Book Review : The Simoqin Prophecies

Hmmm.
I'm still not sure about this one.
One minute I think, 'Well, it's funny, some of it. And there are a lot of references to other stuff I like. It's well constructed. And there's a few jokes, here and there. And references.'

But the next minute I think, 'It's not a spoof, it's not serious, WHAT IS IT? It's just concepts and ideas cut and pasted from other works held together by a slow, dragging plot leading up to a non-ending. Why is there so much extra, added stuff? The story is fine at its core; is the author embarrassed or something, so he feels he has to make jokes about it? Should I be excited over what is essentially a 500+ epilogue?'

Right. The Simoqin Prophecies, by Samit Basu, is, as stated on the cover, India's First Ever SFF (Science-Fiction/Fantasy) Novel in english. [Hence my predilection to hate it. Trust me on this - Any thing advertised as India's First Something, is going to be pretentious, assuming and an overall ripoff. Let's see how India's First Female President turns out (Prove Me Wrong Pratibha, Prove Me Wrong.)] The basic story revolves around Kirin, the orphan with mysterious magic powers whose parents were killed by an Evil Overlord, Maya, the tough warrior-woman/sorceress, who has a Bridget Jones-y diary, and Asvin, the bumbling hero, 'nuff said. These three are in a world populated by magical objects, fantastic races and takes on the Adventure-Fantasy-Mythology genres, with countries that might remind you of some general areas on our planet, and they have to prepare to defeat an Evil Overlord, who is about to return according to ancient prophecies. With the help of Vamans and Centaurs, Knights and Ninjas, the protagonists must train, gather magical artifact after magical artifact, and prepare for an eventual, all-encompassing War.
And the author expects us to overlook all this by claiming it's a parody.

Well, it is, I think one minute. It mocks the root, the very basics of the genre.
But, I think, It does not do that all the time. One moment it's sarcastic and playing on stereotypes, another it's ignoring those same cliches and going the same way it's supposed to be parodying.
Well you can't expect an absolute farce. It's a subtle satire, with takes on many highly regarded works, including many Indian ones. It's a light story, with a strain of parody all through the regular storyline.
Ha-Ha, I think right back, because Strain I did as the plot went from anticlimax to anticlimax, alternating between Sitcom humour and Revisionist jokes, actually some of it was pretty good, but do I have to go through twenty pages of drawling, boring exposition to get to it?

But that's not the reason why I'm so upset (I have noticed that I seem to hate contemporary authors almost on principle). I can leave aside the fact that nothing happens in the story until the 350th page, and the fact that the plot is slightly more gripping than the DaVinci Code (or its first draft Angels and Demons.) Completely disregard the internal inconsistencies that so bother a geek like me, the number of times I had to suspend disbelief, or the number of times it all
seemed to me like a bad episode of Xena.

The reason why I am so upset is because this, this whole Gameworld thing, the world its set in, the creatures, the places, even some of the characters, they wouldn't be possible without the influence, nay Inspiration from the works of a certain Pterry Pratchett. The city of Kol, while suitably Bong-connected, is a cheap xerox of Ankh-Morpork, complete with Magical University, Filthy Streets and Benevolent Dictator - speaking of whom, the two-dimensional 'Chief Civilian' does not even compare to the Patrician. The Fragrant Underbelly does not begin to touch the glory, the infamy of the Mended Drum, and stands just as an unnecessary set in the B-movie that is - I could keep this up forever. The meat of it is that Gameworld is heavily inspired from Discworld (those who don't know can pick up any Terry Pratchett book from their nearest bookstore) which is the setting of a series of comedic, satirical fantasy novels. I could go on about the similarities, but it hits you better if you read it yourself.

But wait, think I, both are parody/homages to the Fantasy genre, there's bound to be some similarities,

Not like this Sonny-Jim! Calling a Dwarf a Vaman is cute, but not very interesting when you're still talking about axe-wielding, armor-wearing, vault-building, honest-to-Tolkien Dwarves (the fact that they are urban and control much of the city's economy because of their special relationship with gold shows the Pratchett influence in Simoqin.) If we're still talking about the same thing, why bother changing it! There's no parody or revisionist element here, except maybe saying that Vamans find it insulting to be called Dwarves, which is stupid in its own way because the Sanskrit term Vaman refers to Very Short People (I can't bring myself to Little People. You might as well call them Elves.) Short People, humans in other words; Dwarf, on the other hand, refers to the Norse mythological and Fantasy creature characterized by being four-feet tall and always ready to kick your ass. What's so offensive about that? The Vaman/Dwarf thing is stupid and unnecessary, the story would have been fine without them, and I think the author just put them in there because he likes to drop names.
And even more so with Trolls - who are called Pashans in the book. Now, to those who don't know, the Discworld Troll is a thing of beauty. It really is. Terry Pratchett took the old scandinavian monster, formerly restricted to living under bridges and turning to stone during daylight, when not tying to eat goats or heroes, into the respectable, valid, silicon-based (that's Made Of Rock for those who didn' t get it) Living Beings that us fans of Discworld have grown to love and cherish. Basu put them in there for a couple of lines because they came with the bar that he lifted Ankh-Morpork, then forgot about them.
And Golems! Now this was really the last straw (actually it was the fact that he put a board game playing Goddess that really burned by biryani, but that happened later, just when I was starting to enjoy it, actually) There is one Golem in the book, and it has been taken as is from Feet of Clay by Terry Pratchett, and while it could easily have been anything else in the entire multiverse that could be used to get a person from point A to B it was in fact a Clay Robot from Discworld that pulls a Rickshaw. This was because the author has no imagination whatsoever and really loves his Fan-Fiction.

