Skip to main content

Samit Basu-The Gameworld Trilogy

simoqin-prophecies-cover n263036 unwaba-1

So this goes out to Samit Basu one of the finest writers of this generation. (Notice that I didn’t add Indian to the phrase)

I remember picking up the first part of Samit Basu’s Gameworld trilogy The Simoqin Prophecies at a book store which has now sadly been closed(It was one of those book cafes that open along with CCDs and Nirulas). The book was languishing amongst the other scifi/fantasy titles in a corner and surprisingly the book had received little marketing but nonetheless the book piqued my curiosity.

Reading the back cover I decided to give the book a shot. (Besides the title seemed really cool) Little did I know what was in store. The book turned out to be a  gem, plain and simple, written with such playfulness, such wit that one struggles to comprehend how something like this even saw the light of day.

The trilogy can be read on many levels and enjoyed on each one of them. Kind of like Asterix and Obelix which have these goofy physical gags but also abound with references to the era and have amazingly subtle wordplay. The trilogy had all this and more. The great thing about the references was the fact that it didn’t matter if you really got them or not. The story, the characters are extremely sound and a delight in their own right.

The trilogy is a glorious mish mash of ideas which I had previously not seen. Full of delicious little inventions, drawing from mythologies, current affairs, superheroes, and what not. No one is spared, many ideas are stolen and made better.

There are references to Hermione along with Jonathan Livingston Seagull. There is the wondrous land of Bolvudis which is a running satire on Bollywood. There is a treatise on how heroes are made. The conversations between God and Sambo are a treat, all fantastic creations of an extremely inventive mind. The way the gods are treated in the series should be a lesson in itself. The names are a delight. Al-Ugobi is a desert, Chropulis is a character who is abducted by a rakshasi, There is a rabbit(Steel Bunz) who writes the tale of “There and back again” tales of a rabbit. There is this glorious reversal on the concept of the jinnie. Many conventions of the standard fantasy tales are played with and twisted beyond recognition.

Perhaps the best thing about the Gameworld trilogy is how effortlessly Samit Basu moves between genres. Think about how difficult this is. Usually books maintain the same tone throughout, or they end up sounding stupid. Samit is able to shift gears from light to dark easily. There are fight scenes that are dealt as fight scenes ought to be. Steven Wilson of Porcupine Tree comes to mind as I write this. He said the the thing about Opeth is that they never sound silly when they make the transition from the harsh to the not so harsh. Despite all the movements, the transitions there is still a cohesiveness, a central thread to it all.

At a personal level, the gameworld trilogy was an introduction to the incredibly rich scifi and fantasy genre. This was perhaps the first series that I read after Harry Potter and Lord of the Rings. I have read many more since but the gameworld trilogy remains untouched. It still cracks me up every time I read it and it is amongst the books that I can and have read an umpteen number of times. Samit Basu is coming out with two books in rapid succession. If they are half as good as Gameworld its going to be an awesome ride.

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

An ode to Hall 1

This goes out to Hall 1, the hostel where all the 4th year students of IIT Kanpur live. Indeed this hostel serves as a meeting ground between familiar foes some of who go on to become friends. A lot of factors make Hall 1 what it is. It acquires a mythic quality right from the first year when juniors are often threatened with “Aaj raat hall 1 main chal”. The seniors who live in Hall 1 seem to have a totally different existence as compared to the rest of the campus. On a visit to the hostel in the first year all one hears is the constant swearing, and sees everyone in shorts or in suits. Legends surround Hall 1 and in our first year the stories we hear are of Hall 1 and none other. Indeed Hall 1 residents perpetuate this myth as well acting as if they are the scariest beings on the campus. Indeed the fear is such that if a fresher goes to Hall 1 they are not expected to come back. There is something about Hall 1 that separates it from the rest of the Halls. For starters, Hall 1 has

Places to eat in Kanpur

Our real exploration of Kanpur began in our 5th year when we had our stipend to spend so hopefully this article will prove helpful to all the foodies out there. Surprisingly(and I really mean this) there are a number of terrific places to eat in Kanpur. Hopefully this article will prove helpful to many who are looking forward to spend their stipends. By far the best way to reach places to eat in Kanpur is to catch the bus that the institute provides. The bus runs everyday(except Sunday) at 8:00 pm and 9:00 pm. The bus returns at around 10:15 pm. Murgi(Our food and snacks Coordinator, every wing should have one) always takes the phone number of the conductor so that he can stay updated about where the bus is and so that the return is convenient. The bus service is really a life saver and unless you have a bike should be the first option. It is also better to roam during weekdays than weekends simply because there is lesser ruckus everywhere. Going to a restaurant on a weekend is an ab

The best of Paul Graham

Paul Graham is a startup incubator. He also happens to write essays which are really really good. In general I wish I had them read them a lot earlier. I have been reading his essays for a while now. Here are some extracts which I liked and so it begins. Addictive things have to be treated as if they were sentient adversaries—as if there were a little man in your head always cooking up the most plausible arguments for doing whatever you're trying to stop doing. If you leave a path to it, he'll find it. And my main computer is now freed for work. If you try this trick, you'll probably be struck by how different it feels when your computer is disconnected from the Internet. It was alarming to me how foreign it felt to sit in front of a computer that could only be used for work, because that showed how much time I must have been wasting. From Disconnecting Distraction How do you avoid copying the wrong things? Copy only what you genuinely like. That would have sav