Doomsday of Tamas: Race To The Second Apocalypse By Varun Sayal | Book Review

We at ThinkerViews find ourselves fortunate to getting exposed to so many talents in the literary world. In addition to the seasoned authors, some lesser known talented ones often comes up with something very interesting, imaginative and fascinating stories that are almost like the masterpieces.

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Varun Sayal is a software engineer working in a big company in the field of data analytics, thus he can be called an IT professional. His passion for writing makes him an author as well. And, he is not just an another author, he has made his mark with many of his books now. He loves to explore the world of Science Fictions or Sci-Fi through his books.

Motivated by the positive response to his first book Time Crawlers, a short story collection, he started writing a Trilogy focused on Time Crawlers!

Here are the books in this series we’ve reviewed so far.

• Demons of Time: Race to the 7th Sunset
• Devourers from Suryaksh: Race to the Last Eventuality (Time Travelers Book 2)
• Disciples of Trikaal: Prequel to Time Trvellers series

By the way, the prequel: Disciples of Trikaal is a short story that you can consider as a bonus to the main trilogy.

As, I got a chance from our team to read all these book by Varun, when we are approached for his latest book in the series (which is also the last instalment of the same), I was pretty sure that this book is going to be an interesting reading experience. And, we’ve decided to read this book out of its turn :).

Here are my unbiased and uninfluenced views and reviews for this book – Doomsday of Tamas: Race To The Second Apocalypse.

Book Cover:

Let us take a look at the cover page of this book.

While the cover page should never be considered as the sole medium to judge a book, more often than not, it influences a large number of reading decisions for sure.

As you can see, the cover page shows a robot fully geared up and battle ready in a striking pose. This reflects the antagonist of the book and you will relate to this scene in the last segment of the book. In the background the designer has tried to show Earth and other space objects and an explosion, the upper half of the same is filled with green. While it is a thoughtful design, the robot, rather than looking menacing warrior to fear from, looks like a toy. It seems that the author could have hired a professional designer to make it a lot better. It is not an impressive cover page.

The Plot:

Let us take a bird’s eye view of the story.

It Starts with a chapter named – The Phone Call – exploring incidents happened on 13th Feb 2074, in Kolkata, India. The mankind has progressed a lot in terms of technology by then. Now there can be gadgets of the size of lenses and they can be wore in the eyes. They can display the transmitted feeds directly to the person wearing it. It provided a really hi-tech way to people to remain updated with the elements they care for.

In the Hatibagan market area of Kolkata, the things were going smooth when all of a sudden, a strange incident happened. A lady purchasing daily utensils was hijacked in a really strange way in front of everyone. And, no one could have done anything but remain mute spectators. Of course, people grab the chance to record this incident and it became a sensational news in almost realtime. Uff, we humans! Are we going to change?

Another strange incident happened in Bengaluru, one of the remarkable cities of India. Here, amid the chaos we witness a lady working for Indian Armed forces, wearing some advanced gadgets uses the power to reach her destination.

While these things are happening Tej and Rigasur are doing their best to find the culprit planning the doomsday for the Earth. Tej has another mission too, finding his daughter and getting united with her. His daughter Kaalpriya or Pri, is also curious to meet her father on the insistence of Rudrakshini Devi. She is not happy with the fact that her father left her and her mother when they needed them.

Will they be able to find each other and eventually can have a “normal” father-daughter relationship? Will Tej, Rigasur and others be able to find the antagonist? Who is he/she/it? Well, you need to read the book to find out the answers :).

Over the course, you will meet Moushami, Sameer Khanna, Jadhav, Histor, Manika, Hafisa Zubeir, Aijaaz, Jannat, Bombean, Saum, Johan, Rahul Nagrekar, Rudrakshini, Brigadier Venkatraman Sundarmurthy (Venkat), Sujatha, Mathur, Lieutenant Nancy Rozaario (Nancy), General Richard “Shard” Griffin (Dickie Shard), Larem, Tamas, Andrele, Tej, Rigasur (Rig), Pri (Kaalpriya), and others.

Views And Reviews:

Imagination of the creator plays the most important role when it comes to fiction. And when it is a science fiction, it has to follow some logical reasoning and research work as well. Reading this book is an interesting experience in those aspects. The author’s efforts are quite visible throughout.

The way the author has named the characters is interesting. The protagonist is Tej (means light) and the antagonist is Tamas (the darkness). The protagonist’s daughter having the power to do time-traveling at will is Kaalpriya (loved by the time). In addition to paying attention to these details, the author has also consciously involved characters from various religions. And yes, for the sake of simplicity, for some characters, he just used popular names.

For place names also, Varun uses the same strategy. It would be interesting to find the refences like “New Hastinapur (previously New Delhi)” :).

