Book Review: Tritcheon Hash by Sue Lange

About a millennium into the future, the universe is a lot different. Many generations ago from 3011, the year in which Sue Lange's Tritcheon Hash opens, women decide they have had enough of the testosterone fueled violence and messiness of males. They pack up and over the next decade or so, leave the men behind on the polluted and resource-depleted Earth and board starships to Coney Island. Coney Island is named after the amusement park-turned woman's penal colony-turned back to amusement park on Earth. Coney Island, light years away, is the all-human female planet, a refuge from and in many ways a complete opposite of, the now completely-male Earth. Here on Coney Island, women indulge in vegetarianism, aromatherapy, and a whole lot of peaceful and "womanly" activities that are the antithesis of the aggressive male-dominated culture they left behind. The women prosper and over the generations evolve a culture and society that epitomizes everything that is the opposite of war-mongering, unhygienic, and "un-cultured" males. In fact, ever since the absolute separation of the sexes, Coney Island has over the centuries even developed technology that surpasses that of the men back on earth.

The women in Tritcheon Hash have adapted and learned to live in a world devoid of the male species. The human females on Coney Island are highly paranoid and wary of Earth. Contact with Earth is extremely limited — confined to once a year when they swap male babies for enough frozen sperm to last their planet for another year. Men, since the separation, have mucked up Earth even more — a perpetual belt of garbage now encircles the planet. This sea of crud blots out the sun, making the human males fight their petty, and numerous, wars in artificial daylight. Plant life is thus highly limited on Earth, and circumscribed to a few areas which have been painstaking reclaimed from radiation fallout.

Tritcheon Hash or Tritch is the eponymous protagonist of Sue Lange's novel. She is brash, fearless, tough, and smart . . . a woman in love with speed. She is a test pilot who loves spaceships that are fast. Her job is to test the newly developed faster-than-light spaceships. She is married to the lovely Drannie Cove and has two daughters. Tritch, on the surface, appears to have everything a woman would want from her life. But within her, there's a knot of dissatisfaction that threatens to come undone and unravel her life. Her marriage to Drannie Cove has dwindled into an unsatisfying and unhappy relationship. Drannie has been acting distant and apathetic, devoting her full attention to their two daughters. Tritch's been spending more time sitting on her butt waiting for the ships she tests to actually fly than she's been enjoying the thrill of space flight. She's also increasingly haunted by an experiment that she was a part of when she was training at Coney Island's military academy — a group of women cadets and a visiting male students are tossed together to see what would happen. The experiment is a spectacular failure, thanks to the aggressive and uncouth behavior of Slab Ricknoy and his dust-up with Tritch during an exercise in which they were to partner each other. Tritch could do with a break.

The opportunity comes in the form of a request for reunification from the males. There are enough people on both sides wondering if that may be a good idea. But paranoia of the males has become the second nature for the inhabitants of Coney Island and while there are sufficient people interested in the reunification idea they want to exercise all possible caution. A decision is made to scout the enemy. So, because of her prior dust-up with Slab Ricknoy, her excellent credentials as a pilot, and her "military" training, Tritch is recruited for a clandestine mission to journey alone to earth, make her way through the layer of garbage permanently obscuring and orbiting the old home planet, and to see if men have managed to evolve out of their wicked, meat-eating, leather-wallet-carrying, war-mongering and aggressive ways. Tritch is excited about her mission. Not just because the idea of espionage and flying the fastest spaceship around — equipped with the "Lighterator" sounds thrilling, but also due to the possible chance that she might somehow may manage to again meet the intriguing Bangut Walht — the "forbidden" and "taboo" man — she met during the experimental exercise back in military school.

Tritch's exceptional skills as a pilot see her through the layer of garbage but she damages the ship during the tricky maneuver and crash lands on Earth. The crash-landing leaves her unconscious long enough to be captured by the one man she really hopes not to see — Slab Ricknoy who is now an aggressive and bellicose military leader in charge of one of the many wars on Earth. Somehow, Bangut Walht also finds himself thrown in the mix of circumstances. Ricknoy's aggressive stance against Tritch and her and Bangut's reaction to it threatens to trigger an intergalactic incident.

Will Tritch escape the clutches of Ricknoy? Will she and Bangut "get-together"? Will she be able to escape Earth, now that her spaceship is damaged and in Ricknoy's custody? What about Drannie and the kids? And if she does manage to escape and return to Coney Island, will Tritch recommend reunification or are the sexes destined to stay apart? The answers to these questions occupy the rest of the story of Tritcheon Hash.

Though it is presented as science-fiction, Tritcheon Hash is primarily a satire. The "science-fiction" is merely a wrapper that provides a world, a reason, in which the story can be played out and explored. Sue Lange uses satire in Tritcheon Hash to poke fun of various gender stereotypes prevalent in the current times. Satire, at most times, is tough to pull off. An author can err on the side of the serious, emphasizing the "message" and alienate the audience who would find the heavy-handed treatment boring. An author can also err on the other extreme — trying to explore every incident and opportunity to poke fun, elicit laughs, and come across as silly and frivolous. Sue Lange, for most of Tritcheon Hash, manages to strike a balance between the two. The science fiction wrapper for the story allows Lange to exaggerate stereotypes and then satirize them in interesting ways by making them sound perfectly logical and sound in the fictitious world. The satire and humor is born out of the play between the exaggerated notions of the characters in the fictitious world and similar notions in the real world. For example, everything on Earth is made of meat products. Males on Earth grow plants just to feed animals and then make everything out of meat and leather. Sample Tritch's reaction on entering Bangut's living quarters for the first time:

The place was orderly—surprisingly so, in fact. No socks draped on heat disseminators, no dirty underwear hung on the back of a chair. Last week’s beer-bash flotsam was not floating about in knee-deep water. The room appeared not only neat, but also tastefully decorated: curtains matched throw pillows, furniture covers had been chosen in stylish auxiliary colors, and a big rug tied everything together. No animal heads were mounted anywhere.

Lange also uses language effectively to emphasize the separation between the sexes and further reinforce the satirical intent of the story. Anything to do with male-female relationships and procreation is described in highly technical terms (a penis is always referred to by Tritch and others on Coney Island as the "Penile Apparatus"). Tritch and the females of Coney Island over the long years of separation have created a slang and manner of speaking that is unique to the planet and that produces some very funny misunderstandings when Tritch talks to the men in the book.

While the satire and humor is definitely a strong point of Sue Lange's story, she does lose her way towards the end. For most of the length of the novel, the story is extremely fast-paced. But towards the end Lange seems to lose her grip on the plot — it almost feels like the author knew how to develop the situation and take it to its climax but hadn't given a thought to how she would handle the resolution of the story. Like Tritch, the plot of the book too drifts at the end.

The characterization in this novel is tricky. One would normally consider sketching in finer details make for a better character. Lange paints Tritch and especially her male characters with a very broad brush. The characters largely are representative of various stereotypes. General Anschoss takes on every generic characteristic of any "General" in any book ever written. Slab Ricknoy, is the archetypical swaggering, aggressive man. Bangut is the stereotypical "sensitive" male. But when you understand that the author's purpose is to make fun of various gender stereotypes, you realize that painting the characters in broad brush strokes was the right (it may have been unintentional) decision. These conventional characters make it easy for Sue Lange to satirize male-female gender perceptions about each other.

Where the novel fails to impress is in its "science" part. For a novel that positions itself as science fiction, there is very little science in the story. Most of it is cosmetic and purely used to create atmosphere. In a science fiction story, at least to me, the science (whatever rules it obeys in that world) should be the reason of the story and should be the primary means of taking the story to its climax and resolution. The only science fiction in the novel is the faster-than-light ships powered by the lighterator and a few other similar token nods to science (plants that soak up radiation, gigantic sails that filter and "mine" the air for metals). The notion of the separation of sexes which is the basic premise for the story, could be easily setup without requiring the science fiction part of the story. Tritcheon Hash is a character-driven story in which the science-fiction is merely cosmetic and incidental. To me a book that is classified into the genre and then turning out to be not hard core science fiction is a big disappointment.

Tritcheon Hash is a book with undeniable energy. It is often funny, and but for the end, never dull. The characterization fits the book's purpose perfectly. If only Sue Lange had also paid attention to the science in her book, Tritcheon Hash would have been a unique coming together of satirical intent and science fiction.

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Book Review: The Iron Tooth by Prithvin Rajendran

In The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy series by Douglas Adams, the Vogons are an alien race from the planet Vogsphere who are responsible for the destruction of the Earth, in order to facilitate an intergalactic highway construction project. They are the writers of "the third worst poetry in the universe." The only way Vogons get other races to hear their poetry is by capturing them and torturing them with readings. Prostetnic Vogon Jeltz captures Ford Prefect and Arthur Dent when they hitch a ride in his spaceship and reads out his poetry to them. The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy issues a terse warning: On no account should you allow a Vogon to read poetry at you.

People of the earth beware! The Vogons are here on Earth. And they are publishing novels.

I was reminded of Vogon poetry repeatedly as I read Prithvin Rajendran's, The Iron Tooth. I would have been immensely grateful if the book had not been published. Or at least if it had been published with a warning: On no account should you read this book. The only way I thought I could survive The Iron Tooth was if I could later slice open my head and scrub my brains in a vat of vinegar.

