Smorgasbord Fantasia

If you like your Jim Butcher, then you are in for a treat with this one. Kevin Hearne ’s Iron Druid Chronicles have been around for some time now – enthralling readers with its original sardonic wit flying faster than the blinding action and giving us urban fantasy’ best lead pair ever in Atticus & Oberon. Wouldn’t be far from the truth if I claim that Kevin Hearne has given us a refreshing twist to the Urban Fantasy tales – venturing as far away as possible from the cross-breed half-human half-fey heroine and her mysterious hot hulking vampire boyfriend saddled with protecting the universe. Hounded , Iron Druid series opener introduces us to the charming Atticus O’Sullivan , a two-thousand year old druid who looks like a normal twenty-one year old college kid and his Irish wolfhound who’s got a thing for French poodles and sausages. The book follows Atticus trying to carve out a normal living on the “Earth” plane – brewing tea & selling potions in his occult book...

Yeah that title isn’t going to get “brownie points” from you, I know. Oh wait, did you say Brownie Points? Do you even “ponder” what that means? I bet you used that as maybe that one-time clipped British-accent GF frequently used that, eh? Bam! Now I got you thinking huh? Brownie points? Brown is not even an attractive colour right? You would have thought scoring “ greenie ” points would have made a better idiom huh. Go on, shake that head. English is a funny language. And whoa! Look at that red circle over the “Fullproof”? You’re a little confused, errrr….isn’t it f-o-o-l proof? Maybe that is why the red circle. But you aren’t sure. Manish Gupta cashes in on these exact sentiments and has fashioned this “almanac” (if I may use that word!) that is going to let you bulldoze through all your doubts around this “phunny language” and by the time you are through with this wonderful self-styled autobiography that charts the life of a boy from the hinterlands of Punjab who proba...

There is so much positive buzz around this “debut” from Sarah Lotz who describes herself as a “genre-crossing pulp-fiction” writer based in South Africa that it’s pretty hard to miss.  So I got this book through the Galley ARC and pretty much dived into it – sucked in by the wonderfully engaging tale written very proficiently, switching between different voices, bending genres and generally cranking up that lever of tension and escalating fear levels. Now it is the first time I’m reading a tale being presented in such a manner. Like a vantage point or Rashomon movie, where the threads slowly unspool from different POVs – Email exchanges, Geek Forum discussions, Tape recordings, Skype interviews and social media shout-outs. Very clever writing device and trust me, it really works. Because Sarah expertly weaves in these narratives to build up that patina of fear that seeps in unnoticed as we read on. It’s a tough book to review without being “spoilery” – The b...

Best of 2013 : I am unearthing gems in terms of books & movies that released in 2013. =========================================================== A road movie? Made in Malayalam? Really? Motorcycle Diaries meets Thattu-kada Communism? I couldn’t stop my jaws from hinging wide open when I first chanced upon this movie called Nilaakaasum, Pacha Kadal, Chuvvanna Bhoomi (also known as blue sky, green sea, red earth). I mean what an evocative title huh. Can they come more descriptive than this? A title that connects and tugs at your heartstrings. More than anything it flares up that urge to swing a backpack and go exploring our lovely country. Where every five miles the scenery would shift and so would the language and dialect and the delectable food. No, this is not an entry for a lonely planet column. But Vardhan Kondvikar would have been damn proud of this movie. As I am and pretty much everyone I think who’s probably seen this movie.  I was in love the title and look...

Okay guys - letting you in on the big one!! So I am hosting my first ever blogtour for The Crossover Year by the talented Mrs. Bhargavi Balachandran,  a funny and heartwarming story of a twenty-nine year old banker at the cross-roads of life before she hits the big 3-O.  About the book Meet Sri Anuprabha, aka Anu, a twenty-nine year-old banker who is terrified of entering her thirties. She dreams of quitting her job at the bank, sporting yoga pants and traipsing around the world. Her world turns upside down when things go awry and she is faced with the prospect of spending her days watching Tamil serials. She comes up with a five-point plan for reclaiming her life back before she hits the big 30. But things are never as simple as drawing up a flowchart in real life, are they? Especially with a ghastly recession rearing its ugly head…. Anu bumbles through the corridors of domesticity and travels on a funfilled roller coaster ride in a bid to discover her pass...