Storybook Favorites

(Old Books: Public Domain)

The first story I read was King Arthur in India. The story was an adaptation of King Arthur's quest after the destruction of Camelot by his sister Morgan le Fay. Arthur - being deeply wounded - was slowly dying and was not able to heal himself even though he was half nine-tail fox blood and half mortal blood. Because he was only half nine-tail, he couldn't create the elixir that was needed to remain immortal that all full blood nine-tails can do. Because of this, Shiva visits him one day while he was slowly dying and states that he can give him immortality if he goes on a quest for him and defeats the Demon King Ravana with the powerful Rama (who is the reincarnation of Vishnu). The catch is that Arthur must be transported to a different dimension to help Rama. Arthur is transported and finds Rama and his wife, Sita. After finding Rama, he realizes that he is a very powerful individual that cannot control his power. Realizing that this is why Shiva sent him there, Arthur and Rama begin to train for an extended period of time in preparation for the battle. Once they were ready, they began their journey to meet Ravana. Along the way, they run into Kumbhakarna, a large, powerful giant. They killed him with Arthur's sword and Rama's bow. They finally arrived and met Ravana, but realize that he had kidnapped Rama's wife, Sita. Arthur was also astonished to find Morgan there as well. There was an intense battle between Arthur, Rama, and Ravana with Arthur and Rama finally defeating Ravana. After this, Arthur and Morgan are about to fight when Sita teleport's Morgan to a different world. Arthur was confused and angry, but after Sita explained herself, he understood why this had to be done. Shiva then reappears and grants Arthur the immortality he seeks and wipes Sita, Rama, and Arthur's memory clean of this event. Shiva then teleport's them back to their original places where they live out their lives. Overall, this story was fun to read, I am familiar with the King Arthur story and thought the author did a wonderful job incorporating it into the framework of the Indian tale. The design and layout of the story was well done and the accompanying illustrations added to the depth of the overall story.

The second story I read was Hogwarts: The Loyalty of Brothers. This story was a interesting adaptation to the original Harry Potter, except in this world, the dark lord was Ravana instead of Voldemort. One day in class Professor McGonagall was teaching about the history of Hogwarts, but she also knew that Ravana would soon return and attack Hogwarts. As class went on, Dumbledore came into class to tell the Professor that the dark lord was near and the students needed to return to their dorms. After this conversation, an arrow blasted through the glass window of classroom signifying that Ravana and his army was there. The students quickly returned to their dorms, but Harry, Hermione, Ron, and the Patil sisters joined forces in finding a way to protect the castle from the attack. They put their minds together and deduced that they could summon the individuals who initially defeated Ravana; Rama and his three brothers: they were in fact the four houses of Hogwarts. They all made their acquaintances and then Rama stated that he needed the shield of Vishnu to defeat Ravana. After obtaining the shield, he met Ravana on the battlefield and disarmed him of his bow with the shield of Vishnu. The other wizards then stepped in and helped defeat Ravana. Later, the professors and students began to rebuild the castle and return to their normal way of life. Harry Potter is one of my favorite stories as a kid and it was cool to see how it could be changed and adapted to fit such a new category of storytelling. It was truly wonderful to read. It was nice to see some of the pictures from Hogwarts and it took me back to binge watching all of the movies. The design was very nice and concise.

The third story I read was The Mythic Arms Race. This story was an adaptation of Indiana Jones. In this world, the Nazi's are still a prevalent force within the world and this is after the events in WWII. Indiana Jones and his graduate student Jim were searching for relics that they could sell to the Smithsonian. They finally realized the Nazi's had found one of these relics and were close to obtaining it. Knowing this, they sneaked into the Nazi camp and found where the relics were located. They returned with a sword, but did not realize what kind of sword it was. After finding someone who knew what it was, they realized they were in the possession of the sword of Kali. After realizing what was going on, they knew that the Nazi's needed to be stopped indefinitely so that they could not get a hold of anymore ancient, powerful relics that they could use for evil. Jim and Indiana returned, trying to find all the relics they could find. They climbed the Nanda Devi and found a golden mace. Jim reached out to grab and felt an enormous amount of power rush through him and at the same time, a flash of lighting and the sound of thunder erupted throughout the land. Once they got down from the mountain, Jim let go of the mace and suddenly felt all of his power be released from him. This caused him to die because the power of the mace was too much for him. Indiana got in contact with the US government and told them of the situation and what had happened so far. In fear, the US government instructed Dr. Jones to destroy the world with Shiva's Trishula. Reluctantly, Dr. Jones did as he was told and the world was essentially reset. Many years later, on an expedition, the new humans found the remains of Dr. Jones skeleton and hat. Even though none of them knew what happened, they oddly felt connected to the events that had occurred here. You cannot beat a good Indiana Jones story. The authors ability to work it into a end of the world scenario was truly awesome and a pleasure to read. Again, the structure of the work was good and the illustrations aided in the imagery of the story. It helped you better understand what was going on.