If you go just by the back cover of the book, Prithvin Rajendran's, The Iron Tooth, is yet another addition to Indian fantasy fiction. The book is set in the magical world of Goodbaiya. A young girl mysteriously becomes pregnant (in what seems like Rajendran's version of the Immaculate Conception), and is thrown out by her family and the city. She is makes a new home for herself at the foothills of the Mala Mountains. On a dark stormy night, she delivers two babies – one human and one troll. From the girl’s story, which functions as the prologue, the book then jumps to various other events. It then links back to the events in the prologue at the end. The first Chapter opens with the story of the great and mighty Dashtum, the good king of the kingdom of Dashter. His adventures cover about a page and a half and we move on to reading about his evil son, Darum, who takes over the kingdom after Dashtum's death. Darum is hated by his people who rebel against him repeatedly but without success. The beautiful princess Nova, Darum's eldest child is like her father – selfish, arrogant, and extremely rude. When she insults the master magician, Faerum, he takes the help of six other powerful magicians and the Custodian of First Light to avenge his insult. The Custodian of First Light curses the entire kingdom of Dashter so that it is perpetually covered with darkness. Princess Nova is imprisoned in a tower, which is guarded among other things by zombies wielding battleaxes. Here she waits to be rescued, forever regretting the grave mistake she had made.

The book then jumps to the kingdom of Greatix where a young man by the name of Princix, after acquiring magical weapons, sets out to become the champion warrior of the king of Greatix, Grantum. Using his weapons, he succeeds in completing all the tasks set out for him and so impressed is Grantum that Princix is made the Champion General of the kingdom. After becoming the Champion General, Princix is tasked by Grantum to find out what is wrong with Dashter. Along with Candlebre and Hammil, members of the imperial guard of bodyguards Princix sets out to remove the curse from Dashter. How Princix fulfills his quest, acquires the iron tooth, (from which the novel gets its title), wins Princess Nova's love and then goes on to rule the kingdom of Princeum forms the rest of the story.

Into this boiling and bubbling cauldron of a plot, Prithvin Rajendran throws in ingredients by the fistful: there's a sort of a magical mystic who foretells the destruction of the kingdom of Dashter and its resurrection by a stranger, there's a couple of envious brothers (who serve no other purpose than accompanying Princix on his first quest and then destroying his magical gifts later out of jealousy), a cabal of powerful magicians, a "duke" who is actually the ringleader of a band of thieves, grateful strangers who bestow magical gifts and weapons in gratitude for help, and medusas and vampires and zombies and trolls and giants, and the Baks (who are like Orcs) and the Massive Body Octopus and the Extra Large Locusts, massive owls and even two swords — one called the "Bastard Sword" and the other "Skull Killer".

Rajendran seems to go by the principle that if he adds all possible tropes from fantasy stories and fairy tales, stirring and stewing them together, the resultant tale would be something worth telling. He however forgets one important ingredient that makes even the most outlandish and outrageous fantasy tales such interesting stories to read and listen — the skill of the story-teller.

I remember being told in my school days the golden rule of writing: one main idea per paragraph with supporting details to aid and carry the weight of the central idea. It is amazing how impossible it is to err too much if you follow this simplest of rules while writing. Prithvin Rajendran tries doing something different. Sample this from the early pages of The Iron Tooth:

Elnix assisted the king in the administration of the kingdom. King Dashtum was pleased with Elnix's wise decisions and appointed Elnix as the head of the legal department. Soon, Dashtun married a beautiful commoner named Frisix. She begat him a son in C90 and they named him Darum. Dashtun and his family were loved by the people. Dashtum denounced corrupt courtiers and punished them. He was impartial in his judgments and allowed the people to play a vital part in the governing of the kingdom. His wealth grew beyond imagination and the kingdom was at peace.

While having even a single paragraph like the above is unforgiveable, Prithvin Rajendran writes the entire The Iron Tooth in the same fashion. Ideas, sentences, and paragraphs ramble and run helter-skelter. One never quite gets used to Rajendran's writing style and you struggle to hit some sort of a reading "rhythm or pace" while reading The Iron Tooth. I suppose I am being charitable to call it a style when it could be the acme of Rajendran's writing skill and abilities. So bad is the writing that it affects the story and the telling. I almost gave up reading the book in the initial few pages and had to summon great will power and gnaw my arm to continue. I often wondered if the entire harum-scarum story and plot reflected Rajendran's writing skills or did his writing reflect his scatter-gun imagination.

Sometimes, Rajendran turns into Wikipedia while describing beasts:

The Massive Body Octopus was a cephalopod of the order of Octopoda and had lengthy tentacles with suction cups in them and a soft body with no internal skeleton; it had neither a protective outer shell nor bones. The defensive mechanisms were its inks sacs and camouflage.

When he returns to Greatix after rescuing Princess Nova, Princix tell Ushix, his mother, about his adventures and laments the loss of Hammil's life. Ushix consoles him:

"Life is a constant struggle. Many times, we lose what we love. I know that is difficult to let go but it is best if we forget the past and move forward. Please go and take some rest."

If you felt that the prose itself didn't merit me invoking the Vogons at the beginning of this review, there's poetry as well. Prithvin Rajendran's The Iron Tooth labors under the belief that characters in "epic" fantasy (increasingly this term denotes a breadth of imagination and influences without any corresponding depth to give the story some substance) regularly break into song and verse. He fails to note that the verse has to be of impeccable quality. When Rajendran describes the various towns of the Kingdom of Greatix, we come to the towns of Aeros and Ratne. He tells us:

As the rivers provided fresh water, fishing was a major activity in the towns of Aeros and Ratne. The fish was a good source of protein for the people's diets. The people chanted,

"O, water, O, water!
Everywhere around us water is present
Fresh water is in plenty
It is savoury
And excellent for digestion in the body
Water provides fish
Fish is enriching
O, water, O, water!"

During one of his early adventures, Rajendran tells us how Princix takes out three chunks of fish and places them on fire to cook them. And then he chants:

"O, what a smell!
I cannot wait to eat this fish
What weather!
The wind is serene
There is no worry
What calm!"

And later, while on his quest to Dashter, Princix comes across a pheasant and waxes lyrical:

"O, What a pretty bird!
Its feathers dry all our burdens
But what do we do?
We have to satisfy our hunger!
We have to kill this bird."

When such songs and poems occur on every other page of the book, you would be forgiven if you were to revise your opinion and declare the Vogons as high priests of excellent poetry and prose.

The Iron Tooth is a hotchpotch tale that seems to have a vague idea about the direction in which it is heading. Otherwise the story rambles, events are put down on paper as they occurred to the author with no thought to their relevance or the plotline. Prithvin Rajendran seems more bent upon cramming every influence and fantasy trope into his story rather than worry about the coherence of his tale. I have mentioned earlier that virtually every well-known trope and character from fantasy fiction and fairy tales seems to have found its way in The Iron Tooth. Would personal experiences and incidents be left out? In the Acknowledgements section of the book, Prithvin Rajendran tells us:

I also applied some of my personal incidents to the story. I cite one of them as follows: in January 2006, due to a minor fall, I got hairline cracks on two of my upper teeth and my lower lip was swollen. I applied similar injuries to Candelbre when he was attacked by trolls near the marshes of Troyae in Chapter 12.

That in a way sums up what to me The Iron Tooth is all about — a personal indulgence of the author. Books are, of course, personal and many a writer has channeled the personal into the fictional. Considering Rajendran's craftsmanship and his writing skills, I would have been happy if he had kept his story and experiences to himself and let The Iron Tooth stay unpublished.

These days publishing houses seem deem editors unnecessary, the least they could do is print the book with an appropriate and prominent hazard warning. I, for one, would be full of gratitude.

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Book Review: Satin - A Stitch in Time by Payal Dhar

I have always wondered why Payal Dhar and her Shadow in Eternity series are not famous enough. For the large number of authors that seem to have their 15 minutes under the limelight these days, the lack of excitement around Payal Dhar's Shadow in Eternity trilogy feels like a betrayal by us readers. Those three books, to me, are amongst some of the best fantasy fiction written in India and I always thought that the story should get its due. After her interesting and enjoyable Shadow in Eternity trilogy, I had marked Payal Dhar as an author to follow and waited for her next with much anticipation and expectation. It is the sort of feeling that one probably gets after seeing a highly remarkable debut by a young cricketer. For the next match or series, you have your fingers crossed — will he live up to his promise? Or was that just one good innings? There are so many writers who have nothing better to tell than their first story, that the idea of a second book (in this case, a second series) fills the reader with both anticipation and dread. You want to read more from the author, but you so ardently wish, with both your fingers and toes crossed, that she lives up to the expectations. You know it is so unfair to the writer that she has to live up to your expectations but can't keep wishing for it. When Payal Dhar's next book was announced and published, I tried my best to quell my expectations and hoped that it will be a well-told story.

Payal Dhar's latest, Satin - A Stitch in Time, is the first book of her new fantasy trilogy, Satin. Satin - A Stitch in Time is weaved around Marik Yavi, a young magician, from the family that rules the Prefecture of Marik. The Prefecture of Marik is a small matrilineal province in the Union of Nizrah that depends on its reputation as a tourist destination to make money. The Union of Nizrah practices something called the Flame Magic — its magic comes from the eternal flame and all the mages train at the Academy of the Flame at Koda. Politics, alliances, and enmities between the various provinces and prefectures of Nizrah are common and the various ruling families and their "officials" navigate the treacherous waters of Nizrah politics regularly.

