Warrior – Olivier Lafont – Book Review

Goodreads blurb: In Mumbai, driven to its knees by a merciless blizzard, Saam the watchmender is cornered into an intolerable position. As Shiva’s only earthly demigod child, it falls upon him to stop his indomitable father. Bred to war, son of destruction, Saam rides with six extraordinary companions into the horror of a crumbling world to face Shiva.

He is forced to join hands with Ara, his half-brother he can never fully trust and take with him his own mortal beloved, Maya, on this desperate attempt to stop the End of Days. But his path is littered with death, danger and betrayal.

Interweaving mythology, epic adventure and vintage heroism, this enthralling novel will change the way you see gods, heroes and demons.

=====================

If you are looking for a classic ‘good vs evil’ adventure where the protagonists are racing against time, trying to save the world overcoming seemingly insurmountable odds, with formidable antagonists doing everything possible to prevent them from doing so, look no further, Warrior has all of these elements and more. And what is better is that it is a roller coaster ride from the very first line of the book itself.

Saam, son of The Destroyer, is going about his normal life as a watchmender in Bombay when the prophesied End of Days begins unraveling itself and he soon realizes that he has only three days and the fate of the entire world rests on his ability to meet his father, and figure out a solution to the problem. What makes things worse is that this phenomenon also seems to have emboldened all the other semi-mortals living within us and most of them seem to have picked the wrong team to side with.

Saam then sets off on a journey with his band of seven companions and has to travel almost the entire northern parts of India including Varanasi, Rajasthan and even other worldly realms to find a solution to the problem at hand and the group has more than its share of adventures on the way.

Do Saam and his ragtag team of companions find what they are looking for, and more importantly does Saam personally have what it takes to save the world from an imminent end is what makes up for the crux of the narrative.

What I personally really loved about the book was its pacing. Not for one moment are readers allowed to put down the book and relax, the action and the narrative are so well paced that the pages turn themselves automatically at a reasonably quick pace. Even the flashbacks into Saam’s past and the history of the phenomenon itself are so crisply presented in small little chapters which are interspersed with the frenetic action that the reader easily immerses himself in the action of the book with great gusto.

Using concepts and characters from Indian mythology liberally, the author belies the fact that he is European (at least by name) and his love and respect for the same comes through very clearly. That being said, Indian mythology is at best a crutch and a canvas which the author uses to paint his narrative of the classic ‘good vs evil’ story on, and to his credit, it must be said that he uses it extremely effectively and creatively.

All descriptions of the action sequences are lovely enough that readers can easily visualize the action happening on the pages in their minds’ eyes very clearly, and that to me, speaks volumes of the ability of the author to paint a narrative picture beautifully well using nothing but just words.

In a nutshell, this book is a sure-shot read for all aficionados of a good yarn, well spun with enough spice and action in it to make for an unputdownable book. Click on the links following to purchase the book from Flipkart [Link] or Amazon [Link].

==================

Disclaimer: A review copy of this book was arranged for by the author’s publicist in return for an unbiased review.