One Arm Shorter Than The Other

I read one review of this novella and though I didn't completely understand what it was gonna be about, I just wanted to give it a try. And wow this turned to out to be something.

I thought this was a unique blend of fantasy, sci-fi and mystery along with some historical elements and I was amazed at how well the author seamlessly transitioned across them all. And within these genres, what we find is a story about humanity, connections, grief and the human tendency of wanting to become immortal. The book itself is like in two parts - the first half is a collection of short stories each having one character in common, and the second half is about us getting to know more about how this singular character came to be. It's a unique style of storytelling, the writing is very heartfelt and emotional, and each of the characters feel real and we can totally empathize with their grief and loneliness.

I'm always trying to find SFF books written by Indian authors (not the diaspora whose books I do read a lot), so it just makes me so happy that I accidentally found out about this speculative fiction debut. I can only hope that this beautifully written novella can lead to many more such stories in the Indian publishing scene, and we get a well established SFF genre in India soon.