Marik Yavi is the second son of the House of Marik and an accomplished word mage. Yavi finds himself to be the heir to his grandfather's, Marik Avin’s, belongings after Avin's death. This is surprising because when he was alive, Avin never lost an opportunity to belittle Yavi and point out that he was but an adopted son of the family. Even more surprising is Avin's legacy to Yavi — several bound volumes of what appear to be cloth samples of satin, and some diaries that chronicle routine, everyday affairs. And a cryptic note to Yavi which simply says: "The key is in Satin." Is this an elaborate prank by Avin on his grandson whom he disliked? Or is it something more that Avin expects Yavi, with his word magic and fondness for puzzles, to solve?

Yavi then undertakes a quest to unravel this mystery. The quest takes him to Kuzerazi in the north and to the estate of Fezar. Magic is frowned upon in Kuzerazi; Kuzerazans shun magic completely and treat mages with suspicion. Fezar is a mysterious place, in this province that is hostile to practitoners and believers of the Flame Magic. Fezar has suddenly dropped from all news a few decades back and its occupants keep minimal or no contact with the outside world. Outsiders are unwelcome. But Yavi must visit Fezar and find its Lakehouse if he has to solve the mystery of the satin samples for his grandfather had spent much of the time detailed in his diaries on the estate. A number of Avin's diary entries are about the construction of Fezar's Lakehouse. Joining him on this quest to unravel his grandfather's legacy are Marik’s sister, the rebellious Fahe, and a young Kuzerazan runaway, Keas. Fahe is the future Prefect of Marik — she's an adolescent, full of angst, one who is yet to learn how to control her magic and is confused with the happenings in her home and family. Keas, is the son of a renowned, almost legendary, Kuzerazan herbalist called Win. He has rejected the apprenticeship of his father and has defied him to pursue his dream of becoming a mage. Accompanying them are Yavi's and Fahe's bodyguards: Rindan and Zurel. Their quest, the three soon find out is dangerous — there are strangers about who clearly mean them harm and who want Yavi's cloth samples. And along the way, the group discovers things about their Flame magic and the nature of magic that challenges the notions they had held sacred. What they discover turns their world, and their time, upside down.

Payal Dhar's great skill at building alternative worlds is on display in Satin - A Stitch in Time. Like the Shadow in Eternity trilogy, Satin's world is a world very like ours in many ways and yet unlike ours. The world is full of technology and Dhar clearly channels her inner geek when she details the technological marvels of this world: the "Infonet," computers, touchscreen tablets, the comm handsets and especially the wonderful machinery and technology that Yavi, Fahe, and Keas encounter in their quest. This world is also magical with mages using pentasters to channel their magic — whether it is elemental or like Yavi's, of words. Some of the technology is in fact powered by Flame Magic. It's a world where Flame Magic dominates and other kinds of magic are non-existent and the notions of any other magic considered pagan. It is also a world that is balanced on an uneasy truce between the mages and the common folk without magic. The world itself thus sets up different tensions in this fictional land. There's the political tension between the ruling families. There's the tension between the rigid (almost "fundamentalist") adherers of the Flame and the others who question and seek to undermine these beliefs, there's the hostility of the Flame mages and the academy against considering any other kind of magic and conveniently labels them as pagan and rebellious. There's the suspicion of Kuzerazi towards magic and mages. And there is Fezar, which has secluded itself from the world and treats any trespass with extreme hostility. All of this is packaged in a geeky world that follows the decimal system of time with each hour having 100 minutes and each minute having hundred seconds. A day is divided into twenty hours and the calendar has five months of 70 days. Time is a crucial concept in Satin.

Satin - A Stitch in Time is clearly a more mature work compared to the Shadow in Eternity series. Action is used in small effective bursts to keep the story moving. For a greater part of the story, it is dialogue and descriptions that keep the narrative moving and the reader engaged. The convoluted politics between the different provinces is well laid out and I expect it will have a major bearing on how the other two books unfold. Dhar, in the Shadow of Eternity trilogy, had shown herself to be especially capable of delineating human relationships and intrigues. We see perhaps a greater emphasis on the same in Satin. Having Fahe as an adolescent perhaps is a masterstroke in this context. Her confusion and angst at the relationship equations in her matrilineal home mirror the reader's feelings. Her angst at growing up and belief that perhaps she no longer has a first claim on her elder brother, Yanik's (who is now expecting a child with his wife, Sera), affections is very well brought out. Yavi's mixed feelings about meeting his onetime mentor the Academy and later a lover, Disciple Kariad, too are portrayed extremely well. Fahe's discomfort with Zurel who is now expected to shadow her 24x7 and Keas' uneasiness at running away and then adjusting to a new life, culture, and people detailed nicely. It is these relationships and the delineation of the unique magic of this world that occupies most of the book. This book clearly demands patience and indulgence from the readers as the author sets her pieces on the board and explains the rules. There are detailed descriptions of the nature of magic (at times, with supporting diagrams).

For readers who are familiar with Dhar's earlier work, there is much in Satin - A Stitch in Time that will feel different and yet familiar. Payal Dhar's obsession with "Time" is a common thread between the two. The nature of magic in Satin may be different from the "Spirit" in the Shadow of Eternity but the blend of technology and magic is something that is familiar. Payal Dhar's fondness for the outdoors and hiking and trekking is something that will echo in the new series too. To a certain extent, some of the characters too are recognizable. One wonders if Disciple Kariad will be the Nira of Satin or if Jurel is not Chiyo from Dhar's other trilogy. I suspect there are elements and character types from the Shadow of Eternity which have served as seeds for their "equivalents" in Satin - A Stitch in Time. In interests of Satin, I do hope these are only seeds and that the characters here develop in a way that is unique to Satin's world.

Did Payal Dhar's Satin - A Stitch in Time meet my expectations? In many ways, it didn't. I suppose I was expecting another Noah and Maya from the Shadow of Eternity trilogy to hook me into the story. And while there may be characters in Satin that remind you of those in her other books, there is neither Noah nor Maya in Satin. In some ways, this is a drawback of Satin - A Stitch in Time. Noah and the wonderful Maya were two characters that I cared about and Maya's spunky shenanigans were what kept me hooked into the Shadow of Eternity books. Satin -A Stitch in Time has no characters, yet, about whom I really care. While the book is low on action and is more interested in laying out the lie of Satin's fictional land, it does result in a book where readers feel aloof from the characters of the story. The engagement with their fates and their quest is missing. But that is a personal take on the book. Satin, otherwise is a very well-told story. Dhar's strengths at creating alternate worlds have clearly triumphed in Satin - A Stitch in Time. I may not care much about the characters yet, but the plot has me hooked. I want to know what happens next and especially I am looking forward to how Dhar handles "faith" in the next two books of the series — I do hope the theme of "faith" in Flame Magic and its institutions is integral to the story that follows — it will be interesting to apply Dhar's take to our world. I am curious to know more about the "Pagan" magic and how it will question the dominant discourse of Flame Magic. And for a book that is about Time, there are many events and things in Satin - A Stitch in Time that make you wonder how exactly it all will happen in the future. Dhar, in a manner of speaking, has told her readers about some of the destinations that they can expect to reach in the forthcoming books in the series. The intrigue and the interest is not in knowing the destinations beforehand, but in wondering how exactly will the story-teller journey her readers to these milestones. Satin - A Stitch in Time is a sufficiently  intelligent fantasy that is engrossing and engaging enough to look forward to making the journey into Payal Dhar's new world again.

Book Review: Revolution 2020 by Chetan Bhagat

Chetan quit his international investment banking career in 2009, to devote his entire time to writing and make change happen in the country.

That is from the short (but extremely eulogistic) bio that appears as soon as you get past the cover of Chetan Bhagat's Revolution 2020 — Love. Corruption. Ambition. So, does this book measure up to that praise? That is a rhetorical question. For a Chetan Bhagat book, people will tell us, is not to be critiqued by literary standards. Chetan Bhagat's books sell and presumably, they have got people back to reading. It is a tad depressing though, going purely by what's in Revolution 2020, that Chetan Bhagat is India's literary star. It is even more worrying, going by numerous Chetan Bhagat interviews and what not, that his books are apparently making "change happen in the country."

Chetan Bhagat is increasingly à la Salman Khan in the Indian book industry — like the Bollywood actor, the author believes that anything he dishes out, will sell. His persona and the hype around his books ensure that his works make money despite what discerning readers and many reviewers think of the books' literary merits. Like Salman Khan's movies off late, Chetan Bhagat's books follow a tried and tested template. Structurally, Revolution 2020 is like any other Chetan Bhagat book — it kicks-off with a prologue which sets up the author as a sort of an amanuensis for someone's story, the story follows, then there's an epilogue in which the author comes back in the tale and ties or concludes something in the story. Somewhere in all this, Chetan Bhagat also puts in a couple of love-making scenes mandatory in his books.

The book's blurb asks: "Are you ready for the Revolution?" Revolution 2020 is supposedly about the current hot topic — corruption. More specifically, it is supposed to be an exposé of the corruption in the education system. Presumably, it is about a revolution that is to come and sweep away the Augean stables that is present day India. Is the book really all of that?

