practises Hinduism).