Flood of Fire . . . finally . . .

After waiting and waiting and waiting, the Ibis finally berthed . . . Amitav Ghosh’s Flood of Fire, the third and last in the Ibis Trilogy released in the last week of May this year . . . I had pre-ordered the book on Amazon and received my copy on 31^st May . . . and couldn’t wait to start reading . . . but first, I had to save the exquisite gold and red cover . . . 

Actually, I had planned to re-read Sea of Poppies and River of Smoke and get ready for the Flood of Fire, but the best laid plans of men and so on and so forth . . . anyway, I started to read Flood of Fire and slowly the characters and events started coming into focus . . . but I could read only till page 55  . . . the last set of internal tests at college started the next day and I was flooded with answer scripts for correction and that occupied me for the rest of the week . . . and I had barely finished them then the language lab tests started this Monday onwards and I am stuck in the high seas till the end of this week, more or less . . . and I didn’t want to read Flood of Fire in flickers and flashes . . . at least three hours at a stretch would do very well, actually . . . a real blaze . . . let’s see . . .

There were reviews and excerpts and interviews in newsmagazines and papers the whole of the last week of May and first week of June . . . all very nice, but I like to read interviews with Amitav Ghosh . . . and look forward to the launch and reading in Hyderabad, and I hope there is one . . . and the best part would be to have a picture taken with my really favourite writer and have his autograph on the Flood of Fire . . .

Waiting eagerly for this book in 2015 … the third in the Ibis Trilogy …

After the first and second novels in this trilogy, I was looking forward to the third novel … book launch forecasts in early 2014 indicated that the third one wouldn’t be out in the year and I was disappointed … it had been quite some since the second novel was launched and devoured and the wait was beginning to become unbearable …

Around four weeks back, a small report with the author’s photo in The Week gave out the good news that the third novel in the trilogy is ready and would be released sometime in mid 2015 … and the name of the novel too was mentioned … aha … I logged on to Amazon.in and typed the name and there it was … no, the book was not for sale, not even pre-order, but you could sign up for an ‘alert’ … a space for your email and a submit button and the amazonians would let you know when the book would be released … so, it is confirmed now that Amitav Ghosh’s third novel in the Ibis Trilogy would be released this year … 

During the days after reading the second novel, River of Smoke, I started this guessing game of the probable names the third novel would have … the first one was called Sea of Poppies … somewhere I was sure that the title would have some reference to ‘water’ … and after ‘Sea’ narrowed down to ‘River,’ I speculated that the title of the third would refer to a further narrowed down waterbody … ‘Lake’ perhaps … ‘Pond’ was too small …  ‘Stream’ may be … or even ‘Waterfall’ …

When I read the title of the third novel, I saw that there sure was a reference to ‘water,’ but not ‘Lake’ or ‘Stream’ or ‘Waterfall,’ but ‘Flood!’ … and there was ‘Fire’ too … the third novel in the Ibis Trilogy is called ‘Flood of Fire’  … and amazon has a picture of the book jacket … I think it is the cover photo of the American edition, and it is a little dry for my liking  … I liked the vibrant jacket designs of the Indian hardback editions of Sea of Poppies and River of Smoke and I hope when the Indian hardback edition of Flood of Fire releases, it would be as beautiful as the book jackets of the first and the second novels … those of you who want to read more about Flood of Fire, you could check out this link … http://www.amazon.in/Flood-Fire-Novel-Ibis-Trilogy/dp/0374174245/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1420700315&sr=8-1&keywords=flood+of+fire … but for now, I am waiting with only this photo of the book jacket for company …