The prologue of Revolution 2020 has Chetan Bhagat delivering a motivational speech at GangaTech college in Varanasi. It is at this event that the author meets the protagonist of his story — Gopal. Gopal, it turns out, is the young director of GangaTech who wants, Chetanji to come to his home for a drink so that, "I can tell people I had a drink with ‘the’ Chetan Bhagat." Chetanji obliges and is witness to Gopal downing so much Glenfiddich that he passes out and the author ends up taking him to a hospital. Gopal of course survives and recounts to Chetan Bhagat his story — the story that is Revolution 2020. Not surprisingly, there's little of the revolution in Gopal's story. Predictably, Gopal's tale is a love story — an awkward love triangle between three childhood friends — Gopal, Aarti, and Raghav. Gopal is poor — the son of a debt-ridden, suffering retired teacher, whose land is under litigation and who has a mysterious ailment for which he needs an operation. Raghav is middle class, but exceptionally intelligent and is expected to crack the All India Engineering Entrance Examination (AIEEE) and the Joint Entrance Examination (JEE) examinations. Aarti is the pretty daughter of a well-off District Magistrate and she has a grandfather who was once a Chief Minister of the state. Each character, like in a movie, neatly represents a particular background and type. As is expected, Gopal falls in love with Aarti who actually loves the idealistic Raghav.

As the story progresses, Raghav cracks JEE, Gopal is unable to get through in spite of two attempts (including a one year stint at Kota's fabled coaching centers — allowing Chetan Bhagat to give his two bits on how the coaching class industry operates) and carries a chip on his shoulder about his failure and Raghav's success. To add to Gopal's misery, Aarti and Raghav get together after Gopal moves to Kota to prepare for his second attempt at JEE. Aarti relegates Gopal to the role of her best friend. Soon, Gopal in a quest to show Aarti that he is worthy and a success, partners and becomes involved in the machinations of the local corrupt MLA. With the blessings, the clout, muscle, and the money of the MLA, Gopal embarks on a road that leads to the building of GangaTech — a private engineering college. The college is actually a means for the politician and his associates to whitewash their black money while catering to and making money off the many students who don't get into the IITs or who haven't scored enough to win a government seat in an engineering college. So like the Kota episode in Gopal's life earlier, the GangaTech episode enables Chetan Bhagat to write about the corruption in the educational system and the unethical way in which engineering colleges are set up and operated.

Raghav, who graduates as an engineer from BHU, takes up a job as a reporter for a newspaper. Gopal by now is the director of GangaTech. Already vengeful for having lost Aarti to Raghav, Gopal's corruption is now pitted against Raghav's idealism — an idealism that wants to bring about a social revolution by the year 2020. And this is where Bhagat's decision to firmly entrench himself in Gopal's shoes and perspective backfires. So firmly is the story Gopal's that there is very little of Raghav’s life in the book. Beyond numerous references to Raghav's scrupulousness, idealism, and his hankering to usher change in society there is nothing else. There are no worthwhile clashes between the two — only Gopal's grudge against Raghav for stealing his girl and for cracking JEE and Raghav's insufferable and naive faith that a people's revolution will set the country straight. The story suffers, and there is no revolution in the book.

Even as a love story, Revolution 2020 offers nothing unusual or novel in the rivalry between two friends vying for the affection of one girl. A love story is memorable primarily due to its characters and their chemistry. Gopal, Raghav, and Aarti are caricatures. I have already pointed out how the three represent different economic backgrounds and types. Gopal is meant to be the poor boy who wants to achieve big and wants the beautiful girl. Sadly, he lacks the money to help him prepare or the talent and tenacity needed to crack a tough entrance exam. Nor does he have the looks and the spirit to impress the girl. Raghav is meant to be the talented one who gets the girl. Aarti is the pretty girl, who is an inspiration to both Gopal and Raghav. She falls for Raghav and when she realizes that she will be always second to his revolution, decides that she afterall did actually love the corrupt engineering college director who is also her best friend. Unfortunately, the way Chetan Bhagat writes about them, Gopal comes across as a self-indulgent and self-obsessed idiot. Raghav comes across as an incredibly naive journalist who writes worse than Chetan Bhagat does. And Aarti, well it is not clear why either of the guys love her for she comes across as having nothing more than air in between her ears and pretty looks. The characters don't develop or change at all, unless you want to consider Gopal and sacrificing his love after finally winning Aarti's affections (through a much contrived and corny ploy that would do Bollywood proud), so that Raghav can continue to be inspired by Aarti and have a chance at bringing about his social revolution.

Revolution 2020 is a below average, clichéd love story that strives to pretend more than what it is by weaving in the themes of corruption and revolution in it. Unfortunately it is too self-indulgent to realize its numerous plot holes, cardboard characters, or its vain "amanuensis" — you really have to read the prologue and the epilogue of the book to see how astoundingly conceited Chetan Bhagat comes across as. In the prologue, Chetanji pats himself as "the" Chetan Bhagat when he agrees to join Gopal for a drink and dinner. In the epilogue, Chetan, perhaps to return his character's favor of revering his celebrity status, tells Gopal that he is a good person. Presumably, the Chetan Bhagat in the story intends to validate Gopal's decision to sacrifice his love without realizing that in a way he is also pointing out to his readers that it is okay to be average as long as you make money. In whatever way you can. Perhaps, Chetan Bhagat is unconsciously seeking affirmation from his readers for making money with his middling talent. Perhaps Revolution 2020 is all about justifying that it is okay to write mediocre and clueless books as long as you intend them to make change happen in the country.

Book Review: Conversations by Rajeev Nanda

When I wrote about  Lucy and Stephen Hawking's attempt to bring theoretical physics to kids through George's Secret Key to the Universe, I had pontificated a bit on e-learning — on the process of using stories and scenarios to convey information, to teach. Much of what I had said then about e-learning can be reiterated again while discussing Rajeev Nanda's attempt to fuse literature and philosophy in Conversations.

When we design e-learning programs (I work as an e-learning developer), often the "teach" is masked within a "wrapper." This wrapper is an interesting scenario or a story, sometimes a generic theme, and nowadays, often a game, that aims to hook the learners and engage them enough to provide them the learning content. A good wrapper engages the learners and weaves in the "teach" in a way that it doesn't drown the "fun" elements brought in by scenario or the game. A good wrapper shouldn't overwhelm the teach lest the primary objective, the transfer of information, is lost.  Nor should the wrapper be so weak that the teach smothers the story. It is the wrapper that keeps the learner moving forward and is the impetus to complete the training. A good wrapper, as you must have realized, is difficult to conceive and execute — getting that perfect balance between fun and teach is a tough ask.

Now, if I haven't lost you and you are still around and reading this, you must be wondering how all this applies to Rajeev Nanda's Conversations. Rajeev's work is perhaps easier to understand if you view it through the simplistic lens of a wrapper. His stories and poems are but excuses, wrappers that provide a framework to philosophize on various aspects and dilemmas of life. For example, Soldier is a "story" that wonders about war and the boundaries between nations. GD, a soldier guarding a nation's borders expresses surprise that he doesn't see anything physical (like a wall) to separate one nation from another. So how do leaders know exactly which geo-political boundaries to protect? Why are the boundaries necessary? Why is it that the political leaders who don't fight are so eager to declare war? The Taxi Ride is a conversation between a customer and a taxi driver who is a reformed sandalwood thief and a full-time philosopher. The taxi driver's philosophical perspectives on illegal mining, men-women relations, marriage are juxtaposed against those commonly held by people like us personified in the story by the customer. Snowstorm, which starts off as a chance interaction between two passengers stranded at an airport due to a snowstorm, soon transforms into a psychoanalysis of marriage, expectations, and the choices that people make in marriage. Four Eulogies is vaguely Ayn Rand-esque in tone and intent. It attempts to explore the theme of "Living life passionately (and damn the world that doesn't understand your actions)." The Truth Club is about a group of friends who form a club that is a forum to provide brutal feedback — the truth — to each other. The story is an umbrella wrapper for each character's story and tries to point out how facing the truth about ourselves is perhaps the most difficult thing to do in life. Conversations has eleven such stories collected together, all of them attempting, as one of the book's blurbs puts it,  to "treat philosophy literarily and literature philosophically."

Hmm. . . . does Rajeev Nanda succeed in his attempt? Remember all that I had said earlier about finding the right balance between the story and the information when discussing wrappers. Conversations, failed to engage me on both counts — as "stories" as well as "philosophy". The problem with Rajeev Nanda's stories and story-telling is easy to identify — the wrappers just don't work. The story element in all stories is smothered, nay, steam-rolled, by the author's heavy-handed intent to cram it with his musings and philosophizing. None of the stories succeed or engage the reader as tales. If you are attracted to stories because of the fictional element — the tales themselves, you will be disappointed. The story-telling itself is not of high quality. Most "stories" are propelled by an author eager to create situations that enable him to share his perspectives and thoughts on various things. The story and story-telling consequently feels secondary, like an after-thought. To me, it felt like the author thought to himself: "Here's a perspective that I want to pontificate on, now what would be a story in which I can wrap this?" The philosophy seems to come first, the story follows later and is made to fit something for which it is inadequate. The stories are the weakest part of the two ingredients that the author has attempted to combine — literature and philosophy. The "hook" is just not good enough to bait and engage the readers.

