Monday, December 12, 2005

This little duckie wrote another bestseller

[Note: this isn’t a conventional review of The Manticore’s Secret, so purists will no doubt forgive my addressing the author by his first name rather than the formal ‘Basu’. And parts of this post will probably be incomprehensible to anyone who hasn’t read The Simoqin Prophecies, so proceed at your own risk etc. Or, as Samit would no doubt encourage you to do, go out and buy 50 copies of Simoqin, read one of them and then come back here.]

You heard it here first: young Samit has another winner on his hands. The Manticore’s Secret is a book that repeats the best qualities of its predecessor and adds some of its own. The Simoqin Prophecies (review here; para breaks not mine), as anyone who’s read it knows, was rich with quirky, subversive humour that simultaneously referenced the sci-fi/fantasy genre and overturned many of its staples. I remember reading the first paragraph of that book a couple of years ago and thinking to myself, Han Solo-style, “I have a bad feeling about this.” But against all expectations it just kept getting better. It was a rare example of a writer who showed off his cleverness but did it so good-naturedly (and with genuine skill and originality, not just by hacking his many influences) that it worked.

Manticore has all of these qualities, as well as the awesome imagination on view the first book – almost every page seems to be bursting with new ideas. But it also represents a step forward, showing a side of Samit’s writing that I had underrated: there is a new assuredness here in his descriptive skills (to complement his well-established knack for conversational scenes). If you know Samit, you’ll know he has a strong visual sense and a knack for storyboarding (it’s no coincidence that he loves comics so much and is a fan of writers like Neil Gaiman and Terry Pratchett). This comes across even more strongly in Manticore than it did in Simoqin and I was blown away by how cinematic some of the passages were. To cite just one example: the marvelous scene where the ravian Behrim is pursued by a pack of werewolves and then engages them in battle. It was so intense and vivid, I could actually see the whole thing unfolding in live-action in my mind. Which isn’t something that happens often (the last time I can recall it was when I was reading Susannah Clarke’s Jonathan Strange and Mr Norrell more than a year ago). It’s a rare talent.

At 530 pages Manticore can probably be accused of being overlong – but I say that about most books I read, so don’t take my word for it. Readers who are more in tune with the SFF genre than I am will probably relish the references a lot more anyway, and be able to cope better with the large number of characters moving in and out of the story. Also, the main plot (the mindgames, the continually – sometimes confusingly – shifting equations between the ravians, rakshas, humans, vamans and other races) is best treated as a Macguffin, a pretext for all the delicious embellishments that are the real strengths of these books.

‘May I ask you something?’ asked Akimis. ‘What are those dark lines under your eyes?’
‘I don’t know,’ said Kirin. ‘They feel like little scales. I think it’s from wearing the Gauntlet too long.’
‘The Gauntlet is evil,’ she said. ‘But the lines bring out your eyes.’
Kirin grinned. ‘Thank you.’


I want to avoid plot spoilers, but here are some tasters:

-- Watch out for the weather-influencing Kaos butterfly, one of my favourites among the new creations (“…it fluttered over to Asvin’s shoulder, causing a sudden gust of wind that blew a bandit off a cliff-top in Ventelot four months later”). Also, the Vindiciti Hoplites minotaurs, with their “single and straight-minded moo-vements”.

-- Maya gets to try on some “short vanaress robes”, which makes her a sight for sore eyes (now if only the young author would take my sage advice and incorporate a detailed 10-page sex scene between her and Kirin in the last book. But he won’t, I just know he won’t).

-- No I can’t tell you how it ends, except that it involves a kick-ass Trance Duel and a sort-of death of one of the key characters.

-- For those who have been wondering, yes, the Obiyalis Gameworld is explained (or is it?) – and the Gods overseeing the Game are as whimsical and colourful as the protagonists whose actions they are manipulating. (“Why do We do what We do?” they muse, and address each other as “Zivran, most optimistic of omnipotences…” and in other suchlike ways.) At one point Samit also uses their exchanges for an enjoyable little dig at the Artworld.

Congrats Samit, and may you quack and waddle evermore.

The rest of you, go and buy your 50 copies pronto. (They’ll also be available at the launch.)

24 comments:

  1. If only all reviews were so bursting with enthusiasm! This made me want to go out and buy the book like nothing else. Or perhaps I'm one of those who needs a verbal badger rather than a nudge to be stirred to action :)

    ReplyDelete
  2. Jai,

    The Simoqin review link doesn't work.

    Appetite has been sufficiently whetted, and this fan-boy can't wait to get his hands on a copy on The Manticore's Secret. I intend to read both the over the next couple of days. Cya tomorrow.

    ReplyDelete
  3. Nikhil: have fixed the link now. And again, para breaks not mine - they're randomly done by the geniuses who work on BS Online.

    Swati: not "the book". 50 copies of the book. Now. Hurry!

    ReplyDelete
  4. and so, the mutual back-slapping of the watered-down tolkien wannabe begins... only in delhi *sigh*

    ReplyDelete
  5. A bestseller...? Well well..I dunno what makes a bestseller ..5000 copies in 2 years?
    You can also use words like revolutionary, breakthrough etc etc...!

    ReplyDelete
  6. *squealsquealsquealsquealsqueal!*

    I mean... erm... I'm calm, composed, and not excited at all.

    (The word verification for this is dukqs. Ducks?)

    ReplyDelete
  7. You guys go have a great time at the launch. And please don't bother to think about me. Sigh!

