Book picks similar to
The Prophecy of Trivine by Tnahsin Garg
sci-fi
fantasy
indian-fiction
adventure
Swami and Friends
R.K. Narayan - 1935
Without him I could never have known what it is like to be Indian."—Graham GreeneOffering rare insight into the complexities of Indian middle-class society, R. K. Narayan traces life in the fictional town of Malgudi. The Dark Room is a searching look at a difficult marriage and a woman who eventually rebels against the demands of being a good and obedient wife. In Mr. Sampath, a newspaper man tries to keep his paper afloat in the face of social and economic changes sweeping India. Narayan writes of youth and young adulthood in the semiautobiographical Swami and Friends and The Bachelor of Arts. Although the ordinary tensions of maturing are heightened by the particular circumstances of pre-partition India, Narayan provides a universal vision of childhood, early love and grief."The experience of reading one of his novels is . . . comparable to one's first reaction to the great Russian novels: the fresh realization of the common humanity of all peoples, underlain by a simultaneous sense of strangeness—like one's own reflection seen in a green twilight."—Margaret Parton, New York Herald Tribune"The novels of R.K. Narayan are the best I have read in any language for a long time. . . . His work gives the conviction that it is possible to capture in English, a language not born of India, the distinctive characteristics of Indian family life."—Amit Roy, Daily Telegraph
Penumbra
Bhaskar Chattopadhyay - 2016
. . As Prakash reaches the venue, he is introduced to a motley group of people, all gathered there for the old man’s big day: his son, his reticent brother, a dignified middle-aged lady who once owned the bungalow, a listless lawyer who manages his legal affairs, a mild-mannered young man who works as his secretary, his beautiful, young biographer, and his mysterious friend, who has never lost a game of chess to him. As the storm lashes on through the night, one of the people in the bungalow is murdered! In a game of cat and mouse that follows, Prakash soon finds out that under the surface of apparent warmth and friendliness, nothing is as it seems and that the bungalow holds one shocking secret after another! In a bid to save his own life, Prakash hunts for the truth, which lies in a mysterious penumbra of shadows and lights, covered in a sheath of deceit and guile, only to realize that the worst is yet to come!
Johnny Gone Down
Karan Bajaj - 2010
Once, he was an Ivy League scholar with a promising future at NASA; now, at forty, he is broke, homeless, and minutes away from blowing his brains out in a diabolical modern-day joust. It wasn't meant to be this way. An innocent vacation turned into an epic intercontinental journey that saw Nikhil become first a genocide survivor, then a Buddhist monk, a drug lord, a homeless accountant, a software mogul and a deadly game fighter. Now, twenty years later, Nikhil aka Johnny is tired of running. With the Colombian mafia on his trail and his abandoned wife and son ten thousand miles away, he prepares for his final act, aware that he will have lost even if he wins. Or will he? Is there any greater victory than living a life that knows no limits, a world that has seen no boundaries? From the bestselling author of Keep Off the Grass comes the once-in-a-lifetime story of an ordinary man fighting an extraordinary destiny. Can he pick up the pieces one last time or will Nikhil, now Johnny, go down for good?
Pyre of Queens
David Hair - 2010
But things go wrong when one queen, the beautiful, spirited Darya, escapes with the help of Aram Dhoop, the court poet.Jodhpur, Rajasthan, 2010: At the site of ancient Mandore, teenagers Vikram, Amanjit, Deepika and Rasita meet and realize that the deathless king and his ghostly brides are hunting them down. As vicious forces from the past come alive, they need to unlock truths that have been hidden for centuries, and fight an ancient battle . . . one more time.
