"Gods of war" by Ashok K. Banker. This book is published by Penguin in 2009 and has 282 pages. This is a Sci-fi.
Aliens have attacked earth and taken over all living things. Five people from five parallel worlds survive. Santosh, a young boy from Mumbai chawl; Ruth, a lesbian welder from America; Salim, a middle aged Briton of Pakistani origin and Yoki-Akeshi, twins & creators of Manga comics in Japan. Responsibility to save the world now lies on them.
Will they meet? Can they fight the alien thing? Will they get help or guidance? Is world in danger? Can the world be saved? Why these five survive whereas all others are 'taken'?
The take over by aliens is interesting. Concept of meeting God is a novelty. Fight between science and religion for the control of heaven is also curious.
Narration and story is slow. There are long stretches when nothing happens. The description of the out of world things does not entice the readers. Although there are other beings who do not belong to earth or world or time or dimension, the explanations and references given by the 'guide' are only for earthlings. What happens to others is not known. Until you reach half way, readers don't understand who the threat is from or what the threat is. The climax is actually an anti climax. You feel like you have wasted a lot of time reading the book.
Author has used the concept of relativity in the book. Explaining theory of relativity in a novel is never easy but author has done a good job. Ashok has also tried to explain inexplicable, things that human mind can not comprehend, parallel worlds, eleven dimensions etc in this book.
Generally speaking, I am not a fan of sci-fi. I purchased this book because I liked previous books written by Ashok Banker. However after reading the book, I was disappointed, very disappointed. I completed the book only because I do not like to leave books unfinished.
The font used for this book is very small. Made reading difficult. With normal font it would have been 350 pages.
Avoid.
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