Whereas I think Philip Pullman’s His Dark Materials trilogy is the greatest story ever told.
So I am a man of strange tastes.
Now to The Simoqin Prophecies. Two hundred years after the rakshas Dark Lord Danh-Gem met his end at the hands of the ravians, a race of immortals from another world, magical beasts have begun reappearing, the asurs and vanars are up to something, the sleeping dragons of Xi’En seem to be stirring, and there are disturbing omens that Danh-Gem is about to rise again. But the martyr Simoqin had prophesied the coming of a hero who would destroy the Dark Lord when he rose. The Chief Civilian of Kol, the world’s richest state, hires spy-assassin-world’s-greatest-lover Silver Dagger to find that hero. For the ravians have vanished, and the humans have to take on Danh-Gem on their own. Well, not entirely on their own. There are the pashan stone-men, the pygmy-like khudrans, centaurs, dwarves, golems, and other assorted species....
Still with me? Then trust me on this one: Simoqin is a really fun read. More than anything else, fantasy novels live or die on how well the author creates his universe. In Simoqin, first-time author Samit Basu has created a wonderfully detailed alternate world peopled with a dozen species from mythologies of different cultures, but each species with its own behavioural idiosyncrasies. This itself is a singular achievement.
And then Basu has topped it by not taking that world too seriously. Tolkien’s humourless obsession with his fictitious universe can turn tedious for the non-fanatical reader. But Basu’s world is created with winks and wit. Simoqin is both an entertaining fantasy novel and a gentle spoof of the genre. A boy finds a lamp which produces a huge jinn. "‘My three wishes!’ said Hasan. ‘You will grant me three wishes, won’t you?’ The jinn thought for a while. ‘Why?’ it asked. ‘That’s what jinns do! Don’t you know that? Everyone knows that!’ Three wishes, thought the jinn. What was he talking about?" The jinn eats the boy and his camel, but remains perplexed. "What wishes? Why wishes? Another, very disturbing thought struck the jinn and kept it awake for a long time. Why three?"
For the devoted fantasy reader, the book brims over with allusions—Greek, Indian, Egyptian and Sumer mythology, Alice in Wonderland, Lord of the Rings, Harry Potter (Danh-Gem claims he ate J.K. Rowling), comicbooks, Arabian Nights.... There’s a lot of inventive playfulness in the sidelines: imps Ortant and Oster, storks who are, for no reason at all, Tamil Brahmins, and so on. And if you are a Bengali, you will find a lot more additional pleasure; for example, three princes called Chorpulis, Kumirdanga and Lukochuri, and why a particular eagle is called Lalmohan.
The storyline, of course, is fantasy staple diet. There is a Quest, and a Quest needs a Hero, who must go forth with a band of loyal warriors of various species, and have many Adventures, and Save The World. Simoqin, though, offers a slight twist: at the end the reader is unsure who the Hero is, the human Prince Asvin, or the half-ravian Kirin. Hopefully, the promised sequel will reveal the answer. Or maybe there’s a case for fantasy novels with Two Heroes.
The Simoqin Prophecies is not The Lord of the Rings or His Dark Materials. The best fantasy novels have always worked both as adventure stories and as allegories. Frodo Baggins’ quest is but the eternal war between Good and Evil for control of the Christian soul. Philip Pullman’s epic is a profound perspective on childhood, innocence, morality, death and god. Simoqin, on the other hand, is just a fine story taking place in a finely-crafted world, playful, racy, funny. What shines through in every page is how much fun the author had while writing the book. The reader should also have a lot of fun reading it.
