Tenth Avatar: A Quest for Answers
Dr. Kanchan Joshi
Paperback: 246 pages
Publisher: Kanchan Joshi (August 24, 2017)
ISBN-10: 069293314X
ISBN-13: 978-0692933145
Purchase on Amazon
Reviewed by Dr. Wesley Britton originally for BookPleasures.com
Reading Tenth Avatar is like reading two books in one. At the same time, the book is one of a rare breed in science fiction. I don’t know about your reading list of contemporary sci fi novels, but the vast majority I’ve read are darkly pessimistic and dystopian. Not so the Tenth Avatar. It’s not only optimistic and utopian, but even proposes a path for humanity to follow to achieve a new level of spiritual, economic, political, and social evolution.
The structure of the book is built on two parallel, alternating stories that take place thousands of years apart. One occurs In ancient India where we meet Hanuman, a noted warrior and mystic living in the forests. The setting is full of many mythological and fantasy elements. While there are many humans running about, there are also very intelligent ape-like creatures and their greatest enemy, the demons of a nearby region ruled by the evil Raven. There are all manner of strange, anachronistic weapons including radiation-bearing arrows and missiles as well as powerful flying machines and a monstrous giant robot-like killing machine.
But this world also has warriors using powerful bows and arrows, wooden chariots, and primitive maces. There are important mystical teachers, or “yogis,” who teach wisdom to Hanuman and others in the orbit of powerful, noble king-in-exile, Ram. He’s seeking his wife who was kidnapped by Raven. In this world, the forces of good gain superhuman power through meditation which leads to an awareness of what is beyond a person’s body and self including an understanding of how we fit into, well, everything.
Alternating with this saga is the modern tale of theoretical physicist Krish,
a brilliant mathematician living in California. Trying to seek out the workings of life and the universe using advanced mathematical formulas, he inexplicably hallucinates vivid images of existence beyond his physical self very like what the ancient yogis experienced. Why? He doesn’t know.
Told with a very different style from the tales of Hanuman, the author’s seemingly more grounded, more realistic odyssey of Krish has an intriguing flow with some puzzling plot holes. In the beginning, Krish discovers something he calls Quantum Communication which uses particle streams that can’t be hacked. Very quickly, the military shows interest in Krish’s unproven theories. At the same time, agents of unknown countries or organizations start trying to kill Krish. The FBI assigns protection for the scientist, but apparently not for very long. After his first bodyguard is killed on a plane, we don’t see any signs anyone is watching over Krish even if he did turn over his research to the Department of Defense. By himself, he travels home to India seeking out the lost notes of an important Indian mathematician. Any reader of spy novels will tell you this is ideal territory for more assassination attempts. Or at Krish’s wedding. And who was behind two terrible nuclear bombings in the U.S., over both California and New York? We’re never told. The adventures of Hanuman and Krish are brought together in the end, and I suspect most readers will have picked up on the clues to the ultimate resolutions long before the final reveals.
I have to admit, the use of intense meditation to be the key to gaining overwhelming cosmic awareness sounds better than I suspect it would really work in the real world. I say that as someone who has practiced various kinds of meditation for decades. Still, I am no authority on what meditation technique would make someone a Yogi and/or guru who could transform countless lives.
Nonetheless, it’s very nice to read a novel that projects the possibility that an enlightened humanity could be transformed under the tutelage of the tenth avatar. It’s a story, well, two stories that can serve as antidotes to the typical sci fi futures of genetic manipulation, global warming, biological disaster, or alien invasions that serve as constant warnings of what our futures might be.
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Dr. Wesley Britton, author of the Beta Earth Chronicles, also reviews for BookPleasures.com.
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