Luka and the Fire of Life Audiobook By Salman Rushdie cover art

Luka and the Fire of Life

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Luka and the Fire of Life

By: Salman Rushdie
Narrated by: Lyndam Gregory
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Honored with almost every conceivable award for literary merit, Salman Rushdie penned this richly imagined fable for his son—and for book lovers the world over. From Rashid’s fertile intellect spring bedazzling tales his son Luka devours with a child’s earnestness. But when Rashid succumbs to an unending sleep, Luka must enter a magical world ruled by video-game logic.

©2010 Salman Rushdie (P)2010 Recorded Books, LLC Action & Adventure Fantasy & Magic Mystery & Suspense Science Fiction & Fantasy Thrillers & Suspense

Critic reviews

A celebration of storytelling, a possible prequel to the book Rushdie is said to be writing about his own enforced “slumber,” and a colorful, kick-up-your-heels delight." (Kirkus Review, starred review)
" Luka and the Fire of Life is a beautiful book. Well-written (obviously), imaginative (astonishingly so) and wonderful in the way it builds heartfelt magical fiction for kids who love video games: It's like a bridge, built between generations, fabulous and strange and from the heart." (Neil Gaiman)
"A book that can reach out to meet and move and touch a reader at any time of the reader's life, from childhood to middle age and beyond, is a rare and magical book, and Salman Rushdie is a rare and magical writer." (Michael Chabon)
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Rushdie outdoes himself! As ways, his theme of parallel universes/realities is well fleshed out, well populated, and just quirky enough. I want more.

Perfectly delightful

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I have to say this kind of works. Postmodern combination of YA, ancient myth, and video games, more satisfying to me than Rick Riordan, but just as fast paced and read able.

Weird postmodern fantasy

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a very charming story, not nearly as deep as Midnights Children or The Satanic Versus but beautiful and whimsical in true Rushdie fashion.

a beautiful escape.

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Fun world of magic and living through an adventurous video game fighting for his father.

Happily surprised

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I wish I could read this as a twelve year-old. It would send me scurrying to find the myriad sources of the storyteller's material, filling a summer with wonder and delight. Rushdie's literary fantasy video game seems capable of seducing a kid away from XBox or PSP and enriching a young imagination as it explores the treasure trove(s) from which the writer has conjured teasing glimpses and succulently baited hooks. Amerindian demigods; deities from every age and corner of the globe; named natural powers of wind and sea and fire; all play their parts in an extraordinary embroidery of tale and myth. As a child, I would have tracked them all down in their original settings and then reread Luka's adventure with deep satisfaction and pleasure.

For an adult reader the tale is perhaps a trifle overwrought. I could not help but wonder at the amazingly comprehensive cast of characters. Still, I found the narration, which is quite in keeping with the world of the twelve year-old auditor, a bit too wide-eyed and breathless for an adult listener, and the cavalcade of mythical beings became a little wearisome by the end. This even while under the influence of Rushdie's superb prose style.

I suspect, however, that I will find myself reading this book to a grandchild in bedtime installments sometime in the future. So three stars boosted to four in anticipation of that greater pleasure yet to come.

An artful fantasy/mythology/video game mashup

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The reading was so interactive and enthusiastic that I found myself wanting to continue listening far into the night, even after I found myself being dragged into exhausted sleep. Well done, all!

Magical & Haunting

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Fun concept, and it had a few memorable moments, but very few plot points built off of one another. It felt like we went from one fantastical journey to the next, with each chapter introducing new “rules” that usurped the previous chapter’s. The payoff just wasn’t there in the end. The strength was in the wordplay and writing, not the story.

One Thing to the Next

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This book wasn’t for you, but who do you think might enjoy it more?

Anyone who can stand a narrator who reads as if each word has no relation to any of the others in the sentence.

Who would you have cast as narrator instead of Lyndam Gregory?

Anyone! Really I can't believe anyone could get away with that. It was almost impossible to understand what he meant with his intonation making it unclear whether you were at the start or end of a sentence. Exclamations seemingly at random. I had to speed it up both to get it over with as soon as possible and to try and make the reading make sense,

You didn’t love this book... but did it have any redeeming qualities?

The story may appeal to young kids but all the read across to computer games were so forced it was like watching your granny twerk.

The audible equivalent of reading in ALL CAPS!

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