Tom Wood - The Anti-Hero Writer

Tom Wood is newest, hottest and the most exciting name in Thriller genre today. He exploded on the scene with The Hunter.Victor (no last name known) is an assassin. In face we are not even sure if Victor is his original name. A man who is at the top of his game.  A nameless, faceless assassin. Tom Woods chose to write the story of an anti-hero, a man who stays in shadows. A man who does every movement with economy so that none is wasted. A man who performs to the peak of his ability because he has conditioned his body to do so and above all a man who is supremely and extremely disconnected with the world. Victor is the perfect killer.

The Hunter introduced Victor, Bad Luck in Berlin showed a side of him that was human. The Enemy saw Victor moving from freelance assignments to working as a off books contractor exclusively for CIA under duress due to the events in The Hunter. The Game saw Victor come up against an fellow assassin as ruthless and as deadly as him, but even more cold blooded. Following the events of The Game Victor turned protector as a favor to an old acquaintance instead of being on the other side of the barrel in No Hold Barred. Victor came up against his toughest opponents in the form of Nieve Anderson and Sinclair.

What makes the story of an assassin so enthralling? Authors have always written about assassins, cloaked in mystique and suspense they have always been around serving as a plot device, brought in and out of the storyline as and when desired but never in spotlight. Never the lead. That changed when Tom Wood wrote about Victor.

Victor is a man with no past, no future but only present. Victor is us. There is a Victor in everyone of us. What makes Victor so intriguing or even exciting to read about is we want to live vicariously through him, live a life outside the long reach of the law, always in the moment, always in the tenterhooks and always waiting - ready to strike at a moments notice. It is this darkness that draws us to Victor and Wood does an amazingly good job of writing Victor in such a way that every book reveals one facet of Victors character and leaves you on the tenterhooks wanting for more.

Never has any author dare to glorify the villain, the person who does the dirty deed. Tom Wood has done that with Victor and thus break free of the shackles of right and wrong, the moral compass of the story shifts dramatically with Victor in the spotlight as the rights become wrong and the wrongs become right. This is essence is the true genius of Tom Wood.

Ashok Banker - The Mythology Man

Mythological Stories are the part of every culture’s folklore and have a special place and significance in introducing the younger generation to the morals and values of their ancients and the Hindus are no different. The ancient Indian civilization was the hot bed of cultural, philosophical and scientific thoughts and these facts are well known throughout the world.

What’s not very well known is the scale of Indian mythology. In a generation and time obsessed by everything western, it’s very easy to forget the very rich school of thought inculcated by the Indian Mythological stories.

The world’s longest poem “The Mahabharatha”, the spiritual thought espoused by “The Bhagavat Gita”, the stories of Ayodhyan Prince Rama are just a few examples known throughout the world.

Children in my generation learnt about these works on the laps of their doting parents and grand-parents and through popular serials like “Ramayana” & “Mahabharatha”. It was sheer joy and pleasure to know and understand these stories of exemplary courage, devotion, brotherhood, friendship and so on. These epics taught me to see the world not in terms of black and white but in shades of grey. While it taught me that War is the ultimate reality, every effort that can be made to foster peace should be made before embarking on War and once you embark on War there should be no mercy, no empathy for the enemy until they are dead or defeated.

I missed those great days when these stories enriched my life and gave me new avenues of thought. But no more… There is hope on the horizon for the next generation of children to learn about these towering figures in the history. One Indian writer has embarked on a journey so enormous that it will take a lifetime to complete. It will be a journey of perseverance through odds but if anybody can pull it off it would be him.

Who? You ask. Ashok Banker – I say.

He is the Indian Mythology Man. The world has always been fascinated with Alexander the Great, Ptolemy, Rameses, Herod and so on... the list of Greek, Persian and Egyptian Kings is well known and well documented; so let me not regurgitate these names about which so much has already been written and so much more is being written.

Indian history on the other hand is not so well known or well complied, but that does not mean we lack great kings or that the achievements of these kings are any less significant that those mentioned above.

For example the King Sudas and his victory against the combined army and might of ten kings led by Anu in the battle of Dasarajna is a classical David vs. Goliath story. Just because it has been extensively document does not mean that is less of an achievement. It was this victory that laid to the foundation of the Bharata nation. Similar is the stories of the kings from the southern India like Raja Raja, Krishnadeva Raya, the Chola  and the Pandya kings of the old who lead their conquests far into the heartlands of Thailand and Indonesia. It is really very sad that we no longer remember these figures or are even taught about them but even today our history lesson are fraught with British conquest and Congress-led independence movement due to which we are aware of every British Viceroy of India starting from the East India Company to Mountbatten of British Empire.

Well I digress.. talking about Ashok Banker and his retelling of Indian Mythology, the Ramayana Series has won him the rave accolades and also got his books on the first 3 spots of the bestselling books on the internet list, Ashok Banker has embarked on an endeavor that will take an entire lifetime to complete.

He is planning on writing an Epic India Library comprising of more than 70 books and which can be categorized into Mythology, Itihasa, History and Future History.

The Mythology sections retelling of popular Indian Epic on a global scale like

1. Ramayana (8 Books in all, all released) 
2. Krishna Coriolis (8 Books in all, 7 Books released so far on the website)

The Itihasa section contains:

1. Mahabharatha (18 books in total, 2 released so far on his website) As per the latest on this the Mahabharatha will now be a Pentalogy comprising all the 18 books into 5 Volumes. 

The History sections contains:

1. Dasarajna (released).It has now been re-released as Ten Kings
2. Mahavira
3. Siddhartha
4. Mauryavansh
5. Ashoka
6. Delhi Sultanate
7. The Moghuls
8. Saffron White Green

The Future History section contains:

1. Vertigo
2. Gods of War
3. The Kali Quarter
4. Saffron White Green

The full information about Askok's complete collection of books (released and to be released) can be found on his website www.akbebooks.com.

James Rollins - A Riveting story teller

Recently I have been reading through the books of James Rollins, since I was introduced to the Matt Reilly as a author first it was quite normal that I would compare the writing style between two people who write fast-paced adventure thrillers.

But that is where the comparison starts and ends, with Matt Reilly the readers have come to expect larger than life armageddon type stories which always have the minnows scoring over the larger opponents, be it Shane Schofield perfomoring impossible feats that defy physics or Jack West Jr. taking on every known force in the world single-handedly and coming on top.

On the contrary the characters in James Rollins series the Sigma Force come across as people who have fought and lived to tell tale of it. Exploring the field of varied sciences without hitching occult or mystery civilizations with it, James Rollins weaves a tale of believeable stories that have just the right mix of science, adventure, suspense and action to hold the story together.

The stories move at the frenetic pace, with the bad guys outnumbering the good guys, but the good guys still managing to pull through by the skin of their teeth.

The Sigma Force series calls a reader to it's pages with the concept of Scientists who can kill.

The other standalone books in the series are also very well written with the characters going through every gamut of emotions, be it the archeologist in Excavation or the botanist in Amazonia, the exploration, concept and action is very believeable.

A riveting story tell who is at the pinnacle of his game putting the reader through every emotion possible while taking them on a roaller coaster ride through time.