Not elementary my friends, its X-Square

This is the first time, or rather the second time that I had the privilege of going through the entire body of a work of fiction before it goes to print, which is not mine.

About the first one you may hear soon, but this second one is something special. It's about thé trust a friend had placed in me.

Very few times we come across such original narratives as I had come across this murder mystery. It starts in the classic way. Murders. More murders. And an officer in charge of it. An inept higher official. Town politics intruding in between. As usual, this misfortune befell on a very peaceful town. People experiencing panic.

As the much loved constable Clarke says to Sherlock Holmes in the movie starring Robert Downey Jr, "panic sir. Sheer bloody panic."

Oh I forgot to mention, the chief official is a man of apparent wisdom, and about to retire. He wants the case to be closed double quick.

Then starts the real game. Within this classic setting, Srinu Pandranki, a filmmaker of a few acclaimed short films, (Pink slip being one such. Trust me. It's an excellent film. You may get to it in youtube), and big dreams had taken a different narrative path.

An Indian writer, not an nri, nor is an established author of fiction. What one can expect of him? While most of the GenX Indian English writers coming up with love stories, more love stories, and more love stories, or retelling Indian myths or following in the foot steps of Dan Brown in the name of researching (google), Mr. Pandranki came up with an original murder mystery. And boy! What a mystery it is...

Set in the University city of Palo Alto, an exciting and unique buddy... Thing. Racy, cleverly layered, sprinkled with enough turns and twists, not over killed. Enough of action, and surprisingly not gory, and yes. He respected intelligence of his would be readers.

In this Racy narration, you can find unique mixture of characters, and attention to details.

Plus points :

1. Classic setting not to unsettle the readers.
2. Great and different narration compared to numerous other books of this genre.
3. Racy, attention to details, unique mixture of characters.
4. Not much dependence on Google.
5. Beautiful and near flawless language.
6. No playing for effects.
7. Cleverly layered mystery.
8. Potential for a breath taking Hollywood film.

Minus Points :

I had mentioned a word trust. But rest assured, not many. Almost negligible.

Note:  please go through this link

Rather than sending friend requests, taking a note of this preview and pre ordering with GALTing Parables (publishers) @ galting.parables@gmail.com will be appreciated :P

PS:

1. This story was first a Hollywood spec script by Srinu Pandranki. He converted it into a novel. You can find it  written in visual style. The screenplay was sent to Nichols fellowship, and is acclaimed. Not a single sequence which is unnecessary can be found either in it or in the novel.

2. A review will be published after the book release. Said to be slated for June release.

A month with the SwiftKey

SwiftKey is a swipe style keyboard layout for Android smart phones. I had come across it via the famous tech site, TechRadar.

After reading that it can work in a way that while sweeping through the keyboard, you can not only get the required words, but also very spaces in between the words. The thing is you have to bring your finger to the space bar between words. Automatically the software adds space in between the words.

In comparison let's take the known Samsung keyboard layout. It also has swipe option. But to get space you have to lift your finger to hit the space bar. But here works SwiftKey Flow option there is no need to lift your finger to hit the space bar. You can write phrases or sentences on a trot. The only thing you have to take care is whether you are sweeping over the right letters.

This intrigued me. I just went to the Google play store and downloaded the trial version. I had not synced any of my social network accounts to it. I felt like just use the trial version and then leave it. But after using it a couple of days, I sense it is not a thing to be left after free usage. It is very good one, and very useful for me. I generally write a lot on my mobile. And SwiftKey surely made my writing easy on my mobile. It is very accurate too.

Currently am now using SwiftKey 4 on my Galaxy Note 2. The S-Pen and SwiftKey forged a deadly combo for my writing. I have tested it left and right in this month and it passed out every test  in flying colors. After syncing the social network accounts with it, the writing  speeds improved dramatically.

The only problem in all this is... For me especially to buy it over Google play, I have to use the cards. But I have no cards. Had to wait till a person with a card helped me buy it. Isn't there any other way to buy things on the play store? Like getting a courier with the key for cash on delivery? :P

PS: 1. More on my experiments with SwiftKey with proper screen shots will be posted later.

2. Written this using the deadly combo.

3. My writing appetite improved drastically these days because of SwiftKey. So you can expect more posts from me.