I'm a great fan of Amish Tripathi. I really loved the first two books in Shiva Trilogy. They were excellent in a sense that they helped me form and understand the nature of my own religion. Although they are not commentary on religion but on myth, I used it to form and ferment my own thoughts. The idea that Brahma, Vishnu and Shiva were titles bestowed upon people who lived and led the life of creator, nurturer and destroyer sounded so reasonable that I've adopted it as a valid philosophy on my understanding of Hinduism. It immediately resonated with concept of avatar and left a logical dimension to the stories that I grew up with. But I believe Amith Tripathy lost the plot with third book in Shiva Trilogy. He's sagging between Ashok Banker, Chetan Bhagat and Dan Brown.
Now I really wish nobody reads his books before they read actual Ramayan, Mahabharat and other Hindu religious books. Because its the first impression that creates a foundation for future experiences and ideas. No matter what comes after, it just gets piled up on top of the foundation. At times the foundation are so high themselves that everything gets sunk in between those foundation walls. Foundation do get erased too. That happens only to those who stimulate their intellectual ideals and are not constrained within any fixed set of belief systems and this community has always been a absolute minority of human race.
My assessment (you can call it prejudice and presumption) is that royalty and fame has forced Amish to churn out at faster rate than it takes to write seriously researched piece of work. Read last book of Shiva Trilogy and then this new book in Ramchandra Series and the hypothesis proves itself correct.
Scion of Ikshvaku - more of a script for a movie than a work of literature produced for a faithful fan following who wants to know more about its past and intellectual dissection. He just lost the grandeur of an epic in trying to portray a bollywoodish skit in present pragmatic setup. Since when warriors started having their eyes dripping on a slightest hint of spousal, brotherly, motherly or fatherly love. Especially when you are talking about pre-historic patriarchal society. Amish lost its ingenuity when he infused Ramayan with Mahabharat. Ram targeting a moving fish eye to win Sita? What do you plan to have when you write Arjun Series - a belly dance competition?
Many events in the book appear so loosely tied that they fail to justify their occurrence. Vishvamitra convincing Ram to fire Devi Astra... so fairy tale like that only a impressionable mind would take it for a reason. A couple of pages down the book, I really felt a strong urge to dump the book and not read it again. But I still managed to read it up to 83%. Beyond it, I felt it was work of an absolute amateur at history writing and didn't find enough value in taking it any further. That's the end of your book. And now, I will check a thousand reviews before I read another Amith Tripathi book.
