Legend of Suheldev: The King who Saved India by Amish is the fictionalised story of King Suheldev who is said to have spearheaded the first successful Indian resistance to the Turkic invaders from Ghazni early in the eleventh century.

After the brutal campaign of massacre and plundering by Mahmud of Ghazni that ended with the destruction of the revered Somnath temple, Suheldev, the prince of Shravasti—a small kingdom in northern India—resolves to fight the Ghaznavids and stop their advance into the subcontinent. Due to the inferior caste of his lineage, he does not find much success in his efforts to unite the divided kingdoms of India and fight the marauders as one. Undeterred, Suheldev employs guerrilla tactics of hitting and running, all the while mustering support from kingdoms sympathetic to the cause. The general of the Turkic troops—Salar Maqsud—is as wily as he is powerful and he aspires, unlike his predecessors, to not just loot but rule India, and is in the process of finding and exploiting the weaknesses of Indians. Things heat up fast and both sides face off in a fierce battle—the Battle of Bahraich—that can only end with the annihilation of one army.

I have read and immensely admired Amish’s Shiva trilogy where he had mixed Indian mythology and fiction expertly, presenting a memorable saga. His next series based on the epic Ramayana is still ongoing and I haven’t found it to be as good as the previous one. With Legend of Suheldev, Amish embarks into the historical fiction genre and it is a fairly good effort. But this is not his work alone, as he has explained in his foreword. It is a collaboration between Amish and the Immortal Writers’ Centre, which is responsible for the first draft based on the author’s outline.

Purely as a fiction, the novel is fast, action-packed and is quite easy to read. The language is simple and the flow of the story is easy to follow, with an interesting set of characters and a nice mystery. But there are many loopholes and unexplained backstories of major characters that hamper the fun. To readers who have been following Amish's work, this novel may feel formulaic. As to the accuracy of the historical details, less said is better as I could not find much solid information about the king or the battle from an online search and the events described in this book do feel very fictitious.

Thus, Legend of Suheldev is a pretty decent read if one does not think too much—or does not think at all—about the history or the ‘real events’ on which it is supposedly based. I would rate it 2.5 out of 5 and round it off to 3. ( )