Smorgasbord Fantasia

It is actually hard to believe that The Bone Shard Daughter by Andrea Stewart is her debut - Inspired by multiple Asian-cultures, the first book of the Drowning Empire trilogy reads like a seasoned, epic fantasy that features a vast and fascinating world, a well thought-out magic system - all of this headlined by well rounded interesting characters, whose motivations, flaws and inspirations drive the narrative forwards in fluent confident prose, that never takes the foot off the pedal.   The broad contours of the narrative in this first of a series goes like this: Lin Sukai is the heir to the The Phoenix Empire ruled by a reclusive Emperor, who unfortunately isn't willing to accept Lin as his successor until she proves herself worthy enough to take on the reins. Lin is obviously frustrated by this but more importantly, by the fact that she has no memory of her last four years before she woke up, supposedly from a coma recovering from a disease. And the Emperor sets her on a task to...

 Oct 23rd will see the goons of Mirzapur take over Amazon prime in India, once again. ( Oh it's so happening now, am guessing!) Season - II premieres on the platform and Prime is pinning its hopes on this ultra-violent, gripping series focused on the caste-and-politics based violence of the UP Hinterlands to bring an extra shine to their overall festive season dominance.  I managed to just about catch up on Season-I on time before the new season arrives - and while it may have its flaws in being morally decadent and perhaps a  questionable story-telling style etc, I was frankly hooked on to this. For a good day and a half, over the weekend. I literally 'binged" on the nine 45-minutes long episodes of the first season, hanging on for dear life as the businessmen, politicians and the goons played havoc with each others life, each episode layered on with enough profanity, gratuitous violence and sex to last TV viewers for a full two years ( This first season released in 2...

Happy Book Birthday to David Hair , his new book Map's Edge ( Part 1 of the Tethered Citadel ) releases today, Oct 15th. Am really happy to be taking part in this blog tour for his new book - as David is a prolific writer, one of the most hardworking authors with at least three completed series behind him.  Map's Edge is his latest book, part of an exciting new trilogy with his characteristic deep focus on sumptuous world building, flawed loveable characters and wall-to-wall explosive action. The narrative starts off fairly straightforward and gets ahead by leaps and bounds with David cramming the story with all sorts of adventures for his main set of protagonists, till they get to their goals. It all starts with story of Dashryn Cowl who is masquerading as a 'physiker' in this rag-tag village of Teshveld at the edge of the Bolgrovian Empire. He and his teenage daughter Zara, are obviously hiding something and want to lie low. But a chance encounter with the empire com...

Having quite enjoyed Mandalorian Season - I - am so excited about the new season releasing on Oct 30th!

 Paulo Bacigalupi for all the awards and citations that he has won, for some reason has flow low below my author radar. I have three books of his, including the acclaimed debut Windup Girl that's been gathering dust on my shelves for a while now. No, really it is my fault and just that my TBR has always been bursting at the seams but I think, this time I deliberately took a break to just start reading this YA book, Drowned Cities - companion book to the award-winning Shipbreaker - and trust me, I just got effortlessly sucked into the grim and action-packed story set in this futuristic America, reduced to a set of drowning cities subject to global warming and an ever-present war going on.  Paulo's writing is like a sucker punch to your gut. Here, he masterfully crafts up an absolutely bleak futuristic world, a make-believe grim world, devoid of hope, ravaged by constant war, pointless deaths and mindless destruction. America has devolved into multiple strongholds and cities -...