A dream-weaver's debut

How do you approach a book that claims to be India's first sff (science fiction/fantasy) genre novel in English, and whose 23-year-old author has blithely told you that "it's very, very self-indulgent"?

The answer: with dollops of trepidation. There is so much disaster potential here, you mutter to yourself, as you read the first line which goes "In a hole in the ground there lived a rabbit" (if you don't get the reference, exit this review immediately).

But happily, for all the in-jokes that saddle it, Samit Basu's The Simoquin Prophecies doesn't collapse on itself like a souffle gone wrong.

While it's true that there are innumerable points of reference (not all from the fantasy genre either), the book passes a basic, and vital, test: it establishes a coherent storyline, sticks to it and engages your attention. And it does so with a delightfully understated sense of humour that grows on you as you read on.

The story is set in a world very different from, yet very similar to, our own (New York's boroughs meet Kolkata in the fictional Kol "" "the greatest, most powerful city in the world").

The return of the rakshas Danh-Gem, who had been overthrown 200 years earlier, is now anticipated, and the title prophecy speaks, as all prophecies must, of a saviour.

But this being a retro take on the fantasy novel, there's no question of just waiting around for said hero to appear.

Instead, a likely candidate "" Prince Asvin of Avranti (The Person to Whom Things Happen, we're told, in the uppercased style so beloved of the genre) "" is found and given a world-saving crash course.

Soon, Asvin embarks on a series of adventures, assisted by a motley group "" including a human spellbinder named Maya, who might have played the Hero's required Damsel in Distress, were it not for the minor detail that she's more efficient and powerful than him in most ways.

There's also a vaman (a dwarfish creature presumably modelled on Vishnu's stunted fifth avatar) called Gaam, a white rabbit named, alternatively, Fluffy or Steel-Bunz, and Maya's father Mantric, a Prospero-like figure who conducts secret experiments on an island.

Meanwhile, a parallel strand introduces us to the story's real protagonist "" the ravian Kirin. The ravians, powerful sorcerers, were Danh-Gem's nemeses during his reign of terror and had themselves mysteriously vanished from the world after ending his reign.

Now, it appears Kirin was left behind "" and his struggle to understand and come to terms with his powers completes the plot tapestry.

Playfulness is the motif of this entertaining novel. Reading it, I couldn't help but think of Kill Bill, Quentin Tarantino's vastly referential exercise in hommage "" a breathless blink-and-you'll-miss-it amalgamation of all his favourite movie moments. Likewise, many worlds intersect in Simoquin.

It's pointless to list all the references (and I've probably missed a few anyway) but there's place here for everything from the Ramayana (including a funky reinterpretation of the Lakshman-rekha story) to Bridget Jones (in Maya's proto-feminist diary-writing).

And the final confrontation combines the frisson-inducing revelation of The Empire Strikes Back with a certain plot cliche common to every James Bond film.

There's even a bit of Manoj Night Shyamalan thrown in (fans of Shyamalan's least seen and most entrancing film, Unbreakable, might enjoy the climactic twist).

It can be argued that the sff genre has reached a point where it's difficult to avoid being referential.

What's important, though, is that Basu uses his influences not as a crutch but only to garnish his own ideas.

There are exuberant, offbeat reworkings of the genre's staples "" like the unabashedly self-indulgent (and, from a narrative viewpoint, completely unnecessary) jinn interlude where a sullen lamp-genie eats the young lad who 'frees' him, instead of granting the obligatory three wishes.

The irreverence is often very funny: "we don't name our swords "" we consider it silly" says a character at one point, cocking a snook at several of fantasy writing's most revered seers.

"Dark interiors are so last Age" goes an inappropriately cheerful decorator as he prepares Danh-Gem's castle for the Reawakening.

There are also brief nods to Tolkienesque themes "" like the dangers inherent in excessive attachment to objects.

But the serious bits don't always work "" for instance, the heavy-handed monologue based on the 'history is written by the victors' theme, which challenges conventional notions of good and evil.

Framed against the lightweight tone of the book, it doesn't come off. It's much more effective when the author uses humour to lampoon the genre.

Another minor shortcoming is that the characters aren't as well fleshed out as one might like "" there isn't enough by way of mannerisms or speech patterns to distinguish them from each other, and some of the conversations are stilted.

But then, there's ample scope for Basu to improve on these points "" he's currently working on a sequel.

One fancies that many of the loose strands in this book will be resolved as the author gets more comfortable with his imaginary world.

At any rate, the flaws don't seriously detract from the merits of what is an impressive first effort.

Given the inexperience of its author, Simoquin is as readable as most of its equivalents in contemporary fantasy writing in the West. And for the Indian reader, there's more here that can be readily identified with.

THE SIMOQUIN PROPHECIES

Samit Basu
Penguin India
Pages: 505
Price: Rs 250