Luka and the Fire of Life

This is a lovely story with broad appeal, but it'll be a little bit more fun for gaming geeks and a lot more fun for gaming geeks who understand Hindi.

I had high hopes for this book. I remember reading Haroun and the Sea of Stories in high school and loving it. The sequel falls flat. It has it's moments. I would have preferred rushdie expand on many of the little stories instead of the bigger one. He has great ideas, but the book just didn't feel right. It felt as if his publisher asked him to write a sequel and his heart wasn't in it.

The second of Rushdie's childrens fantasy stories, set in an alternative reality in a video-gamesque style. Luka is the younger bother of Haroun (of [b:Haroun And The Sea Of Stories 871431 Haroun And The Sea Of Stories Salman Rushdie https://d.gr-assets.com/books/1294388042s/871431.jpg 1934157] fame), and the son of Rashid Khalifa - famous story-teller. He harbours some jealousy that his brother had an adventure, and now his opportunity is here.With his friends Bear the dog, and Dog the bear, recently escaped from a circus, Luka crosses the frontier into the World of magic. His task - to steal the fire of life, and return with it to save his father.Joined my a host of unlikely helpers, and set against equally unlikely foes, Luka has to complete levels, like a video game. Set in a world of forgotten gods and the like, Rushdie demonstrates a vast knowledge of mythology - from the obvious Greek and Roman Gods, the Egyptian, Central and South American, Chinese, Japanese, Polynesian, Korean, Taiwanese, American Indian, African, Indian, Caribbean, Norse, Armenian and more. And not just gods, goddesses, demons, titans, and more.I enjoyed the fairytale nature of the book, the many pop-culture references (there are a lot, most of them passing mentions), the puns, and the nods towards other literary works.3.5 stars rounded up.