When mythology meets fiction, you either get a wonderfully concocted meal of a good story or an extremely bad soup that destroys your mood and appetite. Thankfully, in the case of Karna’s Celestial Armor it is the former case.

The story, written by Surendra Nath works on the premise that after Indra took away Karna’s kavach-kundal he hid it somewhere on earth and now our hero, Vasu, is looking for them under the guidance of the spirit of Karna.

This story moves forward from Karna’s Alter Ego where we met Vasu Sen for the first time. Now moving forward, Karna’s spirit approaches Vasu for a daunting task, retrieval of his kavach-kundal from some unknown part of the earth. So Vasu sets out with his Mahapurush Karna in pursuit of the kavach-kundal armed with only one information that the last living person to have seen it is Parshuram who resides on Mahendragiri. Needless to say, his task is daunting and he has to scourge through almost all parts of India to find what he needs.

The writing is good and the story is woven nicely with certain facts and myths. Every place has a history and is also connected to Hindu mythologies and Surendra Nath has used it well. The pace is fine but at times I felt that there was too much geography in the narrative. Beside that it is a good read, words flow and it holds interest till the end. Mahabharata is one of my favourite stories and so anything that has been properly built around it, is enjoyable to me. The author is promising and I hope to see more books from him.

I was given a copy of the book by The Book Fever for an honest review.

My rating: 3/5