The story-telling inadequate in another way. When you think of stories as constructs of words, it is immediately evident that Rajeev Nanda is no wordsmith. Nor does he have any hang of characterization and hasn't given much thought to his use of language. Therefore, a taxi driver spouts philosophy (which is not implausible) and talks about various social mores in words and with a sophistication that would be used by a highly-educated person (which is far fetched). Kids in college talk about precluding and anterograde amnesia. All characters talk as if they are reading out of an encyclopaedia. Rajeev is no master at conversations (pun unintended) and most of the interactions in his stories are like the ones we come across in badly written English plays performed by actors who are not natural speakers of the language — heavy, stiff and too formal.  The problem is that the minute Rajeev moves into his "philosophizing" mode in a story, the language switches too — and it switches from that which is natural to something out of a textbook. The effect is jarring and it makes the story a poorer experience. The author's awkward use of words and language leave behind an impression that a writer hasn't practiced his craft enough.

Let’s look at the second ingredient in the book, the "philosophy". Now this, to me, is the prime reason why these stories were written and published. I have used the word "pontificate" quite a few times in this post. That is deliberate. That is how Conversations comes across. It could be due to the author's use of language. The heavy-handed, formal register does give an impression of someone lecturing about his insights into life and living. There's nothing in the "philosophy" that is new nor is there a unique perspective on anything. Most of the thoughts and perspectives in the stories are something that I feel (and I am aware that I am generalizing) that any liberal, libertarian or a reasonably mature individual would have. Sometimes, in fact, the philosophizing is vaguely irritating. Snowstorm and The Truth Club are two examples of basic, commonplace psychological analysis masquerading as deep philosophy. Four Eulogies has an Ayn Rand hangover. All that pondering on vague boundaries between nations in Soldier has been said so much better by Amitav Ghosh in his The Shadow Lines. In none of the stories do you come across anything that provides a new insight into a situation. Some of it feels derivative. For a book that takes its philosophy so seriously (and for a book, which to me was written because the author felt that he had some insights to share) that is a big letdown.

The six poems in the collection are in the same vein as the prose. There is neither any good poetry, nor deep thought. The poems in fact come across as amateurish, the kind you see published in school and college annual magazines that rhyme and try to convey some profound thought.

Rajeev Nanda's Conversations, tries to occupy the space created out by the intersection of stories and philosophy. Sadly, neither the story-teller nor the philosopher have the ability to carry the book on their individual shoulders. This attempt at a three-legged race is then doomed to be just that — an attempt. It is earnest, yes, but then earnestness doesn't ensure a good story or a worthwhile insight into life.

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Book Review: The (In)eligible Bachelors by Ruchita Misra

Warning: Spoilers Ahead!

Rajeev Sir looked into my eyes and smiled that extra special smile of his. I felt as if my heart was made of butter. His smile is like a microwave. When the microwave is on, the butter melts.

I admit that at times I am slow. Slow to call a spade a spade. Perhaps I just didn't want to admit that I had made a grave error in judging a book by its blurb. It was only when I came across the above lines on page 92 of The (In)eligible Bachelors that I knew there was no getting away from nagging suspicion that had raised its head from the first page of the book — Ruchita Misra's The (In)eligible Bachelors is not a humorous satire on arranged marriage as it is positioned to be. It is unadulterated chick-lit.

The (In)eligible Bachelors is the story of the 24-year-old Kasturi Shukla, a geeky and single fresh MBA graduate. She is a management trainee in a Delhi office who is required to do not much but polish PowerPoint presentations. And Kas or Kassie (as she is called by her friends) would have been content with doing just that and bonding with her buddies Ananya and Varun. Unfortunately, her mother decides it is time she married. Like most stereotypical Indian mothers, Kasturi's mom initiates the process of getting Kasturi hitched, by first broaching the idea of an "Arranged Marriage" and then fast tracks it by publishing a matrimonial advertisement in the newspapers. She then shortlists prospective candidates (typical IIM/IIT/doctors) and browbeats and blackmails Kasturi into meeting these guys. With Ananya and Varun to support her, Kasturi embarks on a reluctant journey to find her Mr.Right. Things for Kasturi are not as simple as meeting the various guys that her mother has shortlisted (how could there be a story to tell otherwise?). She also develops a major crush on her handsome ("Greek God incarnate") boss, Rajeev Mehrotra, which soon develops into a relationship. For the readers then, the book is about finding the identity of Kasturi's Mr. Right — Is it Rajeev or does she pick one from the buffet of guys that her mom has lined up for her?

The (In)eligible Bachelors tells us about Kasturi's "quest" through her diary of this time. As one would expect, some of diary entries detail her meetings with the various guys who have responded to her matrimonial ad. A goodish bit of the diary is about Kasturi mooning for "Rajeev Sir." And some of it is about her interactions and relationships with her family and with Ananya, Varun and the other friends she makes during this time.

The (In)eligible Bachelors is largely formulaic. Virtually all the guys (but one) that her mother shortlists are either from the IIT/IIMs or similar institutes and are weird. Amay a.k.a. "Pita ji," from ISB, looks old enough to be her father and focuses his conversation on her zits. Kasturi's meeting with him is a disaster as she ends up getting the contents of an Oreo milkshake all over her. Pita ji and Kasturi, through various circumstances and mutual friends, do later end up being good friends. Another guy is interested in talking about himself (time that Kasturi uses to fantasize about Rajeev) and yet another consults a notebook and makes notes about the meeting. The only "nice guy" in this matrimonial buffet is Dr. Purva Dikshit who is super specializing at the AIMMS (yep, AIMMS). Purva is pleasant, attentive to Kasturi, mature, solid, dependable, etc., etc. and is probably something of an hero — he has scars from the time he tried rescuing somebody from a fire (hint: the hand that helps Kasturi up after the Oreo milkshake incident also has a scar). Well, if that doesn't forebode where the story is headed, readers should also note that Kasturi's dad is a doctor and (without having to bring Freud into to the picture) we all know what is commonly said about daughters looking for guys who are like their fathers.

The (In)eligible Bachelors jumps from one predictable and clichéd incident to another. You know Kasturi is going to fall for Rajeev and it doesn't need brains to realize that he is too smooth to be marriage material and that the relationship will end up in a disaster. You know Rajeev is going to be the bad apple (after all he is from an institute called IPPM — and if that is not a big enough hint . . .) and hurt Kasturi. You also see Ananya and Varun (who never have anything positive to say about Rajeev) will rally around her and come up with a plan when Kasturi and Rajeev announce their intentions to marry. You can even predict Purva becoming a fast and dependable friend who will always be around when Kasturi is in a crisis and needs a shoulder. There's nothing wrong with a predictable book — the pleasure of reading a predictable story is to see how the novelist has developed the plot and narrated the story. Wodehouse, to mention one writer, told the same basic story — of a guy meeting a girl and the two finding love — so many times in so many entertaining ways.

Ruchita Misra is no Wodehouse. Humor is a result of circumstances or created by a master craftsman out of language and wordplay. Wodehouse was a master at both. Ruchita Misra, very early on in the book (in fact, on the first page ) has her protagonist claim, "I can be really smart with words you know." There is little evidence in Kasturi's diary to back her claim. About the only remotely smart quip, that she comes up with is when she reacts to Purva's poor attempt at a PJ with: "I could crack better PJs than this even before I could speak." The attempts at humor in the book otherwise are juvenile, air-headed, and come with a large helping of mush on the side. Sample Kasturi's diary entry for 17 June, 2009:

I checked my phone forty-one times today for a missed call/call/message/missed message from Rajeev sir. This has been my highest count so far. I have to stop obsessing.
Or stop counting.

And then the one on 18 June, 2009:

I checked my phone eighteen times today. The count is low and I am proud of that.

If this juxtaposition of counts and back-patting is supposed to induce a smile or a chuckle, it falls flat (or at least the attempt failed with this reader. All it elicited was a groan). Much of the "humor" in the book is of the same variety:

12 July 2009
No. of hours spent with Rajeev sir: 1.5
No of hours spent thinking about the 1.5 hours spent with Rajeev Sir: fifteen

It perhaps works as chick-lit and might strike a chord with the kind of audience that goes for such books. To call it humor would require a generous spirit.(And yes, the second "No" quoted above comes without the period.)

In spite having a predictable storyline, it is surprising that Ruchita Misra has to resort to a deus ex machina to push the story to its resolution. In the story, the deus ex machina element is in the guise of two Tamilian nurses at the AIMMS hospital. The nurses discuss in Tamil, Purva's feelings for Kasturi (he loves her so much that he can't bear to see her in the slightest pain. Purva always gets another doctor to give Kasturi injections and turns away and winces when his colleague actually plunges in the needle). The two are oblivious to the fact (as are the readers, because it is never woven into the story earlier but brought in only at this point) that both Kasturi (who is in the same room) and Purva (who is in the next room and within hearing distance) understand Tamil perfectly — Kasturi knows Tamil courtesy of a Tamil ayah. So that's how it dawns on Kasturi that Purva loves her. Ruchita actually has to use this ruse twice to goad Kasturi into thought and action and that doesn't make for good reading.

