The Destiny of Shaitan by Laxmi Hariharan

Inspired by Indian mythology, The Destiny of Shaitan is a coming of age story, painted against the backdrop of a post-apocalyptic world.

When Tiina accompanies Yudi on a mission to save the universe from the ruthless Shaitan, she seeks more than the end of the tyrant; she seeks herself. Driven by greed and fear for his own survival, Shaitan bulldozes his way through the galaxy, destroying everything in his path.  Tiina wants Yudi to destroy Shaitan, thus fulfilling the prophecy of Shaitan being killed by his son. But she finds that Yudi is hesitant to do so. The final showdown between Tiina, Yudi, and Shaitan has unexpected consequences, for Shaitan will do anything in his power to win the fight.  The stakes are high and the combatants determined. Will Shaitan's ultimate destiny be fulfilled? Book Description

This novel sounded interesting and possibly my sort of thing. Well I was half right. The concept was very good, Indian mythology and science fiction together, the possibilities were exciting. Unfortunately for me it didn't quite deliver, possibly as I had built it up in my mind.

In parts it felt like the telling of a parable, and so it took me a while to find the pace of the story, though the style of the writing was good. For me there was definitely not enough science, and the story felt more like a fantasy than the science fiction that I was expecting. That I think was down to the fact that the characters were based on Indian mythology, and that shone through. That is no bad thing especially if you have a knowledge of Indian mythology, unfortunately not me, so I spent a lot of time trying to figure out the different aspects of the characters and how that fitted into the storyline. I wasted a lot of time on this, but that was my fault, and one I hope to rectify.

The main characters were described well, leaving enough space for growth, though I never really took to any of them, while the secondary characters were hardly there at all. I tell a lie, the one character that I did gel with was the A1 character, who was strong, interesting, had a discernible character & who developed as the story unfolded.  As I said earlier the story felt like a parable, and this left the story disjointed at times. There were large parts that I felt should have been filled, characters went from here to there and there seemed nothing in the middle, or characters magically seemed to have powers or knowledge and know how to use them.

The review is quite short, as like reading I am finding it quite difficult putting my thoughts together. I enjoyed the story but felt that it could have been more; hopefully this might happen in future installments, which I will be reading.

To sum up I would say that this storyline has a great deal of potential. At the moment it felt more like a spiritual novel with aspects of technology (not enough for me). The concept is excellent and it has introduced me to as of yet an undiscovered mythology. A knowledge of Indian mythology would be a benefit before reading. For that reason I can only give it 3.5 stars, even though I feel that the concept deserves more, and other readers who perceive its underlying messages will like it a lot more than me.

                                                           Reviewed by Cardmon

 

You may purchase "The Destiny of Shaitan" here : DarkissReads Bookstore

You may find Laxmi Hariharan on the web here : http://www.laxmihariharan.com/