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Showing posts from November, 2012

Book Review: The Edge of the Machete by Abhisar Sharma

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This was the second one that came from Blog Adda for review this month. Reading this one was an interesting experience ... reminding me of 'similar' Robert Ludlum novels In many ways, 'The Edge of the Machete' by Abhisar Sharma was like a Robert Ludlum novel which has elements of CIA operatives, international espionage and touches of middle-eastern and Russian groups that are involved in international terrorism with a plot that has global implications. Abhisar's story is set against the backdrop of the Afghanistan-Pakistan (AfPak) region with characters belonging to several militant groups from the region as well as the protagonist coming in from the CIA. I could draw certain parallels with a story by Robert Ludlum. Besides the elements of Ludlum, Abhisar's writing style also has some Ludlum like characteristics. It felt like reading Ludlum and THAT I think is my biggest compliment for Abhisar. The story has brutal executions and horrible tortures de

Book Review: The House of Silk by Anthony Horowitz (The new Sherlock Holmes Novel)

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The House of Silk by Anthony Horowitz was a surprise find for me. It was delightful news to hear that someone 'officially' got the endorsement / permission to write a Sherlock Holmes novel. Now the thing to be seen is how well the new author has done his job of writing a full length gripping Sherlock Holmes novel keeping the original essence of Conan Doyle writing intact. Anthony has successfully retained the writing style of Conan and it was a pleasure reading it. I also realized that this is the only full length Sherlock Holmes novel since Conan Doyle only wrote 56 short stories and 4 long stories; never did he write a novel with Sherlock Holmes.  It was nice to see all the usual characters of Sherlock Holmes stories play a role in this novel. Usually, Conan stories did not involve too many of the regulars but Anthony was not restricted by the short story format so he was able to include all the characters – Sherlock Holmes and Watson (of course), their landlady, the Ba

Son of Sardar is really SOS material

I somehow had the feeling that 'Son of Sardar' would be anytime better than 'Jab Tak Hain Jaan' … So with wife and 2 kids (not mine) in tow, we caught up a late night show of SOS.   SOS was my reaction during and after the movie. <SOS bole to 'save our souls' .. the ancient distress call by ships in peril> Forced and Confused Expressions pasted on Ajay Devgn's face … a very good and capable actor reduced to a clown (and not even an entertaining one). Same goes for Sanjay Dutt. Nothing much to be talked about the rest of the cast including Sonakshi. Easy to forget songs further made forgettable by worth remembering choreography. SOS was a sorry film. I blame the Director for the debacle. I advise you to keep away from the SOS screens to simply Save Your Souls

Hatrick :(

  A hatrick in cricket is a good thing. 3 wickets in a row are pretty awesome. Whenever there is something that occurs thrice in a row … we call it a hatrick … but then … it is not always good things that happen thrice in a row. A case in point being my being away from home on my birthday 3 times in row in 3 consecutive years. In 2010 … I had to travel 2 hours before the stroke of midnight … I was in mid-air when ordinarily I would have been wished 'happy birthday' In 2011 … I had travelled a few days earlier but nevertheless, on my birthday, I was not at home In 2012 … once again fate plays the same old joke on me making me travel on the day before my birthday forcing me to be away amidst strangers on my birthday This year, I am in Mundra (375 km away from Ahmedabad in Gujarat) on a client engagement I have not spent a single birthday with my wife yet … so u can imagine the anger / sadness / frustration and so many other emotions tha

Book Review: Collision of Dimensions by M V Ravi Shanker

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I read about the novel somewhere and the blurb sounded interesting. I wrote to Leadstart (the publisher) about 'Collision of Dimensions' and they were kind enough to send across a copy of the book for review. This 500+ pager novel has an interesting premise and the story develops in an interesting manner. The characters, the 'Force', the events woven into the plot were decent. There is something called 'character development' which is completely missing from the novel. The character which comes into possession of the Force is supposed to undergo character development due to the Force but nothing really happens. The powers that he begins to become aware of are not really great … a bit of premonition is not really powerful enough. Mumbai is the scene of action and I don't know why the author has got the geography of Mumbai wrong. There are several factual errors regarding locations within the city. Too much of geographical details of a place will seem ir

Travel Solutions

Travelling to Vadodara versus travelling to office in Mumbai I recently went to Vadodara for a meeting. Travelled in the morning and was back after a meeting between 12 noon to 2 pm. Catching a flight at 3.45 PM, I was home before 6 PM in the evening. The flight time from Mumbai to Vadodara is less than an hour So I was wondering … every day I travel for about 75 minutes to reach office from my home … and the time of travel between Mumbai and Vadodara is less than 60 minutes. Isn't it strange? We need far superior local travel solutions that what we have today if not for anything else but to conserve the millions of man-hours we waste in inefficient travel …

Skyfall: Aasmaan se Gira (Khajoor Main Atka) !!