Mohini: The Enchantress
Anuja Chandramouli - 2020
These willingly allowed themselves to be bedevilled, consumed by a passion that would not be denied, existing only to serve her will, content to be moulded to suit the purposes of the most enchanting creature in all of creation – Mohini.Distilled from the essence of Vishnu, Mohini, the Enchantress is a part of him and yet she revels in the autonomy and extraordinary powers of beauty, magic and enchantment that are hers to wield. Vivid and ephemeral, she is beloved and desired by all in existence. But she is elusive as the fragment of a forgotten dream, a tantalizing temptress, traipsing her way across the topsy – turvy realms of fable and myth. Her meandering path will see her in the thick of things as the Devas and Asuras churn the ocean of milk to get their hands on the nectar of immortality, blunder into a love triangle that will spark a bloody war, fulfil the last wish of a dead hero, melt into the arms of Mahadeva, the only one capable of enchanting the enchantress and become the mother of Shastha, who will serve as a beacon of hope for all who are considered oddities by a spiteful society that recognizes only two genders amongst the vast multitudes... Set against the tumult and intrigue of a celestial quest for immortality, Anuja Chandramouli brings the extraordinary saga of Mohini to vivid life. Balancing delicately on the tightrope between mythology and reality, she takes the reader on a dizzying ride through the shifting sands of time, gender, love, and desire, deftly intertwining the threads of the past and the present, blurring the lines between fact and fiction while spinning a deliciously entertaining yarn for the ages.
Love Lasts Forever...
Vikrant Khanna - 2014
He believes he hasfound his perfect soul mate, and come what may, his love for her will lastforever.Seven years later, he gets married to her. Big mistake!A week later, he completely hates her and believes she has turned into adevil.But his perception about love and life change when he hears the poignantlove story of Shekhar, his Captain, on a ship that later gets hijacked bythe pirates of Somalia.As they are left fighting for their lives; they confront if love truly can lastforever…? Or does it get too late
Narcopolis
Jeet Thayil - 2012
In Rashid's opium room the air is thick and potent. A beautiful young woman leans to hold a long-stemmed pipe over a flame, her hair falling across her dark eyes. Around her, men sprawl and mutter in the gloom, each one drifting with his own tide. Here, people say that you introduce only your worst enemy to opium.Outside, stray dogs lope in packs. Street vendors hustle. Hookers call for custom through the bars of their cages as their pimps slouch in doorways in the half-light. There is an underworld whisper of a new terror: the Pathar Maar, the stone killer, whose victims are the nameless, invisible poor. There are too many of them to count in this broken city.Narcopolis is a rich, chaotic, hallucinatory dream of a novel that captures the Bombay of the 1970s in all its compelling squalor. With a cast of pimps, pushers, poets, gangsters and eunuchs, it is a journey into a sprawling underworld written in electric and utterly original prose.
The Room on the Roof
Ruskin Bond - 1956
Written when the author was seventeen, it brilliantly describes the hopes and passions that capture young minds and hearts. A moving tale of love and friendship, it has endured as Bond’s most beloved novel.
Domechild
Shiv Ramdas - 2013
A child with a secret that can change the world. The man trapped between them. In the City, where machines take care of everything, lives Albert, an ordinary citizen with an extraordinary problem: Hes being blackmailed into becoming the first person in living memory to actually do something.What begins as a chance encounter with an outlaw child swiftly spirals out of control as Albert is trapped between the authorities and the demands of his unusual blackmailer. Forced to go on the run for his life, he finds himself in a shadow world of cyber-junkies, radicals and rebels, where he discovers the horrifying truth behind the City, a truth that will make him question everything he has ever known.
Viral Nation
Shaunta Grimes - 2013
The United States splintered into fifty walled cities where the surviving citizens clustered to start over. The Company, which ended the plague by bringing a life-saving vaccine back from the future, controls everything. They ration the scant food and supplies through a lottery system, mandate daily doses of virus suppressant, and even monitor future timelines to stop crimes before they can be committed.Brilliant but autistic, sixteen-year-old Clover Donovan has always dreamed of studying at the Waverly-Stead Academy. Her brother and caretaker, West, has done everything in his power to make her dream a reality. But Clover’s refusal to part with her beloved service dog denies her entry into the school. Instead, she is drafted into the Time Mariners, a team of Company operatives who travel through time to gather news about the future.When one of Clover’s missions reveals that West’s life is in danger, the Donovans are shattered. To change West’s fate, they’ll have to take on the mysterious Company. But as its secrets are revealed, they realize that the Company’s rule may not be as benevolent as it seems. In saving her brother, Clover will face a more powerful force than she ever imagined
and will team up with a band of fellow misfits and outsiders to incite a revolution that will change their destinies forever.
