If this million-piece jigsaw is designed to all fall into place in the third volume, Basu has a heck of a job in the next few years. "Go now, and sharpen your weapons."
The Manticore’s Secret unfurls a similar riot of characters, colours and complexities as Simoquin and is probably more inventive, considering that we all know the plot and the author now. A tree-frog is a Melnkohli flaicatcha, a shape-shifting wizard Mod Vatpo, the Goddess of Chance Petah-Petyi, the Kaos butterfly—the list is endless and delightful (unfairly, even more to a Bengali reader). Yet, this matrix of intricate and inexplicable events, not to speak of a plot that needs going back and forth so as to keep track, merely dazzle the mind and fails to exhilarate. You almost feel guilty: the dark humour is intact, the dialogues poised to fill up a storyboard, and the imagery and scenes tailor-made for a Peter Jackson clone, but at the end, you’re a little lost. If this million-piece jigsaw is designed to all fall into place in the third volume, Basu has a heck of a job in the next few years. "Go now, and sharpen your weapons."