    ReplyDelete
  8. Hey, if only I had known that the launch was on 14th, I would have "preponed" my Delhi visit. Too bad. And 530 pages, yum ... lip-smacking.... Can't wait to tear into it. BTW, great review and purists be damned!

    ReplyDelete
  9. Samit Basu is great as usual but a lot of his ideas seem to come directly from Terry Pratchett.

    1) The chaos butterfly _Interesting Time

    2) Idiosyncratic Gods playing a game with the lives of men- All of them, particularly Interesting Times and Last Hero

    ReplyDelete
  10. If a bunch of Delhi-based blahgers - through mutual buttscratches - could make a uninspired, derivative book into a bestseller, then yes, 'The Manticore's Seeekraait' would be one. But, a thousand paeans in the blogverse do not actual cash registers ring, so your plaintive entreaties for us to buy '50 copies' are starting to sound as odious as they are futile.

    Let Samit Basu worry over his next masterpiece. Try flogging 'Corridors' for a change. That book has not even moved 50 copies. Perhaps you'd be kind enough to help another of your brownnosing gang achieve this dubious record?

    ReplyDelete
  11. Right said shashkin!

    A bestseller is roughly defined as something that sells to begin with. With garbled prose, that would be some feat! So, arbitly naming books as bestsellers by itself can fool some bengalis sometime, but ..... thank god there are those who aren't lobotomised yet!

    And yeah, ducks go quack, so maybe this guy so fondly referred to as "the little duck" could just call himself "the little quack" and then the hack can praise the quack and the paddle of mutual backslapping muddleheads can carry on talking about the fantasy "jaanra"!

    ReplyDelete
  12. Shashkin: I'm laughing so hard at your comment that my inner cash registers are ringing perilously. Tell me, what is it like to have absolutely no sense of humour? (ref. that "plaintive entreaties" bit)

    ReplyDelete
  13. Pitiful, really! This love fest of the mediocres.

    ReplyDelete
  14. Corridor moved much more than 50 copies; Shashkin, do not seekrait to know for whom the cash register tolls, Samit's fan following owes very little to the Delhi blahg cabal and very much to the fact that people like his tongue-in-cheek prose, complete with the tips of the hat he makes to Pratchett, Tolkien and co; and you with the boring anonymous handle, it's "love fest of the mediocrities", not "mediocres", if you'd had half a brain , you'd have punned on "mediocritics", but alas, another opportunity wasted.

    I'm gonna start a campaign for better-educated detractors for The Duck and The Wock, I don't mind the lofty sneering tone of some of 'em, but I do mind the illiterate lofty sneering tone of most of 'em.

    Bet E. Trask

    ReplyDelete
  15. Aha! Fowler's distant spawn, it is detractors "of" not "for". There you go educating about the fine points of punning! So rich and so affected bengali cabal!

    Fan following (choke, guffaw)!?

    "
    ‘May I ask you something?’ asked Akimis. ‘What are those dark lines under your eyes?’
    ‘I don’t know,’ said Kirin. ‘They feel like little scales. I think it’s from wearing the Gauntlet too long.’
    ‘The Gauntlet is evil,’ she said. ‘But the lines bring out your eyes.’
    Kirin grinned. ‘Thank you.’"

    Tongue in cheek prose?? Sounds like something Johnny Lever can cough up in a nanosecond! But, wait he doesn't boast of a CR park address, and neither does he "tip his hat" (While the duck tips his hat, Tolkien writher in his grave)

    Bet Ya Suck

    ReplyDelete
  16. Dear Xhecc,
    Stick to critiquing Johnny Lever - it's closer to your intellectual level.

    You need a basic education in the art of using the word "educating" in a sentence. A primer on punning would be wasted on you at this moment.

    Work at it, read a little more Fowler and a few years down the line you'll probably be set and ready to learn all about the art of punning.

    Puninder, the Punjabi verberoo

    ReplyDelete
  17. Dearest Anonymous,

    I hope you are getting enough out of fighting for a trashy writer, even though he might not be getting any out of being one himself!

    Get a life, get a name or get a better cause to rant about. Scoot, little verberoo scoot!

    Bet U. Brainless

    ReplyDelete
  18. Dearest Anonymous,

    I hope you are getting enough out of fighting for a trashy writer, even though he might not be getting any out of being one himself!

    Get a life, get a name or get a better cause to rant about. Scoot, little verberoo scoot!

    Bet U. Lobotomised

    ReplyDelete
  19. when i repeat myself twice my head explodes.
    when i repeat myself twice...

    oops, my head just exploded. sorry about the flying shit.

    ReplyDelete
  20. Dear xhecc
    I am not fighting for a writer. I am merely trying to get under your skin. Successfully I think?
    We Punjabi-Bongs (Pongs) rule!
    Puninder
    Did you steal the name xhecc from spaceman Spiff or was it your word verification?

    ReplyDelete
  21. i dont know. i definitely stole it from somewhere, but i cant remember where, because i am an idiot

    ReplyDelete
  22. No, No, you're just mildly grammatically challenged and carrying a rather large chip on your shoulder.
    Puninder

    ReplyDelete
  23. I enjoyed Simoqin.Too bad Manticore is not available in leading P2P software. :(

    ReplyDelete
  24. I was just browsing through your book reviews and came across this. Though I loved and devoured Simoqin Prophecies and Manticore's secret - I was not so happy with The Unwaba Revelations. I felt if Basu had gotten himself lost in the hundreds of plots and characters that he had created. But I still recommend this trilogy to everyone - especially to all sci-fi and fantasy fans

    ReplyDelete