Okay, maybe that was a little harsh. And maybe this review is turning into a rant. Not to say that it is uncalled for! But there is a time and a place.
There are good things in the book as well. The introduction of Rakshases and Vanars as fantasy creatures was done with skill, althou I still don't get why the Vanars were exempt from parody and portrayed as a Cruel, Mighty, High-talking Race, who were jilted by the filthy Curs in the Cities! (Example: 'The Day is Nigh when we shall arise and have our Vengeance on the Humans! I spit at their feet, ptooey!') The characterization of the talking birds and Asurs was done well enough, but I'm too pissed about the other stuff to give a fair review. The asurs were clearly inspired from Tolkiens Orcs and were put in a Pratchettian environment; and the names of the Storks (G. Subramaniam Stork etc) could be from Jonathan Livingston Gull (only in name though.)
Another example of the excellent characterization are the Evil Artaxerxians (who have a Sultan and people called Omar,) who have an ancient rivalry with the kingdom of Avranti (who have people called Asvin and things like Asvamedh;) and the Evil Skuans from the North (who are tall and blond) who are just evil without having any one rival in particular.
Other lands mentioned are Ventelot, who are different from Skuanmark and are good for no apparent reason other than because they were good in the books the author must have read; Elaken, which have pyramids of Pharoahs (funny how some words just don't change across worlds, isn't it?) pyramids that have Scorpion Men in them who grant wishes for no apparent reason (for more on the Scorpion Man, see The Mummy Returns, which has the same Scorpion Fella described in the book; and a couple other places which could have been used for satirical or comedic purposes, but were instead used as straight analogues because the author needed someplace for Samurais and Sirens and a bunch of other stuff to come from. And he needed a lot of stuff.


But what I must get to, after all this huffing and puffing, is that it's still a readable story (Well, the second half of the book, really.) It's very familiar, but it's nicely executed, and fun - if you're the sunday driver kinds. And it's really fun to catch all the references, especially to all the works you love and admire
[Although they're mainly Pop Mythology and Monty Python's Holy Grail - and here's another thing, the difference between referential humor, and a direct ripoff - If it is in a single scene during the story, and used to gently nudge the story along or get a little laugh, it's a reference, a nod to another, better storyteller, like the Knight in the Forest ("None Shall Pass!") But if it's in a crucial suppporting role, and eventually comes of use to one of the main characters, such as saving their life or something, it's a ripoff, like Steel-Bunz.
Which brings me to another thing. Just when I was really starting to enjoy the book for what it was, there jumps up a Dice Playing Goddess (See Golem Part of Rant Above) and a were-human, both glaring Pratchett "'references.'" Around that time I gave up on the story and started feeding the fire that you see before you.]
I may have mentioned this before, but the author tries to be apologetic by being satirical, and making oblique references to better authors - like when the Sphinx cannot think of a good enough puzzle she asks "What have I got in my pockets?" and the character says that's not really a riddle, blah-blah-blah and the Sphinx says that she learned the riddle from someone, whom she then ate; and a little later when the Evil Overlord claims that he got the idea for a magic book to contain his soul, that would later help the protagonist bring him back to life, he got that idea from woman in Ventelot, whom he then ate - which shows the common theme of taking ideas and then eating those who he got it from. I really don't know what to make of this, but I'm sure it means something (presumably something not too megalomaniacal.)

In short, Creatures stolen from other books, Places stolen from Here, Forced Irrelevant Puns, Some Funny moments here and there (Imagine a Chris Martin Movie,) Characters that don't do anything on their own, but have things happen to them (Did I mention the Bumbling Hero, The Orphan whose forehead hurts a lot, and the Warrior-Woman who has the Bridget-Jones Diary and falls in Love with Idiot Hero and Mysterious Magicboy, creating the most heart-rending Love Triangle since Betty-Archie-Veronica,) Some nicely disguised Elves, Some good work with the Vanars, Nice work expanding on Rowling's Centaurs, Liked the Feluda reference (Lalmohan, heh,) liked the 'Chariot', Not much action (movement, i.e.) in the plot, Bad ending (which really messes up the entire book. The reader feels ripped off when there's no pay-off at the end;) but nothing too great. Some potential though, but I heard the next book is about completely different characters, so ...