Title : Queen of Mahishmathi
Author : Anand Neelakantan
Genre : Historical Fiction ; Fantasy
Pages : 560
BLURB
Sivagami’s missteps have only deepened her determination to fulfil her father’s wish and stop the despicable activities at Gauriparvat. And so she battles on. Unknown to her, however, Maharaja Somadeva’s challengers have begun to close in on the king, and Sivagami finds herself suddenly at a disadvantage. With a player like Somadeva, though, the biggest mistake you can make is to not immediately checkmate and destroy. The game of chaturanga is not quite over.
As Sivagami takes on the kingdom’s enemies, guided by Somadeva, she finds in her own manoeuvres an echo of the man she has always detested. In her journey to becoming the queen of Mahishmathi, Sivagami must choose between love and ambition, principles and deviousness, selflessness and envy. What does she hold on to, what does she let go? A thrilling, breathless read, Queen of Mahishmathi is the third and final book in the Bāhubali: Before the Beginning series.
REVIEW
Queen of Mahishmathi is the final book in the Bahubali : Before the beginning trilogy. After a thunderous and spectacular movies, the Bahubali franchise decided to come up with this amazing trilogy which focuses on the kingdom of Mahishmathi before the birth of Bahubali and Bhallaladeva. The first book The Rise of Sivagami released right after the release of the last part of the movie. This book has been celebrated and welcomed well by the readers. The Bahubali fans wasn’t disappointed with the magic Anand Neelakantan had managed to weave around the plot-line of Bahubali movies. After a three long years of wait, the second book in the trilogy Chaturanga got released which was more or less like a buffer book. This book showcased the different shades of all the characters whom the readers had encountered in the first book. This book widen the perspective of the readers and made them have better look on the characters.
Since, the second book took nearly three years to be released, the readers weren’t in a rush to expect for the next book but to everyone’s surprise the author magically decided to publish the third and the final book in the series within the few months of the second book’s release. This just made the Bahubali and Anand Neelakantan’s fans all very excited.
Right after, starting this series, the readers would have encountered a lot of questions and mysteries which were lurking in the dark curtains of the Mahishmathi’s Kingdom. But none of those questions had been answered in the first two parts of the trilogy and that created the hype for the last book. When you pick up this book there will be lots of questions revolving in your head like, why did Sivagami married Bijaladeva despite hating him ? What happened to Sivappa ? What happened to Bijiladeva’s hands, why was it crippled ? What happened to Mahadeva ? and so on. These questions can never let a reader sleep peacefully and they will have no other choice but to read the book immediately and get to decipher everything.
This book had so much dimensions to it. There were lots of issues happening in this book and there were lots of enemies waiting to strike on Mahishmathi and the kingdom couldn’t trust anyone anymore including the members of the royal family themselves. This book was pretty long but it wouldn’t bore you at any point of time.
This book had lots of expeditions taking place, like the one to Gawriparvat mountain, Kadarimandalam, Vaithalikas regions and so on. All those were really engaging, chilling and frigtening. Through this book, you can have a good look in and around Mahishmathi in a greater detail and that was a really good experience. The readers will also get to actually know about lots of clans, their lifestyle, practice and many more,
How the characters in this series developed and flourished to be the character they were destined to be was amazing. The growth arch of these characters were gradually, clean and remarkable. The greatest development among all of them was Mahadeva’s character, how a soft and sweet, poem loving boy who sings beautifully turns into this righteous, well principled, worthy of a king kind of an individual of just mind-blowing-ly amazing. He is undoubtedly the best character of the book. No doubt where Bahubali got all his good qualities from. (PS : It’s not a spoiler, if you do the math right, you will be able find it yourself)
Another remarkable character in this book was Maharaja Somadeva. He was really cunning and seriously a typical politicians who knows how to play safe and at the same time predict the opponent’s next move. There were certain other wonderful characters like Gundu Ramu and Ally. And also several genius evil minds like Jeemootha and Pattaraya whom you cannot stop but admire for their thought process and evil trap plans.