If you have an eye for detailing, you will surely notice the use of the phrase “matter of planetary importance” in the same context we are using “matter of national interest” or “matter of national security” these days. It reflects the world is united (or has to be united) to fight these evils. Eventually, people understood that rather than keeping boundaries of cast, creed, gender, race and regions; unity is the best policy! You will also find security forces from various countries are working with each other in co-operation. For example: “Special Research Group (SRG)” (in India).

And, at the same time, there is a scene where intelligent, clever and intellectuals from almost all major countries across the world met to finalize the course of action against the catastrophe about to happen, and they behave like kids. Will the true nature of humans remain the same? Here is the scene:

It was a fish market situation, with no single conversation and multiple people engaged in sever altercations with each other.

The author is good at detailing, and it is pretty much evident in the first scene of the book. Here is an excerpt from the same:

…Her left eye-lens constantly projected her social media timeline, weather telecast, and other notifications on her retina. Every other minute, she also got a five-second feed of her toddler lying peacefully in a pram. As a single mother lviing without family support, this was a crucial update she’d had a technician provide for her. Her right eye lens was switched-off, as she needed to keep an eye on the bustling street.

It is an art to reveal various attributes of the characters in story without explicitly mentioning them. It seems, Varun has gained a good control on this art. Here are some lines of the book where you can find free-flowing conversations and details revealing something important about the characters involved.

Rudrakshini always addressed her as Kaalpriya, and not pri. Rudrakshini found nicknames offensive.

“I have no problem, except I don’t trust you even this much”. She brought her left hand’s thumb and index finger close but didn’t touch them.

“Why do believe him on this? Lying is second nature to him.””
Rudrakshini cachinnated. “Kiddo, I haven’t whitened this hair with sunshine alone. …”

… My name is Tamas. A resident of the world of zeroes and ones. Eternally swimming in the ocean of electrical pulses powering your motherboards…

Money? That holds no worth for me. It is all zeroes and ones. I can create it at will and destroy it at will.

The details about AI, brahm-astra and other stuff is explored quite interestingly. The brahm-astra related stuff will remind you of Indian mythology. I also recall a chapter about “Nark-astra” from the very first book of the author in the same context. He also tried to weave the science and logic as far as possible. Especially, the wiring that can imitate human touch to the bow and the arrow, is interesting.

The hunt for the creator of Tamas, at some points will remind you the scenes from “The Matrix” (movie series). And yes, the author doesn’t waste the opportunity when it comes to refer a book or a movie in the story. For example:

According to Sun Tzu, the most powerful ally a soldier can have is the terrain.

Don’t believe me; ask your beloved GI Joe…

The book requires some light moments / sarcasm and other elements too. And thus the author infused some interesting lines like:

“When has the death of a person stopped us from meeting them?” Rigasur smiled and gulped the rest of the scotch.

Neanderthal brains were different. He was having a tough time …

“Doors are meant to be knocked on, Nancy”. Her tone was mundane.
“And rules are meant to be broken.” Nancy give a wide smile, though which Pri could see the minced gum stuck between her teeth”.
Pri made a reolted face. “Spare me the beauty of the inside of your mouth.””
…

And there are line that gives you deja-vu feeling (as they appeared in the previous book too). For example:

“Once I take a bounty, I complete it without fail. That’s my unwavering ethic. I have a reputation to keep.”
“What good is a reputation if you aren’t there to keep it?””

I like the exploration of VR and AI weaved together (in the form of a game) – Warriors of Tamas, a multiplayer role-playing game – MMORPG. If you are looking for a communication that explores chivalry, I will suggest you to read the small telephonic conversation between Hafisa and Aijaaz, and reference of Jannat in the same. If you are an emotional person, the response of Tej about his feelings for his own father after Pri’s outburst of her feelings and experiences of growing up without a father, is something you’ll find remarkable. And yes, the book has some beautiful lines like:

The night was still young, through the sky overcast with clouds showed almost no starlight.

The book has some proofreading errors like:

To the untrained eye, the noisy back-and-forth between customers and show-owners …
(should be “shop owners”)

“Pri is that you?”
“Yes, Fad”
(should be “Yes, Dad””)

… hunts through forest, nights around the fire, always living fear of animals

You will also find the usage of “anyways” (instead of anyway), that is being a common standard these days. And yes, the phrases like “Tamas’s” should have been taken care about.

At the same time you will find some interesting words like “lens-o-phobia” in the book.

I found it a genuinely conclusive part of the “Time Travelers” series. And yet, there is a scope of exploring the tale further, if the writer decide so.

My main aim was to give you a fair idea about the book without revealing spoilers, as far as possible. And, I hope, the quotes from the book are helpful to you in the same aspects.

It is the longest book in the series. The book is quite pricey. The good thing is, the book is available for “free to read” under Amazon’s Kindle unlimited program (when I am wring this review”. So if you are a subscriber of this program, you shouldn’t miss it anyway.

Summary:

If you love exploring “Sci-Fi thrillers”, it is definitely a worthy choice.

ThinkerViews Rating:

Around 8 to 8.5 stars out of 10.

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Over To You:

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