There's a lot to kvetch about Ruchita's attempt at Kasturi's diary. I am not even getting into the technical aspects of how a first person narrative at times reconstructs events and dialogues of another person miles away. Nor am I going to dwell much on what passes for humor in this book (to be honest, I am sure there is a large audience for this kind of "mass-market" writing — it wouldn't have been published otherwise). Nor am I going to crib about how a predictable plotline is populated with numerous cringe-inducing incidents (For example: Purva and Kasturi eating paranthas out of a single plate or its mirror incident later — the two eating Maggie noodles out of a single bowl). I am also going to desist myself from wondering how Kasturi who is so full of doubts about Rajeev on page 182 (“he is never around when needed, none of my friends have ever said anything good about him”) can agree to marry him hardly a few page turns later. A piece of writing, published, and put out in the market as a book should however, at the very least, go through a proper copy-edit. A restaurant is called Big Chill on page 35 and transforms into Bill Chill on page 37 and back to Big Chill on the next page. Kasturi goes out for dinner with Rajeev on a Friday evening and then reacts to his Facebook update, "Rajeev Mehrotra had a lovely Saturday evening," with a "*swoon* . . . And I have not stopped smiling since I read the status." Am I the only one who is a bit confused with the timelines here? In most of her diary entries Kasturi is unable to decide between "Rajeev Sir" or "Rajeev sir" and uses either of the two liberally throughout. A good editor would have also pondered over Ruchita's choice of words: "The men smelled of cheap alcohol and their eyes had a luscious look that chilled me to my bones," (pg. 188). The author, I fear, like Kasturi, manages to "loose" her way a number of times.

The (In)eligible Bachelors perhaps can be viewed as the latest of the many Indian mass-market novels written in English that are currently in vogue. These are simple, easy to read stories with a non-taxing, barebones plot and narrative — stuff that many find compelling and connect with instantly. I, and that should have been amply clear by now, do not belong to that club. I find it truly amazing how so many people today have the self-confidence and the belief that they have a story to tell and that there is a publisher and an audience for their story. I feel if only these authors utilize some of their time in honing their craft, they would do themselves, their stories, and their audience a lot of good. Else, we are fated to come across stuff about which one can only comment: "I felt as if my brain was made of butter. This book is like a microwave. When the microwave is on, the butter melts."

Book Review: No Place Like Holmes by Jason Lethcoe

What would you expect from a book that tries to be clever (and only succeeds in eliciting a groan) with its title? I read Jason Lethcoe's No Place Like Holmes, without expecting much from it. At no point in my reading did it feel that the book would attempt to change my opinion of it. No Place Like Holmes, and we might as well get this out of the way, is yet another book that tries to sell itself by trying to provide an alternative to Sherlock Holmes — the detective, the history of his times and the hagiography around this fictional legend. Jason Lethcoe, however, is no Arthur Conan Doyle and his Griffin Sharpe comes off as a watery adolescent imitation of the great detective.

When the novel opens, Griffin Sharpe (so called, as you must have guessed, because he is sharp, has keen eye that notices every tiny detail, and has a "mathematical mind"), a young American boy, has been sent to live with his uncle in London for the summer at 221 Baker Street. Griffin has never met his uncle. Griffin, naturally because he has heard so much about Sherlock Holmes, and because he wants to be a detective one day, is inclined to believe that the great detective is his uncle. Griffin hopes finally of meeting someone who will understand and encourage his mathematical bent of mind and his observant eye. It turns out that, Griffin's uncle lives at 221A Baker Street under the shadow of the great detective residing at 221B. Griffin's uncle, Rupert Snodgrass, is also a detective — one who is extremely bitter about the success and the fame of his neighbor (Snodgrass’ goal in life to solve a mystery before Sherlock Holmes). It also turns out that Snodgrass is extremely poor (all the cases go to Sherlock Holmes) and hence resents having his nephew is with him for the summer. Snodgrass, however, has the knack for inventing astounding steampunk devices (think of the devices you see in Wild Wild West) that include a mechanized butler and a submersible.

Griffin is extremely disappointed to find the unkind Snodgrass and not the cool Sherlock to be his uncle. However being a "good Christian,” (and more on this later) he tries to understand, forgive and help his uncle. An opportunity soon presents itself when Griffin stumbles upon a case that is supposed to be for Mr. Holmes, but as he is not home at the time of the problem — the case becomes Snodgrass’ to solve. With Holmes not available to take the case, Griffin convinces the client to come to his uncle. Griffin and his uncle then step in and take the case.

Mrs. Dent, the client, believes that the Loch Ness Monster, which suddenly appears in the Thames, swallowed her husband. Those who were witness to his disappearance believe the same.  Griffin and Rupert are on the case and need to figure out what really happened. From then on, the nephew and the uncle plunge into a mystery that is heavy on action. Events and vile plots threaten not only the Queen and the Big Ben but also Sherlock Holmes and all of London are at risk. Nasty villains and quirky characters and technology (Snodgrass' inventions) populate the narrative. Interwoven in this adventure are some of the well-known characters from Conan Doyle's Sherlock Holmes. Mrs. Hudson appears, as does Dr. Watson. With Sherlock Holmes around can Prof. Moriarty be far behind? The arch nemesis of Sherlock Holmes is also a part of Lethcoe's plot.

In the process of unraveling the mystery, Snodgrass comes to appreciate his nephew's intelligence and unique abilities. Griffin comes to know why his uncle is so embittered about Sherlock Holmes. Snodgrass also finds his true heart, and thus redemption, beneath all his disappointment and bitterness. Throughout the book, Griffin is concerned for his uncle's well-being. This finds expression through Griffin's attempts to force his love for god and faith upon Snodgrass.  In fact, it is this theme of religion and redemption that comes across strongly and intrusively in No Place Like Holmes and mars the mystery/adventure that the tale is supposed to be. Griffin and his uncle often find themselves in difficult situations at various points in the story. They overcome these quite easily with Griffin praying to God for help. Perhaps the author is trying to preach "Christian values" and humility towards God through the book, but this emphasis on faith and Christianity comes across as heavy-handed. The emphasis on Christianity, Christian values, etc jars more because none of it flows with the rest of narrative. The numerous religious and Biblical references are all intrusive and irritants. Even with Griffin, his faith and advocacy of religion go against the grain of his essential character — that of a scientific and mathematically-minded adolescent. Each time, in the story, when he prays to God for help, it may reinforce religious values but it breaks the narrative flow and makes for bad story-telling. I think, most readers — even young ones, would recognize that the prayers and faith have been hoisted on to the story to make a point and resent the way religion detracts from the story.

With an obliging God to turn to, you know how the story is going to turn out for Snodgrass and Griffin. The two unlikely heroes will of course save the day. But what about Sherlock Holmes? What is his role in the entire mystery? And does Snodgrass change his view of Sherlock? Possibly these are the only questions whose answers intrigue you in Jason Lethcoe's attempt at a mishmash of mystery/adventure and Christian teachings. No Place Like Holmes will attract readers with its promise of an alternative "history" and perspective on Sherlock Holmes but it is difficult to see the story maintaining the attraction through the course of the novel. Which should worry the author and the publisher — No Place Like Holmes wraps up in such a way that leads to believe that we have not seen the last of Griffin Sharpe and his eccentric uncle.

Hopefully, Lethcoe will leave Sherlock Holmes and other loved fictional characters alone in the sequels.

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Note: I received Jason Lethcoe's No Place Like Holmes free from Thomas Nelson’s BookSneeze as part of its Book Reviews by Bloggers program.

Book Review: The Beast With Nine Billion Feet by Anil Menon

Anil Menon's The Beast With Nine Billion Feet uses "opposites" to tell its story. At the most primary level this is a story of social and ethical issues about genetic engineering. This is depicted through the covert war between two groups: one wants to make genetic engineering affordable and used for public good. It believes in propagating its boons through something similar to the current open source movement in software and is against manipulating genes to create creatures for entertainment, or engineering humans with special abilities. The other group believes such engineering is the future of the world — thus the single seed, which depending on the fertilizer can be "programmed" to grow three different kind of crops or the attempt to make humans immortal. This group also believes in monopolizing the IPR for their genetically modified creations.

This ethical dilemma and the major conflict of the novel plays out through the lives of a pair of siblings, Tara and Aditya (Adi) who are opposites of each other. Tara, the younger sibling, is a voracious reader, takes school seriously and is extremely grounded in the physical world around her. She loves her aunt, Sita, and her two friends, the twins, Ria and Francis. Her brother, Adi, on the other hand, is hooked on to virtual worlds through "illusion tech," and can't read, doesn't believe in formal education but is a genius self-taught genetic engineer. Adi finds acceptance in his virtual friends, his "posse," with whom he has worked on some genetic engineering projects. Adi also dreams of emigrating to Nurth, an artificial island near the North Pole, which believes genetic engineering of humans is the future.

The siblings' personal lives and relationships become twined in the ideological conflict around genetics engineering. Adi's mentor and friend, Vispala employs any means necessary in her pursuit for immortality. Vispala, as a diplomat from Nurth on a special mission to India, tries to kill Sivan's movement and get the Indian Government to accept Nurth's engineered life-forms. The siblings' scientist-politician father, Sivan, who earlier had been declared a terrorist for promoting "Free Life Movement" in genetics, returns from his exile after a presidential pardon to thwart Vispala's plans. Vispala is also convinced that Sivan knows the secret of longevity and is determined to wrest it from him. As Mandira, she comes to Pune, where Tara and Adi stay, with her twin children, Ria and Francis, who befriend Tara. Meanwhile Adi's resentment, partly fueled by Vispala, against his long-absent father and his ideology grows.

