...shoOOonya...

  I have been reading voraciously as much as I can utilizing all my travel time in reading. And while I am at that, I have been posting book reviews on my blog which has attracted readers, authors as well as publishers. So increasingly I get requests for review from Authors and Publishers too. As of date, I have books lined up till July for reviews. Now, when I agree to review a book, all I have in terms of decision making info are the book title, cover and book blurb. Sometimes the author bio helps and also the reviews/ratings on goodreads. Once in a while, I get a book which does not have the 'reviews' on goodreads or much of info outside. This kind of increases the 'risk' of reading for reviewing a bad book !! It has been a couple of times that I have come across books which I would give a zero or 1 rating out of 5. If these are book reviews done on request from author or publisher, I send the review to them asking them if they want me t...

  Book: The Tournament Author: Matthew Reilly No. of Pages: 432 Genre: Historical Fiction, Thriller Publisher: Orion   I have loved all the books by Matthew Reilly - they are all high-octane super-crazy-fast-paced action thriller. Uncharacteristically, MR turns out a 'fictional' medieval historical mystery this time around with a sprinkling of 'real' historical figures like Michelangelo, Queen Elizabeth, Ivan (the Terrible) and many others that the average reader will readily recognize. MR also chose a subject that is sensitive instead of his usual mad-cap crash bang chase stories. Can't say I did not like an MR novel ... but it was disconcerting at times to read a thrilling tale with a backdrop of a sensitive subject like Child Sexual Abuse. The narrative is like any other thriller of MR ... minus the mind-numbing action. No gadgetery and modern weaponry since the tale is set a couple of hundred years back ...

  Book: The Temple of Avinasi (The Legend of Kalki) Author: Ayush Pathak No. of Pages: 389 Genre: Mythological Fantasy, Fiction Publisher: Frog Books from Leadstart Publishing   The Temple of Avinasi is something of the sort where the 'Shiva Trilogy' from the East meets 'Harry Potter' from the West; where a magical world has been created to support an Epic tale with characters pulled out from our Indian / Hindu Mythology. I am impressed by the storyline - the suspense, the path the story is taking, the characters and their relationships. It has all the bells and whistles of the making of a grand epic tale. This could be India's answer to Harry Potter ... only more magnificent and magical. Something that made the story difficult to frame in the mind while reading was also how the author presents the mythical characters in a different alternative universe where they play slightly different roles. The same ...

  1         Novel: The Prophecy of Trivine by Srivatsan Sridharan, Pulkit Gupta & Tnahsin Garg 2         PKD Short: Service Call by Philip K Dick 3         PKD Short: Captive Market by Philip K Dick 4         PKD Short: The Mold Of Yancy by Philip K Dick 5         Non-Fiction: White House Wit, Wisdom and Wisecracks by Phil Dampier & Ashley Walton 6         PKD Short: Recall Mechanism by Philip K Dick 7         PKD Short: The Unreconstructed M by Philip K Dick 8         Short Story : Button Button by Richard Matheson 9         Novel: The Hunt for Kohinoor by Manreet Sodhi Someshwar 10     Short ...

  Book: The Trembling Fist Author: Lance Manion No. of Pages: 184 Genre: Ault Humor, Fiction, Short Story Collection Publisher: CreateSpace Independent Publishing Platform   The author wrote to me describing his latest short story collection (this one is his 5 th ) as belonging to a adult humor genre. I don’t really remember reading anything like that so I chose to pick this one up.   The book has 69 very short stories spread across 180 pages with a very simple cover design – nothing remarkable about it. The first story itself is a pretty weird one. Written in a conversational style, it is as if the author is actually telling you the story face to face … and keeps commenting and deviating from the story-telling based on your expressions and comments/feedback. The story was action packed and anti-climactic. Interesting read. And also the longest story of the book. The rest of the book is packed wi...

  Book: A Cupful of Aha Author: Anandaa No. of Pages: 54 Genre: Fiction, Philosophical   Publisher: Become Shakespheare      An extremely interesting premise of a guy meeting death – who instead of being a moustached heavy-set guy on the bull … turns out to be beautiful lady; and the after-death experience, is not at all what the man expected it to be. The book is philosophical … about how people live their lives and how the things people give importance to, are pretty much meaningless. I liked the writing style of the author and the way the two characters were portrayed, the touch of humor and the discovery of the ultimate truth over a series of assumptions. It could have been a fantastic philosophical treatise … but it did not manage to reach there. It turned out to be pretty confused piece – frankly, at the end of the novella, I wasn’t quite sure what wa...

  Book: The Hunt for Kohinoor Author: Manreet Sodhi Someshwar No. of Pages: 402 Genre: Fiction, thriller Publisher: Westland Publishing     I had written last month in my review of the Taj Conspiracy that the author got my attention in the first few pages. She does it again in the Hunt for Kohinoor. It has an explosive start (literally) which makes you wonder what direction the novel will take. The novel has several aspects which hold the reader – the under-current of a daughter meeting her father who was considered dead for many years and on the other side the father has recovered from a partial memory loss. The father being held captive so that the daughter can do some spy-work ... something for which she is neither trained nor does she have the skills. The story is about love and friendship, loyalty and patriotism, action and adventure, India-Pak-Afghanistan-US political and military as well as spies. There...