A journey to the past- Review of ‘History Revisited’

Just finished reading the novel- History Revisited- penned by Nishant Joshi and published by Frog Books. Before I present my take on the book, let us know the author and what led him to this project- in his own words.

About the author:

I am a final year engineering student of Electronics and Telecommunication at Mumbai University. I was born in Lucknow, U.P. and since my father had a transferrable job, we migrated to various cities. From Lucknow to Bhubaneshwar, then to Kanpur, then Delhi, then again Lucknow and then, finally to the city of dreams, Mumbai.

I have grown in an era that was full of science fiction elements be it television cartoons like Shaktimaan and Dragon Ball Z, films like Spiderman and Star Wars or the never-ending list of science fiction computer games.

On one hand, I was greatly inspired by them while on the other hand, was unhappy not to find anything as such that was from my own country except a handful of them which were completely restricted to the epics like Ramayana and Mahabharata. Would you call them Science fiction!?!

Therefore, I set out on my own journey to pen down sci-fi novels since our country is literally void of it. Even if you see other countries, science fictions make huge profits be it novels, films or computer games as compared to India where love and romance is the only thing. Lame isn’t it!!!

The taste, especially of the youth, of our country is very different and the wise will see that it’s bending towards science fiction. Thus, I feel impelled to contribute as much as possible to science fiction which is going to be the landmark and milestone of the present and the coming future.

About the book:

The book, in a line, can be called a history cum science fiction. It is the tale of three friends who accidentally fall into a portal and reach in an era that happened thousands of years back. In the story we come across many unique and miraculous devices which include a sword. We also find scenes of war and sorcery. So going by each aspect, I find the title and the cover page both are suitable for the book.

After reading the book I only can say that the author indeed has a fertile imagination. Traces in the story, however, show hints taken from several other science fictions and the author honestly has confessed it. The language used is quite simple and the lines are gripping till the very end. One thing that I liked in this piece of work is that unlike many other suck works, this one hasn’t been given place for love-making and romance scenes just to increase the pages, and the author has remained stuck to the theme till the last page. There are, however, minor grammatical errors that the author may get corrected during reprints.

The book can be read and enjoyed by everyone- from an eight-year old to an octogenarian. I would especially recommend the ones who love science-fictions and historical-fictions to take a look.

I would rate the book 4.6 on 5.

Lastly, I would like to give my best wishes to the author for his upcoming works. You indeed have a long way to go, sir!