Who succeeds in their plans? The ruthless Vispala or the sagacious Sivan? Which of them is right? The Beast With Nine Billion Feet doesn't ostensibly take sides with anyone. It does not provide tidy answers to the questions it raises. Both Sivan and Vispala/Mandira lose some and win some. While it does raise a few questions, the inconclusive and mixed ending seems to tell readers to decide for themselves the ideology that appeals to them.

The Beast With Nine Billion Feet belongs to a sub-genre in science fiction called mundane SF — like most SF books this is set in the future but not centuries away. The novel is set in a world 30 years from now — a future that is almost tangible. Also while we have some typical sci-fi tech and concepts as a part of life — visors that spew information on the world around, genetically engineered nictating eyelids that perform a function similar to the visors, smart homes that talk, cars with AI that need to be praised, illusion pods that can transport a user virtually to another place where the avatar can touch and feel things and interact with others, and a wonderful history class set in an experience lab — it is the mundane, everyday life which is the focus Tara's problems at school, her history classes and her feelings about Sanskrit, the need for the siblings and their aunt to scrimp and manage their limited money, Tara's relationship with her friends - the twins, the rise and win of the Vermillion party and its strident manifesto in politics. It is in the interplay of these two "worlds" that the novel also focuses on an issue that is of much importance today — the ethics of biotechnology and genetic engineering. All this make the book quite interesting.

About the only quibble I have with The Beast With Nine Billion Feet is its use of its milieu. The story plays out in Pune in Maharashtra, India. For an Indian sci-fi book, there is very little of the setting in the story — few references to Appa Balwant Chowk, one mention of Shaniwarwada, a quick dash to Matheran and a passing mention of Mumbai. Nothing much else of Pune or India seep through into the story.

Do read the The Beast With Nine Billion Feet if you like science fiction and especially if you are interested in mundane SF. The book takes a look at a slice of the future which is near at hand and at an issue of today which possibly will be a bigger dilemma in the future.

To Delhi, Agra, and Back

Photoset | Slideshow

I visited the nation's capital, New Delhi, between 17th-22nd August, 2011. The trip wasn't the usual "touristy" one — the primary purpose was to spend some time with close friends who have made Delhi their base. We did manage to visit a couple of spots frequented by tourists. A goodish bit of the other time was spent in staying inside to avoid Delhi's hot and sticky weather (I kid you not, the amount of rain I experienced in Delhi over five days was less than what you get in Mumbai under five minutes. Much of the remaining other time was spent in hunting for "Spicy Treat" Uncle Chipps chips and for Wai Wai Chicken Noodles at the behest of my favorite (and only) niece.  She has recently moved back to Mumbai from Delhi and was craving these two treats that remind her of the city in which she lived for over decade.

(In keeping with my recent bullet-point posts) More observations from the Trip:

• I had booked myself a return trip, with much enthusiasm, on the Mumbai-New Delhi Rajdhani Express. The Rajdhani Express experience is no longer what it was earlier. The journey from Mumbai started on a promising note. I had booked myself a "side-lower" berth (I prefer the seats on the sides — easiest way to avoid other pesky passengers) and the person with the seat opposite to me (side-upper) didn't turn up —  a whole lot of leg space. On my return trip, that wasn't the case and I found that in the Rajdhani, the side seats are extremely cramped. That was not the case on the trains I took during my earlier trip a couple of weeks ago to my birth place. I feel the trains are newer and the compartments better designed on the Mumbai-Nagpur route. The service on the Rajdhani Express to Delhi was excellent. The food, apart from the pre-packaged stuff, was barely passable. On my return trip, the service was atrocious with the serving staff bordering on the rude. The food however was great. It is also amusing to find that despite announcements asking people to refrain from tipping the staff, the "cabin crew" still actively solicits tips.
• Delhi (I was visiting after a little more that 2 years) has in many ways changed for the better - good roads, much cleaner, a whole lot of greenery all around, and even better air quality. The traffic and the driving though is still atrocious. Cars jump red lights with impunity and there is no telling when a car ahead of you (or behind you) will change lanes. Most vehicles are on the road with a single purpose — getting ahead at over 100 KMPH.
• Delhi weather — Phew! I know it often seems like the rain never stops in Mumbai during the monsoon, but after experiencing Delhi's constipated attempts at rain (and the resultant sapping and sticky climate) I've new found appreciation for Mumbai's rain (which I know will dwindle the next time the local trains are bogged down due to a downpour). Note to myself: Visit Delhi in winter to experience what the locals claim is the city's best weather.
• Delhi Metro — Awesome!
• Delhi food — Awesomer! I think the overall quality of food (at least the non-vegetarian fare) in an average Delhi restaurant is far better than what we are accustomed to in Mumbai.

• The Lotus Temple, the Bahá'í House of Worship, is beautiful. This was my first proper visit (my earlier visit to the temple about 8 years ago was abortive — so thick were the crowds then that I turned back from the entrance to the temple). The lotus flower inspired design of 27 free-standing marble clad "petals" is truly divine. The jostling crowds are still a pain though. And it is amusing to see the people's expressions once they enter the central hall of the temple. There are no altars or images or statues (or anything to "worship") inside the temple and people look at the seats and the vaulted ceiling and wonder what to do next. Then it sinks in and the resultant silence is beautiful to hear. While the temple structure is awesome, I wish the the nine pools around the temple and the surrounding gardens are better maintained.
• The India Habitat Center (IHC) is wonderful. Artshows, concerts, lectures, and much more. Often free. We attended, for free, a wonderful concert as a part of the "World Flute Festival" (it being the Janmashtami weekend) organized by Raasrang and were enthralled by Mexico's Horacio Franco playing the recorder. Unfortunately we couldn't stay for the evening's highlight: Pandit Hariprasad Chaurasia.
• While I've already cribbed about the traffic on Delhi's roads, it is far better than that encountered on the NH2 to Agra. The highway itself is not in a great shape. I was amazed to find heavy, slow moving traffic monopolizing the right-hand side lane. And in the left hand lane, it is common (and by that I mean every minute or so) to find tractors and tempos and cars and bikes and cycles nonchalantly coming against the traffic. At good speeds. To top it all vehicles change lanes whimsically as do pedestrians. One such pedestrian required the application of sudden brakes if we were to not send him to a hospital. Of course the car that was much behind us thought that no braking was required even if the vehicle in front of it had stopped. Result: a Scorpio rammed into our vehicle. Thankfully none of us were hurt. My friend's brand new car however required a change of bumper and some metal work. The traffic in Agra — horrible. Mumbaikars will appreciate this: think of the peak time traffic at Saki Naka, Andheri. Without the discipline (yeah, it really is much disciplined) and a 100 times more chaos. Mind boggles?
• As always, Agra is filthy. It is only the area around the Taj Mahal that's relatively clean.

• The Taj Mahal is worth the trouble though. This was my third visit to the Taj Mahal, but I would willingly make the  trip again purely for the first glimpse of the Taj. For that instant, when you  walk in from the entrance and behold it for the first time, the Taj takes your breath away. The crowds however are as thick as you will find them anywhere in our country. It being a weekend plus with it being a  long holiday it felt even more crowded this time. After taking in the press of the crowd I decided against stepping inside the Taj. My friends however braved the crowd and did the whole tour.

• The Yamuna behind the Taj  — It is on my third visit that I discovered that the natural color of its waters is not black. Perhaps because the Yamuna was flooded, the river actually looked beautiful.
• The crowds continued to find us at the Akshardham Temple in Noida. I have visited the  temple earlier and have been recommending it virtually anybody new to Delhi. It's is magnificent. This time we visited intending to take in the famous sound and light show. We saw the crowds and turned back. The metro ride to the temple and back was great.
• In all our driving around Delhi, the Anna Hazare and the Lokpal Bill issue seemed faraway. The media had hyped it way too much. Apart from a random person carrying a flag or teenagers wearing Anna T-shirts and caps, there was little evidence in New Delhi of the turmoil created by Anna Hazare's fast at the Ramlila Maidan.
• All in all a good trip. But I was glad to get back to Mumbai's rain-soaked weather.  Reminder to self: Next visit to Delhi only in winter.

Pictures from the trip: Photoset | Slideshow

Marginalia #1: Re-Reading Enid Blyton’s Five Find-Outers and Dog

Remember Fatty? The Five Find-Outers and Dog? Recently I had one of my many bouts of regression — a time when I find I can only read the stuff I had as a kid. During my last such bout, I decided to do a marathon of Enid Blyton’s Five Find-Outers and Dog Mystery Series. Having acquired all the 15 books for my Kindle, this would be the first time I could read all the books in the sequence they were published. Of course, for a literature student, this also means that one gets to see how the series, stories, and the characters developed over time.

