Book Review : Ten Shades Of Life

Apr 3
NabanitaDhar

Title: Ten Shades Of Life
By: Multiple Authors : Miss Cheyenne Mitchell, Karthik, Monika Pant, Roshan Radhakrishnan, Shankar Raman A, Reshmy Pillai, Bruce Memblatt, Deepa Duraisamy, Rahul Biswas, Vinaya Swapnil Bhagat
Ten Shades Of Life
Edited By: Nethra A
About the Editor (From the Book) – Based in Bangalore, Nethra is pursuing her Masters in Business Administration and is a Graduate in Computer Science & Engineering. She is a voracious reader and a fiction writer, who puts quality writing over everything else. Her interest in good stories and writing made her start a platform, Fablery, which provides aspiring authors a gateway into the publishing world. She is also working on her novel that she hopes to complete in the near future.
ISBN:     9789350880418
Cover Price:       Rs. 139.00
Rating:  4/5
Something about the book (from the Book):

In times when anthologies dwell on prosaic romantic accounts, Fablery presents Ten Shades Of Life. From a nail-biting thriller to a spine-chilling ghost story, an exquisite romance to an ingenious fantasy, an adventurous science-fiction to mirthful and remarkable experiences of salaried men, stories of heroes and philosophies of life – it attends to the preferences of all readers.
Now for my View:

The best way to describe Ten Shades Of Life in my view is as a kaleidoscope of amazing tales. The book as the name suggests has ten stories each catering to a different genre of fiction. From fantasy, science-fiction to suspense; it has all that and more.
The book is all the more special and unusual because it is made up of stories that are written by people who are actually passionate about writing. With glint in their eyes and excitement in their hearts, they had approached the genres, written to their hearts’ content and given us wonderful stories to read!
Ten Shades Of Life is an anthology with a difference. Most of the anthologies that I have read so far except the ones in my school syllabus have been on one particular genre. So this is one area where this book scores a point instantly due to the plethora of choices it offers its readers. The book has stories from of Fantasy/Mythology, Romance, Action/Adventure, Humor, Horror, Science Fiction, Historical, Suspense/Thriller, Philosophical and Occupational.
All the ten stories of the book are good, some better than the other, but overall it is a great collection. Some of the stories stood out for me a tiny bit more than the others as is bound to happen in an anthology. The book covers a diverse spectrum and certainly is worth a read.
Deepa Duraisamy’s suspense thriller ‘Where did you go?’ was one of the stories that I picked up first from the entire bunch. Having been a regular reader of her blog, it wasn’t really surprising that she had given us a treat with her story in the anthology. Infact, when I received this book in my office, I actually finished reading Deepa’s story as I walked back from the courier receipt counter to my cubicle! I loved the way she begun the story and the way it all seemed to glide beautifully to culmination.
Karthik L’s science fiction ‘A Nootropic’ was the next that I read and this time in between meetings. Well what can I do I just couldn’t wait! It was actually one of the better stories that I found in this book. Karthik writes in a manner that you would just want him to go on and on and never stop. It is engaging and ofcourse I couldn’t help but enjoy the adventures of Rohit and Trnzu, if I might call it that. I must also admit that I loved the names in this story! You must remember that a great part of a story’s likeability also lies in the names of its characters!
Then there was Reshmy Pillai’s historical fiction ‘The Secret of Ahiraah’ which I really liked. Never for a moment did I want to keep the book down while reading her story. It was beautifully knitted together and executed.  The way she has weaved the story makes you applaud her writing as you sift through the pages. One of the very best stories of this anthology definitely.
Monika Pant’s Romantic Tale ‘Red and Gold’ was well written and brought out the wonderful world of romance. The downside was however the use of hindi words which I never like in a tale which is written in English. But then again, that has become the current norm so again can’t complain I guess.
Rahul Biswas’ ‘A Good Day To Die’ was another story from this collection that I like a little more than the rest. The opening was as they say explosive and that set the tone for the story. It was executed flawlessly, except the ending was a little towards the predictable end of the spectrum. However, it still is a great tale to read.
There are a couple of typos in the book but rest assured they wouldn’t hinder your reading experience too much. Personally I would have liked a short bio of each of the authors along with their stories as that would have been an icing on the cake. A book is in essence made up of stories that are an author’s brainchild, in this case that of ten different authors. So it would only be fair if a little was made known about them too, especially for the readers to connect with. Perhaps, in the subsequent series this would be taken care of!
So if you ask me, Ten Shades Of Life, is about the effort of an editor to let quality fiction into this Indian literary sphere which has been bombarded by cheap, run of the mill mock-authors. It surely is a step in the right direction and as readers it is our duty to support such initiatives as far as possible. So my thumbs up to this amazing effort, to a bunch of wonderful authors and one determined editor! 

20 thoughts on “Book Review : Ten Shades Of Life”

  2. Great review Naba. Just curious, are you on twitter. I organize a book chat on it with two friends and thought you'd like it if you were on twitter. Look up @tsbookclub if you can. Cheers.

  5. Thanks for the wonderful review! Will surely include the authors' bios in next edition of the book. 🙂

  8. Naba, thank you for the review and the warm words of praise! 🙂 Thrilled! 🙂 I am so glad that you found the stories and the book entertaining enough!

  19. hmm.. i read the intro ..skipped story parts .. i would like to read the book and unravel the story..The introduction was quite inspiring and in the end to words to encourage the new authors 🙂 (like)..
    Introduction in your blog made me intrigued about the book .

    Looking forward to read the book .Thanks for the review and book suggestion 🙂

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