If there was one single thing which attracted me to this book, it was the cover. A muscular Shiva riddled with battle scars, hiding a trishul behind his back. And of course the title. The Immortals of Meluha. The title itself exudes adventure.
And so I bought the book. How is the book? Well the story is about the adventure of a tribal chieftain from Tibet called Shiva. The story is about his journey to a fabled land called Meluha. The story is about the fight between the Suryavanshis and the Chandravanshis, and a few Nagas thrown in between.
The book shows promise, the story is well-paced and the premise of the story – about a mortal attaining Godhood – is something innovative.
The downside. The book seems written in haste. There are many scenes which the author could have elaborated. If the author would have taken some time to build the character sketches, the story would be more believable. Here all characters seem artificial. Parvateshwar, Daksha, Ayurvati – all seem paper-thin, all of them humble (Shiva included) to the point of being irritating. There are numerous passages where all the characters do is to be modest and heap all the credit on the other person, who then bounces back the credit to the previous person. The battle scenes too are quickly ended (The climactic battle with the Chandravanshis also seems something straight out of 300) It seems to me that a potentially bestseller premise has been wasted, atleast in the first book.
Another jarring aspect of the book was the use of modern terminology – like orientation executive etc to describe some of the characters and events. The author could have used more traditional words to blend in with the story more smoothly.
Having said this, the book is well-written for a debutante. Amish looks promising if he takes time to develop his characters and story. I enjoyed reading the first book of the trilogy. Time will decide if I buy the other two books as well.
Endnote: Ever since I read the first chapter, a niggling thought occupied my mind till the end. I couldn’t exactly understand what it was. When I finished the book and turned to the inside flap, I realized what it was. Amish is a graduate of IIM. Another one bites the dust.
Similar Posts:
- Into thin air
- Midnight’s Children
- Book Review : *Blink*
- Book review: Atlas Shrugged by Ayn Rand
- 300 – March to glory
Curious to know why it is that “another one BITES the DUST?”
other than that, I agree that people are over humble.. and i had skipped through passages of praise..and you are right that, if all those praising prose could have been cut short, we could have understood more personalities better.
Interesting enough however to make me read the rest of the trilogy..
“another one BITES the DUST?”
Chetan Bhagat, Sidin Vadukut, Ravi Subramanian. Just a few in the list of IIT/IIM grads who have succumbed to the joy of writing. Wonder what makes them leave the comfort of their air-conditioned offices and high-paying jobs to indulge in writing?
Read an interesting article about this topic here. An excerpt follows-
ILIT: All the books can be called “ILIT” that has sex, loyalty, destiny, family & happy ending with of course IIT or IIM as background. A bit of superiority “we were there, we are better, and now besides we can write” comes through.
Haha ha
I think you should seriously get into writing too, specially reviews for books and films !! Do that !!
I think all characters in the Hindu pantheon are humans who accomplished exemplary feats within the ambit of human achievement. Time made legends and immortals of them. What is amazing is the entire essence of the Vedas can be assimilated without even a single mention of our Gods as we know them. Such books might appear to dislodge the Gods from their deified status, but might in effect raise ordinary mortals to levels where re-establishing Vedic moralities might seem possible. Well done Amish!
Very very poor book. I am sorry, but considering the world standard, it has got a weak plot and a boring narration. THe concept and the last chapter can be given some credit, but overall the book seemed worthless to me. (Though I also liked the cover page and the trailor)
Although it is a page turner and interesting, It’s difficult to reconcile the fact that book The Immortals of Meluha is set in 1900 BC whereas the language of the book belongs to the 21st century.
Overall the concept of the book is really nice. The author takes elements from Indian mythology and combines them properly with his own fantasy.
In an interview over here http://www.whackk.com/july-2010/karma-shiva-and-adventure
the author said that, “I need to take feedback honestly and sincerely to keep improving. But if the point is specifically on the modernity of the language, I don’t intend to change that. Language is a means to an end. The end in the case of a fiction book is to tell a story. If the language makes it easy, then the language is doing its job. If the language is too difficult and ends up making the story slow, then it is not doing its job. And the best way to make the language easy is to use words that people use every day, not trip them up with some classical words for which they would have to rush to the dictionary”
@Nirvana : take a look at this – http://www.whackk.com/july-2010/book-wars-attack-clones
@Varun: I don’t agree with this particular argument of Amish, only the right words should be used. Simplifying just for the sake of simplifying is not a good writing practice. It takes away the essence of the story. And if writers simplified their language just to make it readable we would loose much sublimes of the literature.
An enjoyable read The Immortals of Meluha by Amish . loved the way you wrote it. I find your review very genuine and original, this book is going in by “to read” list.