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Earthbound, somewhat

Photo: Murali Kumar K.

MARRYING HISTORY With fantasy fiction to give fully loaded reading

All fans of outrageously inventive fantasy fiction can rejoice as Samit Basu is back with “Terror on the Titanic” (Scholastic, Rs. 150), a Morningstar Agency Adventure. “It is a series,” says Samit in town for the launch at Reliance TimeOut on Cunningham Road.

“After the Simoquin trilogy, I wanted to set my next book on earth, but in an alternate history. I conceived of the Morningstar Agency along the lines of Illuminati, you know a slightly sinister, shadowy power that has shaped momentous historical events from time immemorial.”

“Terror on the Titanic” features two young protagonists, a fabulous gem, lovers on board the “unsinkable” Titanic and of course being a Samit Basu book, warring, shape-shifting aliens.

“I wanted to set the novel during the time frame of classic detective stories. That was the time of Christie's Poirot and Doyle's Holmes. Within that time slot, the First World War and the Titanic are fresh in people's minds. More so the latter thanks to Mr. Cameron.”

Incidentally the movie features very prominently in the book with the charming Zeke standing in for Leonardo DiCaprio's Jack and Isobel Dawson being Kate Winslet's Rose. The fabulous Heart of the Ocean is the jewel that everyone is looking for and killing each other over. The famous “standing at the prow of the ship” scene is used to reveal an important fact about Zeke.

“I threw in the whole kitchen sink,” says Samit with a laugh. “Morningstar agents are people with extraordinary powers. I conceived the agents as children of well-known literary characters or real people.”

So the hero, Nathaniel Brown, is Mowgli's son, while his senior and love interest, Genevive, is the daughter of Arsene Lupin, the master thief. “Rudyard Kipling has a cameo in the book. It is very satisfying when history falls in place.”

The next Morningstar book might not figure Brown as the protagonist. “I have not really decided but there are many periods I am toying with. There is ancient Egypt and I wonder if King Tut really died when he is supposed to have. Or I would like to explore the golden era of Hollywood musicals. I want to write about people on the wings of history. Considering the different kinds of media available, I am surprised people read at all. So I have to make sure when I am offering a book, that it is fully loaded.”

The 30-year-old chose Scholastic to publish the book as “they are very good with young adult fiction. I would describe ‘Terror' as young adult fiction as the protagonists are 18 years old and there is no sex and not too much blood”. The hilarious footnotes by Mr. Morningstar in the novel are what tie the series together.

Comics are tough

Having written across media with comics, a graphic novel co-written with Mike Carey of X-Men fame and a couple of screenplays for Bollywood, Samit says he enjoys writing a book the best while comics are the toughest. “In a comic, while you don't actually draw the panels, you still need to give the artist a screenplay for each panel. Writing a screenplay for a film is frustrating as you never know when the film is coming out.”

An avid blogger, Samit now prefers Twitter as it is “shorter. I enjoy the Internet rather than exploit it”.

Samit says the boom in Indian writing in English is a good thing. “In the Eighties, there was a sense of cultural inferiority. Now we are coming to our own. Even though 80 per cent of the writing is bad, out of this churning, good stuff will come.”

And to all who moan the shallowness of Indian writing in English, Samit has simple advice — “Don't read it. A critic could crib about the poorness of writing as he/she has to read the books as part of their job. But the regular reader need not read if the book is not good.” This is a big year for Samit — in October his other novel, “Turbulence” is coming out. “I decided to write in the here and now and ‘Turbulence' ended up becoming a superhero novel. Ours is such an over-the-top country that the only way to throw a lasso around it is by writing a superhero novel.” The novel, incidentally, features a cameo by director Anurag Basu. That will be fun.

And then there is the new Morningstar novel to look forward to “next winter”.

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