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A review by speculativebecky
Mahimata by Rati Mehrotra
4.0
Rati Mehrotra’s debut, Markswoman, was one of my favorite reads of 2018, so I was excited to read Mahimata, the conclusion of this epic Fantasy duology set in a post-apocalyptic India complete with telepathic weapons and the assassins who wield them. Though Mahimata takes the story in far reaching directions and reveals much intriguing worldbuilding, it didn’t quite live up to my love for its predecessor, mostly due to a greater foregrounding of a romance that didn’t totally work for me. Still, this is a strong duology and I’d definitely recommend it.
One of my favorite things about the Asiana books is the setting. It’s like a post-apocalyptic urban fantasy, set in a future that feels more like Earth’s past except for the presence of magical technologies left here by the mysterious departed Ones. This technology includes the telepathic metal kalishium that’s forged into blades which bond with their custodians, and the inscrutable transport hubs that allow teleportation across the desert with sometimes mixed results. The central conflict of Mahimata revolves around the production of a weapon that's basically a gun also imbued with some kind of psychic abilities. Several books I’ve read lately have played with this trope of the reintroduction of guns to a post-apocalyptic world that was happy to have lost that technology. The depiction of the psychic influence towards evil and destruction of these weapons further exaggerates the narrative that depicts killing with a blade as somehow more ethical than with a gun
One of my favorite things about the Asiana books is the setting. It’s like a post-apocalyptic urban fantasy, set in a future that feels more like Earth’s past except for the presence of magical technologies left here by the mysterious departed Ones. This technology includes the telepathic metal kalishium that’s forged into blades which bond with their custodians, and the inscrutable transport hubs that allow teleportation across the desert with sometimes mixed results. The central conflict of Mahimata revolves around the production of a weapon that's basically a gun also imbued with some kind of psychic abilities. Several books I’ve read lately have played with this trope of the reintroduction of guns to a post-apocalyptic world that was happy to have lost that technology. The depiction of the psychic influence towards evil and destruction of these weapons further exaggerates the narrative that depicts killing with a blade as somehow more ethical than with a gun