Book Review - Ten Shades of Life

As I held the book, Ten Shades of Life in my hand, I could not stop noticing the bright shades of the cover page which is one of the most unique which I have held in my hands.

The 10 stories in the book have been chosen through contests organized by Fablery last year in different categories. So the Ten Shades of Life can be called the best of ten different genres of stories chosen by Fablery for publishing by Mahveer Publishers.
I am familiar with most of the authors through their blogs and that was one of the attraction for the reading the book. I wanted to see how the short stories differed from their blogs. Amazingly it did!

The first story was “The Incarnadines” by Cheyenne Mitchell. For some reason I kept wondering where is the story set. It could well be India or any other foreign land. This story belongs to the Genre of Fantasy /Magic type, where the demons are sought to take life of people instead of guns or knives. It made an interesting read though.

“Red and Gold” by Monika Pant is shaded in romantic colors in the fairy land of richness, emperors and princesses. It is evergreen story of finding Mr.Right, which makes your heart bubble with excitement for the characters involved.
“Harry’s Bluff” by Dr.Roshan Radhakrishnan is written very well, giving us the pain of the main character through the flash backs. It is the character of Selena that really got on my nerves. Though written very well, the story defies logic and therefore could not get much appreciation from me. The action adventure fails to answers many questions that arise in my mind, but I do have to praise the writers’ skill in weaving the tale.
“Something like That” is a simple office tale written with a humorous twist, with some amount of moral thrown in. I really enjoyed the tale which does not boast of great heroes or heroines, but just simple people in simple situations.

“A weekend in the Country” by Bruce Memblatt is a good old horror tale set in outdoors, rather than in a creepy mansion. The horror begins when two friends decide to get away from their humdrum lifestyle for a weekend in a country side. Being a great fan of horror stories, it takes something more than just a ghost story to impress me at this stage of life.
The 6^th story belongs to the Science Fiction genre. The author Karthik L writings are not new to me as I often read his blogs. His genius shines in the fiction story where a child prodigy Rohit, tries and succeeds in contacting the aliens. Is that a good sign or not should be discovered by reading the story.

Next shade was the Historical “The Secret of Ahiraah” byReshmy Pillai. Set in the ages of kings, their secret passage ways, spies and other mysterious happenings, it is a pleasant story set in the times of the brave Rajput kings in medieval period.
“Where did you go” by Deepa Duraisamy, another familiar blogger, is something specially written for the male child crazy Indians. I am not sure how much of it could be understood by level headed foreigners, but every Indian can understand it very well indeed. The agony of the parents whose baby is kidnapped is well portrayed in the story. This could be labeled as a suspense thriller.

“Barren Harvest” by Vinaya Swapnil Bhagat, belongs to philosophical genre but has great touches of sci-fi fictions in it. Set in future after the apocalypse, it dwells much on emotions and heavy thoughts regarding human relationships. Well written story though it takes some time to sink in.

Labeled under Occupational Genre, the last story, ‘A Good Day to Die” by Rahul Biswas did remind me of the movie Die Hard and Bruce Willis. Was it the story itself or the title, I am not sure. Here we read about the fight of a fireman who fights not just blazing inferno but also the green monster at the same time.

About the editor:

Nethra Anjanappa is a student based in Bangalore who successfully completed her Masters in Business Administration. She is a voracious reader and a writer of fictions, the love for which made her begin Fablery, a platform which provides aspiring authors a gateway into the publishing world.

Unfortunately there is no introduction to the authors in the book.