Time Crawlers
Varun Sayal - 2018
Nark-astra, The Hell WeaponThe weapons he possesses make him the destroyer of worlds, and he burns for revenge. A high-tech take on ancient Indian mythology.2. Death by CrowdThe dark desires of the masses; darknet websites fueled by a crypto-currency. What lurks in the background – an advanced artificial intelligence?3. GenieHe rubbed a lamp alright, but what he got was the shock of his life. An entirely sci-fi take on the djinn myth.4. Time CrawlersThere are individuals who exist in multiple time periods at once, and there are those who know about them….5. EclipseNo attacks, no blood-shed, yet there was an invasion and a conquest. Who are these shapeshifter aliens being hounded by an eclipse?6. The CaveThe fate of an advanced imperial race hangs in balance as a dark celestial entity meets a legendary protector.
The Legend of Lakshmi Prasad
Twinkle Khanna - 2016
Sixty-eight-year-old Noni Appa finds herself drawn to a married man – ‘Why do people have to define relationships, underline each word till the paper gives way beneath,’ she wonders. Bablu Kewat becomes obsessed with sanitary napkins much to his family’s horror, and a young woman keeps checking the weather forecast as she meticulously plans each of her five weddings. Funny, observant and wise, this is storytelling at its most irresistible.
The Valley of Masks
Tarun J. Tejpal - 2011
And the story of my people.'The Valley of Masks examines the pathologies of power, purity and dogma to give us a frightening yet ultimately redemptive vision of the future. In the words of Ashis Nandy, critic and social commentator, 'This brilliant, superbly imaginative but terribly disturbing novel transcends borders, cultures, reading habits and literary fashions. As a story of the inhumanity of any human search for absolute perfection, it probably has no parallel in our literature. As a fable, it has a moral that will return to haunt you.'About the AuthorTarun J. Tejpal has been a journalist for close to thirty years. He is the editor of Tehelka, a news organization famed for its public interest journalism. His novels The Alchemy of Desire and The Story of My Assassins have received worldwide recognition. He lives in New Delhi.
Replica
Lauren Oliver - 2016
But up close the locked doors, military guards, and biohazard suits tell a different story. In truth, it is a clandestine research facility where thousands of replicas, or human models, are born, raised, and observed.But when a surprise attack is launched on Haven, two of its young experimental subjects—Lyra, or 24, and the boy known only as 72—manage to escape. As they make their way through a new and menacing environment, they meet a stranger named Gemma, who has embarked on a perilous quest of her own. And as Lyra tries to understand Haven’s purpose, she uncovers earth-shattering secrets that will change the lives of both girls.GemmaGemma has been in and out of hospitals her whole life. A sickly child, she has grown into a lonely adolescent whose life is circumscribed by home, school, and her best friend, April.But after she is nearly abducted by a stranger claiming to know her, Gemma starts to investigate her family’s past and discovers her father’s mysterious connection to the secretive Haven research facility. Hungry for answers, she travels to Florida, only to stumble upon two human models, or replicas, 24 and 72—and a completely new set of questions. As Gemma tries to unravel the mysteries of Haven, she learns terrible truths about herself and her family that will threaten to destroy everything she loves.Two girls, two stories, one novel.While the stories of Gemma and Lyra mirror each other, each contains revelations critically important to the other story. Their narratives can be read separately or in alternating chapters.
Tarikshir: The Awakening
Khayaal Patel - 2018
While unrest surrounding the sudden death of the king of Devangarh grows, young prince Rudra Pratap Chauhan prepares to ascend the throne.But the kingdom is in turmoil. The Devangarh army is outnumbered and the British forces are closing in. To make matters worse, Rudra discovers the king’s death may not have been accidental after all. The strange appearance and disappearance of a mysterious hooded stranger and a series of ritualistic murders in which the bodies have been drained of blood, spread panic across the realm.As Rudra struggles to manage his new responsibilities and investigate his father’s death, dark secrets will be uncovered that will disrupt life as he knows it.