My random thoughts and observations on the Five Find-Outers and Dog Mystery Series:

• It is amazing that Enid Blyton sustained the series for nearly 18 years, churning out the 15 books at virtually the rate on one per year. Starting in 1943 (Mystery of the Burnt Cottage) till 1954, she averaged about one book in the series a year. The last book was published in 1961 (Mystery of the Banshee Towers). It is amazing that books published such a long ago, even such simple ones as the Five Find-Outers and Dog series are so readable even in our times.
• Peterswood, the village of the Five Find-Outers — Fatty, Larry, Pip, Daisy, and Bets, and Fatty’s Scottish Terrier, Buster — is the English “Every Village” — a sort of watered down Malgudi. Within the boundaries of Peterswood and a few adjoining villages is a highly self-contained fictional world that provides all the ingredients for the various mysteries that the children solve. It has a river at one end, a railway station, bus stop, a dairy and few coffee houses and “treat shops.”
• Enid Blyton, had created a Five Find-Outers template that she religiously followed for the series. The books start with the kids coming back from their boarding schools (except “young” Bets who attends a day school in Peterswood) for various holidays. They then spend a portion of the holidays annoying Mr. Goon, the village policeman, going on picnics and moping about the lack of a mystery to solve. Then they stumble across a mystery and take up the remainder of the book to solve it. They always have the hot-tempered and bumbling Goon as the only competition.
• Within the “template” Blyton had her small variations and embellishments. One that she follows across most books is Fatty’s disguises. Fatty is an expert at disguising himself and is a very good actor. Since the time he first disguises himself, in every book the other children are the first to arrive in Peterswood for their vacations. They then set out to receive Fatty at the railway station (or at the bus stop) and expect him to be disguise. They always mistake someone else to be Fatty which develops into hilarious situations where Goon too is usually involved till the time Bets recognizes the real Fatty or Fatty reveals himself to the others.
• Coming to the disguises, they are really easy to put on — all that Fatty ever does is put on a horrible wig (usually one of red hair), stick some protruding teeth into his mouth, apply some grease paint on his face, put on some ridiculous clothes (gypsy, old woman selling balloons) and then dirty his hands by sticking them in dirt. All his disguises are of the lower socio-economic classes and extremely stereotypical.
• Fatty is the alpha-male or the dude of the Peterswood’s fictional world. He is the most intelligent person around, has many talents — acting, ventriloquism, knows how to open locked doors, is quick of wit and tongue, the undisputed and benevolent leader of his pack, and the current de Jure alpha-male, Chief Inspector Jenks, can’t wait for him to grow up and join the police force.
• After a few books, it is evident that the Five Find-Outers should not have been the Five Find-Outers. The books should have been “Fatty, his fan - Bets, and Buster the Dog” series. All the mysteries are solved by Fatty. Even most of the sleuthing and detecting is by Fatty. The action centers around him and most things happen only when he is involved and around. The others, especially Larry (who is actually the group’s leader in the first two books), Daisy, and Pips are superfluous — doing not much but a few chores and tasks set for them by Fatty. Bets, of course, is needed to work as a sort of Dr. Watson to Fatty’s Sherlock Holmes. She is Fatty’s biggest fan with unwavering faith in his talents and abilities, adores him totally, is completely loyal to him and will go to any extent to complete the tasks set to her by Fatty. Her reward — Fatty is extremely fond of her and often it is a stray remark by Bets that will set Fatty on the right path to solve the mystery. (In fact so deep is her devotion to Fatty and his affection for her that I am sure there’s some adult fan-fic somewhere on the Internet that builds on it. The series is begging for an adult Fatty-Bets hook-up.)
• Fatty, as mentioned in the earlier point, is the be-all, do-all, and end-all of the series. Bets usually makes a stray remark or observes something that will enable Fatty to put the entire jigsaw of the mystery correctly and tie it up neatly to present to Chief Inspector Jenks. There’s only one mystery, The Mystery of the Invisible Thief, in which it is a trick played by Pip that solves the mystery for Fatty. As I said earlier, so Fatty-centric are the books that the series could have done away with the other children.
• Coming back to the overall series and the “template” used by Enid Blyton it is a surprise to note that the mystery in the books occupies very little real-estate in the story. In most of the books, the mystery begins only after 50% of the book is completed. Till then the children are busy playing various tricks on Goon and cribbing to each other about the lack of excitement in the holidays. All the finding of the clues, tracking of suspects and leads, putting together the jigsaw, etc take less than 40% of the book. For a mystery series, it is a surprise to note that the mysteries themselves are not a major part of most of the books in the series. There are in fact some of stories — for example: Mystery of the Pantomime Cat, Mystery of the Strange Bundle, Mystery of the Banshee Towers — where the actual time from the start of the mystery to solving it and making the arrests is not more 3-4 days and in one instance only a couple of days.
• One major component of Blyton’s Five Find-Outers template is the tricks played on Goon, the village policeman by the kids. These usually involves Fatty in various disguises, with others providing loyal support. Often the kids also strew false clues for Goon to find. Coincidentally it turns out that one of the false clues, or the location picked by the kids, or some other aspect of the trick, has a direct bearing on an actual mystery. Goon is so incensed by the kids and their tricks that he fails to make the connection between the clue(s) and the mystery on hand and often hands over the most important lead to the Five Find-Outers on a platter. It is only when Fatty explains the mystery and how the clues solved it to Chief Inspector Jenks that Goon realizes his mistakes. Goon also always has the worst end of the stick in his dealings with the kids, the criminals and is regularly ticked-off by Jenks.
• Having said that, I think it is a hoot to call the village inspector, Goon. What can be a more unfortunate and ironical name for a policeman?
• It is very easy to identify the criminals in the mystery series. The easiest way is to find the most unpleasant character in a mystery who behaves horribly with the kids. Invariably the kids have a bad feeling about the person and that person turns out to be the villain of the piece. It’s a simple world where the bad people are thoroughly and obviously bad and the good people are completely nice.
• For such simplistic stories, there is obviously no need for any character development. All the characters, including the kids, are in broad brush strokes and they stay the same throughout the series. About the only character that develops a bit is that of Goon. From merely being an annoying and bumbling policeman in the earlier books, he also reveals a mean and cruel streak in some of the later books.
• Class distinctions are very properly maintained in the books (the books were written when it was a different world from the current one with its emphasis on political correctness). Fatty’s disguises are always of the lower classes and show them to be dirty, with bad teeth, with non-standard and funny use of language, and they stink. Most of the criminals, the “ruffians,” in the series are from the lower socio-economic classes. Even other kids whom the Five Find-Outers befriend are conscious of their standing vis-à-vis the five kids. In Mystery of the Disappearing Cat, Luke, the gardener’s boy, meets and talks with the kids often, and the kids even hide him in Larry and Daisy’s summerhouse, but he never shares a meal with them. Ern, Goon’s nephew, occasionally has tea with the kids or joins them on picnics, but when the dinner bell rings he has his food in the kitchen.
• Food however is not a central point or motif in the Five Find-Outers books (as opposed to the Famous Five who only seem to exist to eat). Food or actually timings like breakfast, lunch, tea, and dinner serve primarily as markers of the passage of time in a day. It is only in the later books in the series that we find the five going to the village dairy or coffee houses to tuck into macaroons and jam tarts and hot-buttery scones and éclairs.
• Ern, Goon’s nephew, is fond of writing “portry.” He however can only begin a “pome” but is never able to complete it — something which Fatty with his many talents manages quite easily. Have you noticed that most of Ern’s poems have the word “Pore” (poor) in the first line? One of his pomes, I think the first one, goes: How sad to see thee, pore dead pig. . .  A later one starts with: A pore old gardener said, "Ah me! / My days is almost done. / I’ve got rheumatics . . . You can read Ern’s poems here.
• The kids, of course, never age. There’s one book in which Bets is mentioned to have turned nine from eight but otherwise the kids stay the same age throughout the many holidays. The kids should have aged by 15 years with one book per year. Blyton however cleverly makes it a mystery per holiday and the Five Find-Outers insist on having a mystery every “hols”: summer, Christmas and Easter. In spite of that, the kids don’t age and curiously the books actually skip a holiday or two between books. The Invisible Thief is set in summer. The next book in the series, The Vanished Prince is also set in summer. In case you are wondering if it is two mysteries in a single summer, the kids in The Vanished Prince complain about the waste of their holiday with no mystery to solve for four weeks. So perhaps a year has passed by since the last mystery. Or perhaps, Blyton with her prolific output of many books a year, simply lost track of the books’ time-line.
• One completely random observation:
  Enid Blyton too betrays what I call the English fascination for the Bengali folk of India. In an earlier post on this blog, I’ve noted the London Big Ben's immense love for Bongs. Enid Blyton, in The Mystery of Tally-Ho Cottage, has Fatty disguised as an Indian when he is apprehended. Asked to reveal his identity, Fatty introduces himself as Mr. Hoho-Ha from Bong Castle, India. Could this English fascination with Bongs be due to the fact that the English first established their seat in India in Calcutta (kolkata) :) ?
• And finally, quite a few of the mysteries are not “mysteries” in the strictest sense of the word (For example: Mystery of the Hidden House or The Banshee Towers). They could more correctly be labeled as “adventures.” The books are however still highly enjoyable (though I admit after 7-8 books read one after the other, it became an overdose) especially as when you read them they are tinged with nostalgia of remembered childhood holidays when the books were first read accompanied with glasses of cool lemonade and raw mangoes smeared with chilly and salt.

 That’s about it — I had a wonderful trip down memory lane reading the Five Find-Outers and Dog series again.  What about you? Any of your observations and thoughts you would like to add to the above?