Book Review: The Prophecy of Trivine by Srivatsan Sridharan, Pulkit Gupta & Tnahsin Garg

 

Book: The Prophecy of Trivine

Author: Srivatsan Sridharan, Pulkit Gupta & Tnahsin Garg

No. of Pages: 264

Genre: Fiction, Fantasy 

Publisher: Good Times Books

 

One of the author’s, Tnahsin, approached me with the request for book review and looking at the fantasy theme of the book and the cover design, I said yes. The book arrived with a personalized note from the author on the first page along with the signatures of all 3 authors. Nice touch. This must be the most singularly unique cover design that I have seen in past year or so. Very attractive and pretty intriguing too

Coming to the book, it has a very ‘preachy’ subject but the authors have spelt it out under the guise of a fantastic narrative involving alien race, teleportation, mind reading, supernatural, nature and 3 guys in a forest with an alien damsel and lots of flora and fauna. The basic plot of the story is fairly simple and the book is pretty much predictive in that manner but the narrative is the key here. The authors have done a good job of story-telling.

I particularly liked the personification of the night or darkness in one of it chapters – it is almost poetic. I would have loved to reproduce the entire page of text which describes the ‘onslaught of darkness and how the night wants to be an endless one’ (but I am too lazy to type so much). But suffice to say, it was fantastic – I have never read something like this before.

The story has 3 very different characters from earth (all of them pretty young) and one key alien character (a seemingly young lady in human appearance but otherwise ageless) in the middle of dense jungle. The 3 guys come together by accident / fate (which is not really so) and the alien lady is actually performing an experiment in which the 3 have unwittingly become a part. The experiment is actually the last ditch effort (read: assessment) to decide the fate of the human race.

All these 4 characters are interesting and remain a bit of mystery to the reader through the book. The alien being comes with celestial powers so there is a lot of magic like events in the book and the reader also develops a greater appreciation for nature – flora and fauna. 

The concept of the book is interesting but it is the conclusions drawn that are thought provoking. The human race has caused so much destruction and is so selfish … does it deserve to continue its existence … or should it be considered a failed experiment and aborted without a further ado. THAT is the question faced by our alien lady who has come in draw her final conclusions before the human race is annihilated.

The author’s have used the history of the past 2-3 centuries to highlight the state of the human race (the atrocities, the bombings, terrorism, conflict etc) and make a point on how the ‘most intelligent’ species on earth has squandered away the great opportunity & privilege provided to it. Let me tell you one thing here, there is a point in the story where you begin to gravitate towards the conclusion that the human race has failed and the lady should actually annihilate earth!!!! If you get that feeling, I guess the authors have been successful in sending out the message they intended to.  At the same time, the author manages to pull you out of that conclusion showing you that the human race is complex and has shown reasons for survival too.

Also, there is a point in the story (far from the end) where the jungle safari of the 3 guys seems to have come to an end and the lady reaches her conclusions. So far so good!! But the story does not end there. It continues with all 3 guys pursuing their goals with dedication. And here is where I thought the ‘prophecy of trivine’ will come into play and there would be some fast paced action. But it did not really go as per expectation. The climax did not really build up into something awesome. This is the first part of a trilogy so a lot of loose ends were there … which will be wrapped up in the further episodes I guess.

 

So far so good; now coming to the downside - I found several loopholes / problems with the narrative in the second half which spoiled the fun I was having in the first half. A couple of points:

 

1. A father not recognizing his own son - very difficult to digest. It is not as if the guy was disguised. 

 

2. Simply by ‘singing’; flora and fauna is 'cured' of mutation ... so unnatural, difficult to digest, going against the grain of science (which is being highlighted by another character) 

 

4. There was a Russian Hacker introduced in the story with a special critical role. What role did the Russian hacker actually play ??? i am sort of fuzzy on this. Maybe I missed something.

 

5. The lady appeared to be mature and intelligent and assertive in the beginning ... why does she go bonkers towards the end? Doing things she was not convinced of?

 

6. What exactly did the 3 guys do that got Xona impressed? I somehow did not find it so impressive or remarkable that the lady is forced to re-evaluate her conclusion on humans

 

7. Last but not the least … What exactly was the 'Prophecy of Trivine?"

 

I am sure there are more questions in my mind that are unanswered and any author who leaves so many questions / loopholes open needs to re-think their book and its plot. Maybe, the authors want to make this a series and so some of these questions will eventually get settled in future parts … but nevertheless, the end of the book felt ‘incomplete’ !!!

In spite of the points above, I am not drastically reducing the rating on the book since I actually enjoyed reading the book … and at the same time, I am looking forward to part 2 of this series/trilogy. All the Best to the author trio

Ratings on Book Review Parameters:

Cover Design: 4.0 / 5

Writing Style: 3.0 / 5

Characters:     3.5 / 5

Story / Plot:     2.5 / 5

Climax:            2.5 / 5

Overall:           3.0 / 5