Smorgasbord Fantasia

Jeff Vandermeer is a name that has been on my reading horizon for a long time now. Funnily enough, his name surfaced when I was doing research around writing workshops and found that Jeff and Ann, the writer-duo conduct a fantastic writing workshop retreat every year. And then of course, his name frequently pops up related to terms like the “ New Weird ” – a reawakening of the Lovecraftian horror themes with post-modern sensibilities.  A new age Legend. Annihilation , however, was the full frontal page news for me. Hitting me squarely between my eyes with the force of a lightning bolt. It was the real deal indeed and I think I am sufficiently wowed to follow Jeff’s writing career to the very end of the world. (Or whatever weird ends he takes me to as a reader!) Annihilation probably heralds Jeff reaching out to more mainstream audiences – with this cleverly marketed trilogy called Southern Reach being published one after the other – starting from Feb through Sep...

So a corn-punk fantasy? What in the name of blue blazes is that? Ah. Hear the answer from the Master of Diversity and Diversification and Versatility, the evil genius Chuck Wendig overlord at the fantastic blog, Terrible Minds – "I posted on TerribleMinds at one point, saying, "Let's come up with some funny sub-genres." Something-punk. You know, this-punk and that-punk. Funny-punk. It's punk-punk. And I came up with "corn-punk." It's a future run on corn, ha ha. But then I thought, "Well, that's actually creepy, because corn is sorta scary these days." So I started extrapolating that, and I created this very sunny, dustbowl, agricultural dystopia in the far-flung future where corn has taken over. And it's about a young boy struggling against the rich people who live in big ships above his head." The result is this. First book in a heart-stopping trilogy based on "corn" being the ulti...

Once in a blue moon, comes along a book – first volume fantasy – that is so accomplished, bold, wildly imaginative and completely entertaining that it evokes….begs.. comparisons to the greats of modern Fantasy that includes GRR Martin and others. Smiler’s Fair is a book that does all this with effortless elan and beguiling ease. Enfolding the readers into a brilliantly fascinating world where the Moon God killed eons ago is reborn among people and this cataclysmic event, prophesied and foreseen turns into a vicious web – ensnaring the lives of five ordinary people – all of this happens in the backdrop of a vivid, gorgeously realized milieu of an arcane nomadic circus group called the Smiler’s Fair. The manner in which Rebecca Levene  reimagines this tale of a God being reborn is punchy and absolutely delightful – with its fair share of deceit, sex, violence and the wildly fantastical, Smiler’s Fair is vast in its scope and spot-on in terms of executing a plot tha...

I am wary of YA books. Especially those that have hit the bestseller charts and stayed there for quite long. AND have been commissioned for a movie. Hunger Games wasn’t bad but I didn’t really go gung-ho over Catnisss Everdeen and her antics and a grey world ruled by tyrannical government that pits sixteen year olds against each other for fun? Unbelievable premise but it seemed to work. And so with Divergent. A sixteen year old protagonist, underdog with the odds stacked up against her set in a world that is ludicrous (Well, most YA dystopian books seem to have a world that boggles the mind and has no logic as to why the world is so!). I haven’t read reviews about this book as I wanted to keep my mind clear of prejudices before I plunged in.  It was a book that kept me reading non-stop for a while. An intriguing world that is split into factions to avoid friction that would lead to chaos as it did in the older times. It’s interesting as each of the faction believe differ...