World Literature, Science Fiction & Fantasy

Bijapur

Name: Bijapur
Author: Kara Dalkey
ISBN: 9780812549430

by Kara Dalkey

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Overview

Thomas Chinnery is the young assistant to a Master Apothecary of England. He was entrusted by his master with a perilous journey into the Portuguese-controlled waters of East Africa and India, to establish a direct trade in medicinal herbs. Chinnery was cast ashore near the Portuguese colony of Goa, on the Indian coast, where he fell into the hands of the Inquisition. Now, a captive of the Black Friars, he is forced to lead an expedition into the heart of the mysterious subcontinent. For Thomas has knowledge of a miraculous powder, called the Rasa Mahadevi, or the Blood of the Goddess, which can restore the dead to life. But Thomas lied to the Inquisitors when he told them he knew the way to the source of the powder, and every mile on the jungle trail takes him nearer to discovery and execution. Yet there is one person traveling with Thomas and the friars who knows a great deal about the Rasa Mahadevi. The Lady Aditi, consort to sorcerers, sought by the Inquisition, and foster daughter to the Goddess herself, is leading the trading caravan that accompanies the Europeans. Aditi has become obsessed with Thomas, has very nearly fallen in love with him. She will lead him on, showing him the road to the Goddess's hidden city, in hopes that he will convert to her living faith and win her foster mother's approval. It is in the city of Bijapur, on the borders of the Mahadevi's own lands, that Thomas Chinnery will be tested. His fate thereafter will depend on his own actions, and on the will of the Goddess.

The second volume in a rich fantasy trilogy set in India in the 1500s, Bijapur follows Thomas, a young English apothecary's apprentice, as he is led by the lovely woman Aditi and his own dark dreams. 288 pp.

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Editorials

Publishers Weekly - Cahners\\Publishers_Weekly

Dalkey skillfully combines political, historical and herbal intrigues in this richly rewarding middle volume (after Goa) of her fantasy trilogy set in 16th-century India. Already damaged by the Inquisitors' strappado, youthful herbalist Thomas Chinnery travels further from his beloved England and deeper into the dangerous jungles of India as he searches for the source of the rasa mahadevi, a miraculous powder that can be used to raise the dead. The Inquisition desires the powder to prolong the lives of heretics-allowing them ample time to confess their sins-while others want it to curry favor, or for their own nefarious schemes. Chinnery finds himself trapped in a foreign land, pawn of many factions, and feels his only hope for survival lies in the hands of the Goddess's adopted daughter, Aditi. This beautiful Indian woman loves Chinnery but plans to murder him, since his death will derail the venal expedition to her mother's temple. Dalkey's locales are superb and her India is filled with peril and wonderment. While the plot is more notable for its elaborate political intrigues and philosophical debates than for action, the interactions between Dalkey's characters are fascinating and the tale is vastly entertaining.

Kirkus Reviews

Continuing the trilogy begun with Goa (1996), Dalkey's agreeably low-key fantasy set in late-16th-century India. The Inquisition of Goa has learned of a powder, reputedly the dried blood of an immortal goddess, that can raise the dead. An expedition to the powder's source gets under way, its members—among them special investigator Father Gonsço, young apothecary Thomas Chinnery, the lovely Lady Aditi, and the mysterious Andrew Lockheart—are as various as their motives. At Bijapur in the Deccan, they run into a force of Mughul warriors led by the Mirza Ali Akbarshah, also following up rumors of the marvelous powder. When Gonsço dies of a fever, Thomas, fearing for his own life, steals the last of Lockheart's hoarded supply of the powder to revivify him. Finally, Gonsço's soldiers seize Aditi and prepare to torture her to reveal the true source of the powder—Aditi is a secret goddess-worshipper—but Aditi falls on a sword and dies; there's no powder left to resuscitate her. Thereafter, plots thicken and motives congeal as the expedition is forced to join up with the Mughuls in order to proceed.

After a dreadful start, all grinding gears and clumsy recaps, Dalkey drops back into an intriguing and tantalizing groove: Fans of the previous volume won't be disappointed.