I tried to avoid reading this book but eventually fell prey to the so called’positive reviews’ and some really good marketing by Amish. Now I regret wasting my money & time on this one.
The idea of portraying lord Shiva as’just a man who went on to become a god’ is really cool & a fresh one. Full marks to that. But apart from that everything is horrible.
Alternate history is alright as long as you make it believable. The secret of any half decent fantasy book is that it defines the boundaries of its universe, sets up the rules within which it will work & then story arcs are built within that frame. That’s the reason why readers around the world read & appreciate fantasy genre without it being an insult on their intelligence. This book, clearly being the work of an amateur writer, shamelessly defies that norm. The nature of light and the reason behind the formation of rainbow could not have possibly been known at that time(1900 BC). We used to call it indra-dhanush(rainbow) for God’s sake. Also, mention of oxygen(& free radicals) is just outright ridiculous & somehow doesn’t fit well within this fantasy universe. Specially, considering the fact that it was not discovered up until late 18th century.
Most of the logic and philosophy in the book is difficult to buy. It seems puerile and out of place. For example, the concept of making women deliver their babies at’Maika’ and then abandoning them(the babies) immediately is cruel, unjustifiable and couldn’t have worked in any society. Here at Meluha it is part of the’perfect civilisation & everybody appreciates it. The book sort of goes on to insult your intelligence.
The dialogues between characters seem straight out of some TV soap opera.
The author tries his best to sound humorous but fails at it terribly. Jokes seem unnatural(not just unfunny) and are forced into the plot which is irksome.
It has all the cliches in the book(no pun intended), like when Sati takes the deadly arrow onto herself which was actually meant for Shiva and then Shiva charges towards the attacker deflecting the arrows with his sword. This was simply preposterous.
The description of war is unoriginal and is totally inspired from Zack Snyder’s’300’.
The book seems like the work of a dilettante.
All in all, the book might work for some Indian readers, who have not read much before and the simplicity of the language might appeal to them(which I think is the major reason for the commercial success of this book in India). But regular & mature readers, who have read some good books before should refrain from reading this one. It is an utter waste of time. In my case, after reading 50 pages I just wanted it to be over and believe me it was really painful read. So, don’t get fooled by the positive reviews & find a better book . The world is full of them.