Sons of Darkness takes the wonderful cast of the ancient Indian epic Mahabharata and tosses them in a nihilistic world to usher in India’s first epic-fantasy series with grimdark tones. We all drink from, unconsciously or not, the fountain of our creative inspirations when we write. This book sprang from the smorgasbord of A Song of Ice and Fire, Malazan and Wheel of Time. I’m not saying SONS OF DARKNESS will read like these works. But if geopolitical dramas across kingdoms layered with brutality, caste-conflicts, dry humor and twists (and a South Asian touch) is something you love, I hope you will find it reflected in the writing in SONS OF DARKNESS. And the lord commended the unjust steward, because he had done wisely: for the children of this world are in their generation wiser than the children of light.

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Like Game of Thrones in an Indian alternative universe, Sons Of Darkness is an exhilarating, imaginative, genre-busting mash-up of high fantasy, timeless myth and ancient history, which heralds the arrival of a special new talent and a gripping new series in historical fantasy. -- Dan Jones

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Recommendation: I recently completed Red Rising by Pierce Brown. Wow! Hunger Games in Space played by Spartans on Drugs. Absolutely, wowed. It was my first Sci-Fi book and boy was it worth it! Their lives are about to become very difficult for a cast of sinister queens, naive kings, pious assassins and ravenous priests are converging where the Son of Darkness is prophesied to rise, even as forgotten Gods prepare to play their hand" Sons of darkness smashes open the fountain of originality, spilling insidious plot, incredible characters, and grim violence. I loved this book. Described as the Indian ASoIaF, it has feuding families, politics, war, and deceit in equal measures, but tops this with inspired world-building and a plot that starts as embers and ends as a blazing inferno. Let no man deceive himself. If any man among you seemeth to be wise in this world, let him become a fool, that he may be wise. Pulpit Commentary Verse 8. - And the lord commended the unjust steward, because he had done wisely. This, again, is a detail which has little bearing on the main teaching. It is a graphic and sarcastic eulogy which a good-humoured man of the world would pronounce upon a brilliant and skilful, although unprincipled, action, and it completes the story as a story. It seems evident that the intentions of the steward in regard to the debtors were carried out, and that they were really indebted to him for the release of a part of their indebtedness, and that the owner of the property did not dispute the arrangement entered into by his steward when in office . For the children of this world are in their generation wiser than the children of light. This was a melancholy and sorrowful reflection. It seems to say, "I have been painting, indeed, from the life. See, the children of this world, men and women whose ends and aims are bounded by the horizon of this world, who only live for this life, how much more painstaking and skilful are they in their working for the perishable things of this world than are the children of light in their noble toiling after the things of the life to come. The former appear even more in earnest in their search after what they desire than do the latter. There is underlying the Lord's deep and sorrowful reflection here, a mournful regret over one feature that is, alas! characteristic of well-nigh all religious life - the unkindness which religious professors so often show to one another. One great division of Christianity despises, almost hates, the other; sect detests sect; a very slight difference in religious opinion bars the way to all friendship, often to even kindly feeling. With truth Godet remarks here "that the children of this world use every means for their own interest to strengthen the bonds which unite them to their contemporaries of the same stamp, but, on the other hand, the children of light neglect this natural measure of prudence; they forget to use God's goods to form bonds of love to the contemporaries who might one day give them a full recompense, when they themselves shall want everything, and these shall have abundance."

Sons of Darkness by Gourav Mohanty | Goodreads Sons of Darkness by Gourav Mohanty | Goodreads

I write every day before I head off to sleep and the first thing when I wake up. I know many budding writers wait for creativity to strike but I have found the Muse favours working stiffs. You don’t wait for the Muse to take you to the temple, you show up at the temple, do your ritual and if she is happy, she will descend on your keyboard. Most take it the other way round, and destroy their chances of finishing a book. Consistency is the cradle of creativity. Alright, I will end this answer before it turns into a Ted Talk.With the sprawling scope of the series and the many varying cast of characters, Mohanty is burdened with a challenge that many epic fantasy authors encounter. To write a compelling slow-burn first half before exploding the narrative into an unstoppable thrilling reading experience in the second half. This is normal in a sprawling epic fantasy like A Song of Ice and Fire and many more. Personally, I tend to love a relatively slow-paced narrative, especially in the early section of the first volume of an epic fantasy series. Mohanty needed to introduce the characters and the world-building of Sons of Darkness to make the readers invested in their journey and the world first, and from my experience, that is what he precisely did in the first half of the novel. Your patience with the relatively slow section will be returned tenfold. Patien You place Sons of Darkness in the 'grimdark' fantasy space, and describe it as India's first grimdark novel. What drew you to writing grimdark? Were there any challenges with writing in this genre? And his master complimented the unrighteous manager because he had acted shrewdly; for the sons of this age are more shrewd in relation to their own kind than the sons of light.