Saturday, June 29, 2013

Short Book Review: The Oath of the Vayuputras !

It's a short review, where I just wanted to put down the points which came to my mind after reading this interesting book.

I just completed reading "The Oath of the Vayuputras", the third book in the Shiva Trilogy  The book holds and enthralls you with an interesting story which links the mythology, the places and characters you already know. First thing which I like about the book is the author's realistic portrayal of story by connecting the dots and conceptualizing the story in a logical manner. 

The reader gets to know how Shiva came from Mount Kailash and how Saraswati river stopped flowing in the country. The story goes around explaining how too much of good can turn evil, and how a balanced approach is needed while utilizing technology and resources.

The book takes us through very interesting and thrilling battles happening between Neelkanth's army and the other alliance. The bravery and valor of Kartik, Shiva, Ganesh and Sati shines through and amazes you. Battle Strategies are explained in detail and with intelligence. There is a lot of battle on land as well as naval battles fought in rivers. The family of warriors fighting numerous battles is a impressive spectacle.



The only point which let me down was the ending of the story. The audience reading the story starts expecting a big Mahabharata scale war which doesn't happen at all. We are faced to deal with tragic and gory death of an important character and the despair of Shiva. The battle ends with the use of a nuclelar fusion weapon called "Pashupathiastra", as Shiva decides to punish the whole city.

The book's beautiful cover I believe, actually depicts Shiva lighting up the "Pashupathiastra". The language of the book is quite modern, while the characters are ancient. At times you feel the need for the language to be complex, so as to reflect the type of the story which is being narrated.