This book was basically filled with so much twists and turns nobody would have expected. The author has cleverly written it because Anand Neelakantan knows where to keep a twist and where not to and he is truly the master of his craft. This part of the series also spoke about the Kalakeya, their dynasty and their language Kiliki, well who doesn’t love the Kalakeya and their language ? Wasn’t it really intriguing to watch them on the movie ? The author had spoke about the rich background and culture of the Kalakeyas and their vanquished civilization and all gave a totally different insight about them.
The parts about Garuda Pakshi was really blood chilling and threatening. This book showcased the valor of little Gunda Ramu and his determination and his loyalty towards his Akka (sister), Sivagami. And there were other minor characters like Karthikeyan, who played minor role but had lots of impact on the reader’s heart. Sivagami’s character was as strong as it can ever be. She was this ambitious woman who always put her goal ahead of anything else and that sometimes felt really ruthless. Kattappa was the same submissive slave, you will get to look a little bit deeper into his personal life and through that you can understand how undeniably loyal he was to the throne. Sivappa’s character took a great toll and that was really disappointing.
The fight and the war sequence has been written very effectively and efficiently. When you are writing a fight or war sequence you have to be really careful, if you’re not very clear about it the readers might end up not understanding a word of what the whole war sequence was about. Anand Neelakantan has a special power to write such sequence with extraordinary clarity that everyone can understand it clearly and visualize on their mind’s eye whatever he has written.
The book was filled with so much of spectacular lines which will affect the readers so much. Anand Neelakantan’s books cannot be read without a pen in your hands because he writes amazing and strong lines which you cannot help but highlighting. Certain satirical characteristics exposed by characters like Jeemootha, Pattaraya, Sivappa and all cannot be ignored and that is the specialty of Anand Neelakantan. He will be prick you where it hurts the most with his words.
This book was at the same time very emotional and deep at many sequences which will make the readers get extremely emotional and very much connected to the plot and the characters at a deeper level.
This book would give a closure to you because it will answer all your questions and if you’re a Bahubali fan it is a must for you. S.S Rajamouli and his team made the movie a super hit and Anand Neelakanta has come up with this befitting prequel trilogy to the Bahubali movies by knitting his words effectively. The vision he had for this series was totally different and new from anything that you would have seen in both the parts of the movie.
MY VIEWS
I’m a super crazy fan of Bahubali. I watch both movies every time I decide to read this trilogy. But the final book in this series actually made me addicted to the movie much more than I had anticipated, that I’m actually been watching both the parts of the movie every other day for the past four months. I feel really sad that the series has come to an end. Every time I watch the movie, I cannot stop myself from being fascinated by the S.S Rajamouli and Anand Neelakantan’s ability to create such a world.
My most favourite character in this book would be Mahadeva, I love how good, well mannered, gentle, poetic, romantic, righteous and principled he was. He is a perfect hero material. A bit of extra focus on him could have been seriously assuaging for readers like me. I was so eager to know who would be Bahubali’s mom and that was quite surprising and I’m never going to tell who is his mom. I loved rebellious character of Sivappa and I thought he was going to be really great and heroic but in this book his character has been completely destroyed and that was quite disheartening.
I was analysing the end of the trilogy and the beginning of Bahubali movie, there was certain mismatch here and there but that’s the liberty the author has taken to make the book more interesting. I hated Bijila a lot, at many point of time I wanted to kill him with my bare hands for his cruelty 😛 He is nothing more than a traitor and I think he deserves to be punished in the cruelest possible way. (okay, that’s the cruel, psychopath in me talking, lol)
After reading this book I had developed this admiration and hate for both Sivagami and Kattappa because these are two heartless people who would do anything to achieve what they thought was right. One is overtly ambitious towards her goal and other is overtly committed to his promise and loyalty. At times it was annoying 😛 (Don’t hate me)
I absolutely loved this book. I can say this book was so much more better than the first two books. I would like to suggest this book / this trilogy to everyone who has watched and loved Bahubali. You should definitely read this book. If you are not reading this, then you are missing out something really great in your life.
My rating for this book would be 4.5 out of 5 stars
Here is the link to buy this book!
Do read this book/trilogy and let me know about you feel about it!!
Book Review of The Rise of Sivagami
Happy World Book Day!!
~ Meenu