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Remove the James Bond element and Skyfall is a pretty good movie. But then, I am negatively biased towards Daniel Craig as Bond and so is my review for Skyfall. I somehow never liked Daniel Craig in the James Bond character. I have this Pierce Brosnan image of Bond – flair, womanizer, electronic gadgets, gadget loaded cars, car chases, high tech weapons and gadgetry of the villains, international espionage, global threats & conspiracies etc. Skyfall and Daniel Craig do not meet these expectations of mine and hence did not impress me.  The only car Daniel Craig manages to use is actually an old one ... not a techno wizardry of Q. Also, the villain in Skyfall seems to be a weak character who does not really wreck havoc although he is supposed to be more capable than Bond. The climax wasn't explosive enough (although full of explosions). The 'Q' wasn't impressive enough nor was his work. There were even things/events in the movie which seemed in

Book Review: The Bankster by Ravi Subramanian

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First look at the cover from a distance and you can be forgiven to think of this as a Batman Book. The cover draws inspiration (my personal thoughts) from the Dark Knight poster. With the book in hand, you realize its different but the appreciation for the cover design and styling does not go. I have written about the cover designs of Indian novels improving over the past year or so and this is yet another example of a superb cover design. The novel starts out with a bang … CIA, arms pilferage to terrorists, blood diamonds … and then contrasts to another incident where a old couple in kerala is caught up in the vicious trap of the local police and their son goes through the pain of seeing his father being humiliated and then moving away from the country where a couple of years later, he is a victim of a nuclear disaster. After this 'start-with-a-bang', the story sort of fizzles out … The author then begins to introduce different characters of a bank in Mum

October Reading – Part 4

  Continued from previous post …   23. ACD Shorts: The Lost Special by Arthur Conan Doyle How does one make an entire train disappear? No, we are not talking illusionists or magicians here. We are talking of a train disappearing off the tracks while in motion and police are unable to trace it for years. It is only the confessions of the man who was behind the disappearance that solves the mystery.   24. PKD Shorts: The Chromium Fence by Philip K Dick In future earth, people are divided on the basis of habits and preferences. The population divided between naturalists and purists. One follows the image of humans created by the marketing of the cosmetic companies. People have to choose allegiance to one of the sides and the fence sitters are scorned upon by either side. Elections are held and one side wins. The other side is forced to comply with the rules laid by the winning side. A very interesting perspective on how humans get divided over trivial. In t

October Reading – Part 3

    Continued from previous post …   16. Three Investigators Novella: The Mystery of Wrecker's Rock by William Arden    The three investigators are sent fishing off the coast by Bob's father with a simple instruction – click pictures. The lure is that if they click 'interesting' pictures, they will get paid for them. With no idea, what to expect in the seas; the trio is lazing around fishing when they encounter something really interesting and their camera gets into action as they witness a family reunion of a different kind. The people pose and they take some really nice pics of a family re-union which has some historical importance. They also discover an abandoned boat leading to the case of a missing person (probably dead) which is duly reported to police; nothing much for the trio to do on that though. Someone is now interested in those pictures and the trio as well as Bob's father have to face assault/attack by masked men out to rob the ph

October Reading – Part 2

Continued from previous post … 7. PKD Shorts: Sales Pitch by Philip K Dick We all are vary of the spam in our mailbox, the sms and sales calls on our mobile phones selling us houses, home loans, credit cards and holiday packages. Marketing is moving over from informational to irritating to intrusive. Fast Forward life a couple of decades and imagine how far would this intrusion go? This short one from PKD is about a guy who gets frustrated by the constant 'sales pitch' he is being subjected to. One fine day, something happens and he decides that the 'sales pitch' has gone too far. He takes some decisive action (pretty destructive one) and the results are ironic and funny at the same time. 8. Sherlock Misadventures: The Case of the Diabolical Plot by Richard Mallett What would you think if you heard that thieves / robbers were stealing piano keys, circus elephants, billiard balls and chess pieces across the city? If you are Sherlock Holmes, you are su

October Reading – Part 1

  October, once again saw a dominance of Indian Authors (all new for me). The novels of the month were 'Shadow Throne' by Aroon Raman and 'Red Jihad' by Sami Ahmad Khan, both received as part of the Book Review Program of BlogAdda. I also received a Short Story Collection, 'Love, Peace and Happiness' from the author, Rituraj Verma. BTW … I had planned to begin the Kane Chronicles Trilogy by Rick Riordan this month but these book reviews have pushed it further . Amongst the regular novels/novellas, I read 1 short novel by PKD and 1 not-so-short-but-almost-long novel by ACD –   'Do Androids Dream Of Electric Sheep' by Philip K Dick and the last Dr. Challenger novel titled 'The Land of Mist' by Arthur Conan Doyle; And one novella from the Three Investigators series. Amongst the short story regulars I had 8 by Philip K. Dick, 6 by Arthur Conan Doyle, 3 from the Misadventure series, 2 from the Exploits series of Sherlock Holmes and