Smorgasbord Fantasia

Nona the Ninth is the third instalment of the Locked Tomb series from Tamsyn Muir. As we have seen before, Tamsyn Muir constructs the Locked Tomb books like an intricate puzzle, with dizzying revelations and mind-fuckery of twists that will blow your mind. So, yes even with the third book in the series, expect nothing different. In a lot of ways, Nona the Ninth is both the easiest book or the most approachable book in the series. And yet, at the same time, the most exquisitely constructed puzzle that Tamsyn throws at us readers. I will be frank, this was actually my least favorite book of the series [ I know! Don't get your knives out, yet. Let me explain!]  So Nona the Ninth happens a while after the tumultuous events of Harrow the Ninth. Fair warning, if you don't remember anything from that book, then I would suggest you go back and read the last few chapters. Because as usual, Tamsyn doesn't give us any guard-rails to help at all and we are thrown into the deep end ...

Finally conquered this monster! While not quite that big a doorstopper at close to 700 pages (ahem...When you compare this to the mammoth Steven Erikson’s I been ploughing through, that is!) American Gods is indeed a meandering road trip that takes detours into all kinds of sub-genres that has been defined under “Speculative Fiction”, yet not quite fitting into any one niche. One word that definitely comes to my mind after having finished this, was – Staggering. It’s quite an achievement to have written this “weird” fiction that speaks volumes about the powerhouse of talent that Neil Gaiman truly is. The first I heard about Gaiman, was way back in 2005 when I saw the “Anansi Boys” and “American Gods” in my local bookstore. However I never followed up on that first teaser chapter about “Shadow” that I read then. Then I watched the movie, “Stardust” – a simple pure enchanting old style love story that had me flip over and see Gaiman in a new light. Then came the “SandMan” graphic no...