A series of fantastical events

A never-ending story. That's what most avid readers of fantasies seem to love, if you go by the trend that books these days never come in singly. There is always a series, writes Harshini Vakkalanka

Readers of epic fantasies know that there are different kinds of series — where the story is too large to fit into one book, where each book in a series has a definite conclusion, but plays an important role in the final picture, where each book in the series is self-sufficient but is written in a common universe, and one where each book in the series is self-sufficient but is chronologically mixed up.

Books like J.R.R. Tolkien's “Lord of the Rings”, Amish Triparthi's “The Immortals of Meluha” or George R.R. Martin's “A song of Ice and Fire” fall into the first category. J.K. Rowling's “Harry Potter” series, Stephen King's “Dark Tower” series and Stephanie Meyer's “Twilight” series fall into the second category. Terry Pratchett's “Discworld” series and C.S. Lewis's “Chronicles of Narnia” fall into the last two categories.

Full report here Hindu

Imagination unlimited

Award winning author David Hair's Pyre of Queens tells a fantasy tale, rooted in myth and history, Sravasti Datta discovers

The year is 769 A.D. The place Mandore in Rajasthan. Ravindra-Raja, the evil sorcerer-king devises a deadly secret ritual. He and seven of his queens will burn on his funeral pyre, and he will rise again with the powers of Ravana, the demon-king of the epic Ramayana. But things go wrong when one of his queens, the beautiful and spirited Darya, escapes with the help of the court poet, Amar Dhoop.

Cut to 2010. At the site of ancient Mandore, teenagers Vikram, Amanjit, Deepika and Rasita meet. They realise that the deathless king and the ghosts of his brides are hunting them down. They are confronted by vicious forces from the past. “They must unlock truths that have been hidden for a long time and fight an ancient battle…one more time.”

Full report here Hindu

Emperaza of cool

Roopa Pai has a way with children. She can get them to read about Indian mythology believing it's cool, writes Bhumika K
.

She should be credited with being able to achieve a whole lot of things, but mostly, three very difficult things — getting children to read Indian fantasy books, getting people to walk in Bangalore, getting children to listen to history! Knotty tasks, huh? She has conjured up an exotic world for a whole lot of youngsters (and adults) — a world of Taranauts ruled by Emperaza Shoon Ya (aided by the able Miss Shuk Tee), inhabited by brave young Mithyakins, over whom lurks the evil Shaap Azur.

Co-founder of Bangalore Walks, a tour guide, and a writer, Roopa Pai is herself like a child. And maybe that's why her first in a series of eight books “Taranauts: Quest for The Shyn Emeralds” is a delightfully-told story. “I'm trying to make Indianism cool without being in-the-face Indian. And that's been difficult for Indian writers,” says Roopa. Most Indian children stay away from traditional and mythological storybooks for two reasons. The folklore is often forced down their throats by eager parents — a sort of “you must know your culture” thing. And very often, they lose out when competing with dazzlingly produced foreign books.

Full report here Hindu

Rushdie challenges definition of fantasy

When people think of fantasy, they tend to think of it as something that lets us escape from our own dull lives to go wield swords against orcs and dragons in fantastical lands. Fantasy offers us an opportunity to play the part of the hero or the damsel in distress, perhaps leaving us with some trite moral at the end of the story. Emory’s Distinguished Writer in Residence Salman Rushdie refuted this notion of fantasy as a pleasant, childish experience in his lecture on Sunday at Glenn Memorial.

Rushdie’s lecture addressed the topics of the “wonderland” and “literature of the fantastic,” arguing for the inherent realism of the fantasy genre — not because of realism in detail, or naturalism, but because of realism in the study of human nature. According to Rushdie, fantasy novels or novels with fantastic elements merely use different methods to explain the same human realities as other novels.

Born in India and educated at Cambridge, Rushdie has gained lasting acclaim for his books written in the second half of the 20th century. His second novel, Midnight’s Children (1981), won the Booker Prize in 1981 and later the Booker of Bookers, awarded for the best Booker winner in fiction on the twenty-fifth anniversary of the prize. He was also declared a Knight Bachelor by Queen Elizabeth II. Of course, Rushdie is perhaps best known for his controversial Satanic Verses (1988), which generated an enormous backlash from many in the global Muslim community and resulted in a fatwa calling for his assassination being issued by the Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini of Iran. For this reason, Rushdie spent several years under the protection of the British police.

Full report here Emorywheel.com

Games writers play

Fantasy fiction writer China Mieville does a waltz with words while Mini Anthikad-Chhibber listens entranced

Talking to China Mieville is like doing a ballet with words. The London-based fantasy writer uses words with joyful abandon tempered with extraordinary eruditeness. The word play starts with his name.

“My parents were hippies and named me after cockney rhyming slang. China plate rhymes with mate so you remove plate and are left with China for mate. Though not used very often now, you do find people referring to their old friends as ‘my old china'.”

In town for a reading organised by Toto Funds the Arts, China gamely spoke of the political slant in his writing.

“People imagine there is some alchemical way in which politics is merged into my writing. For me it is a non-issue. There is no juggling. I have been on the Left for a long time, so it is only natural that my novels would have a political texture. I see the world politically. However, I am passionately devoted to telling a story and for those who are not interested in politics, the story has to sustain.”

Full report here Hindu

To each his own

The British Council's Lit Sutra initiative saw crime novelist Mark Billingham and fantasy fiction writer China Mieville work up a delightful, laughter-filled conversation.

A crime writer who's also a stand-up comic; a fantasy fiction writer who's also a left-wing political activist. Put them together in a room and what do you get.

A rapid-fire, roller-coaster conversation on everything from avant-garde fiction to rakshasas and assorted monsters, the induction ceremony to Agatha Christie's Detection Club to falling anvils in Tom & Jerry cartoons.Best-selling crime novelist Mark Billingham and fantasy fiction writer China (his parents were hippies and named him after a popular Cockney slang term!) Mieville from the U.K. were recently in Chennai as part of British Council's Lit Sutra initiative.

Lively, opinionated and articulate, the two quite literally talked up a storm, first during an interview at the British Council and then again at the public event at Landmark.

Full report here Hindu

Garuda for him is a 'bird-man cool'

It was fantastic for the fantasy-fiction aficionados of the city with China Mieville, reading out from his latest book, The City and The City, at the British Council, Bangalore.

The writer had a roomful of eager audience — all well acquainted with Mieville’s characters — listening almost breathlessly, the silence broken only by giggles at his frequent, weird humour. Mieville describes his work as weird. But going entirely by the audience reactions, it feels much more than ‘weird’.

They find patterns, connections, political aspirations and more; and at the end of the book, they are left with what the author calls a “genuinely insoluble moral dilemma”.

Full report here DNA