Indian epic fantasy, at times brilliant

Mohanty is clearly a talented writer. His novel is based on a very old story, namely on the epic poem Mahabharata. Having not read the original, I can unfortunately not make a comparison between both works. I can however share my own experience of Mohanty's work, which for some fantasy readers, I recommend they check out. While there are some bumps and issues, chunks of it are a joy and pleasure to listen to. And it certainly deserves to be qualified as epic fantasy.

Back when I started Sons of Darkness I did not know what to expect exactly. The marketing was interesting. The book's beautiful cover art and title drew me in as well. As always, I look for stories that'll keep me hooked, usually featuring compromised or dark heroes, because those I find much more interesting to read. And having read quite a lot of epic fantasy already over the years, and being very conservative of my time, I am probably not an easy audiance to please.

However, when I started Sons of Darkness I was pleasantly surprised. Both the prologue as well as part one of the book are, I must confess, absolutely brilliant. The prologue and some of the chapters can also be considered 'grimdark'. Which is a more dark and raw subgenre of fantasy, usually featuring villains instead of heroes.

Mohanty then sets out to introduce an interesting cast of characters that I could relate to quickly and wanted to know more about.

At the background is the clash between the Magadhan Empire and Krishna's Mathuran Republic.

A brilliant and wonderful book, so far. And I felt happy, having discovered yet another great fantasy series and author.

From part two onwards, however, new points of view are introduced. The old POVs are left behind and the main storyline slows down in order to elaborate on some of the other events taking place simultanously (with these new POVs).

But these chapters, though probably making sense from an author's point of view, to me felt very much like a lengthy aside. Though I tried to continue I could not shake the feeling that I just wanted to know what would happen next for Krishna and the others. The new characters did not feel essential to the main story line to me.

Also, sometimes references to GoT and The First Law trilogy were very obvious and unoriginal. For example: Shakuni is in my opinion too reminiscent of inquisitor Glokta, for those that know Abercrombie's The First Law Series. Secondly, Mati uses a trick we all know from another popular fantasy series Game of Thrones. It can be done, but in this case it was just too obvious and unoriginal.

Eventually, Krishna and the others are re-introduced and the main storyline continues on.

Near the end the story features an epic battle.

The narration is very good.

All together, some parts of the book are absolutely brilliant and inspiring. Some POV could have been left out imo. And it would have been better if some references to other epic fantasy had been less obvious.

To conclude I would like to rate this novel 3.5 stars, but will settle for four as Audible only allows either three of four stars.

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