Myths Of Old By Krishnarjun Bhattacharya | Book Review

Tantra is probably one of the most misunderstood words. People associate it with dark magic, though, in reality, its scope is much more than that.

Recently, we came across a book named Myths Of Old by Krishnarjun Bhattacharya. It is the third and last installment of The Tantric Trilogy. We are thankful to Fingerprint! Publishing, for making its review copy available to us.

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

Book Cover:

As you can see below, the designer is settled for the black and white theme. Usually, it doesn’t click an impression in the viewer’s mind, but, in this case, it looks impressive.

The shape the black color takes gives you many impressions actually, it looks like you are exploring various faces in the sky. While reading the story, of course, you came to know about them. The white color is used pretty effectively to represent the bright future (in addition to the geographical context it is representing).

Overall, an impressive cover page using a very basic color scheme.

We mostly skip books in the “Horror” genre due to various reasons. However, in this book the word “Myths” from the title made us curious to explore it. Fortunately, I got a chance to read it from Team ThinkerViews.

It all starts with these beautiful lines:

What know you, of the stories children tell?
Of witches and dragons and sword and spell
Laugh it off, yes, in places brightly lit
Demand the dulling of ever-sharpened wit
When in company, make it a mob
Quiet it, quiet that adventurous heartthrob
But when it stares back at you, the darkness
When the rows of teeth unfold
And the tongue, it comes looking, licking
The sight before you terrifying to behold
Then, doomed one, respect the stories
The legends, the fairytales
The myths of old.

As I haven’t read the previous two books in the series, I was also curious to explore the book as a stand-alone read. And I found it quite interesting. Of course, knowing the story explored in first two books will make your reading experience more interesting, you can also read it even without reading them.

The book is very detailed and comparatively long, at various places, it reminds you of very popular fiction by J R R Tolkien, J K Rowing and others. The book explores various fictional creature and fictional places, but you will enjoy exploring references to various popular Indian cities like Kolkata, Delhi, Ahmedabad and others (of course, the time span is different). You may think that in old days these cities were known as different names, but, the author, kept it easy for the reader to guess, and used modern names (sometimes with little different spelling). And, I like it. Actually, it makes the reading experience smooth.

Brahms stared at Adri. “There are three prisons in the Old Country, Tantric. The Bagchi Prison in old Kolkata, the Living Coffins in Western Ahmedabad, and Bavak Bak, the Cursed Keep, in Moonless Dilhi. All of them were thought to be impenetrable. Until someone broke out of one of them.

The book has a large number of characters and they all got their due importance. After completing the book, you will remember Dhananjay, Era, Hunter, Wodan, Kaavsh, Maya, Gray, Dark Angel, Asag, Zabrielle, Adri Sen, Fayne, Brahms and others.

It is not easy to write such a long story with so many characters, threads, places and twists involved. The author must be appreciated for his vision and keeping these thread together in a nicely weaved manner. We often see the same old stories told in an almost similar manner. This book (and the entire series) brings a fresh and imaginative fiction for the readers.

While the author has tried keeping the language simple, various pieces of the story require your attention to keep up with the flow of the story. So, the book is not just for time pass. You should read it when you can concentrate on the story. For example, look at the following passage:

Strange things that lurk in the forests are flattered to hear bits about themselves in these songs, and they spare these travellers who knew of them. Ahzad is a pipe that does not go out, and night comes to pass with tavern music and frothing glasses of steaming hot liquor.

What I like in the book is, it has good v/s evil fight, but, no unnecessary brutalities. This makes the book a good read even for teens, for whom you want to keep books with violence, adult material, cuss-words, abusive kinds of stuff and other elements, away.

Having a glossary, list of characters and their introduction could have made this book easier to read. Some readers may also wish to have smaller books rather than a very long book, based on the time-fragments we are getting these days for dedicated reading.

Talking more about various threads of the story will include the spoilers that I want to avoid as far as possible. But, if you are an avid reader, the prologue itself is going to hook you up with the story.

A fresh and imaginative story exploring a totally new world. You need to pay attention to the complex storyline to understand the thread and enjoy it fully.

ThinkerViews Rating:

Around 7 to 7.5 out of 10.

Quick Purchase Links:

• Buy – Myths Of Old: Book Three Of The Tantric Trilogy By Krishnarjun Bhattacharya – Paperback
• Buy – Myths Of Old: Book Three Of The Tantric Trilogy By Krishnarjun Bhattacharya – Kindle EBook
• Buy – Myths Of Old: Book Three Of The Tantric Trilogy By Krishnarjun Bhattacharya – Paperback
• Buy – Myths Of Old: Book Three Of The Tantric Trilogy By Krishnarjun Bhattacharya – Kindle EBook

Over To You:

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