– ‘The Magic of Wor(l)ds’ blog is a hobby, reviews and other bookish stuff on this site are done for free. –
Today I’m on the ‘Game of the Gods’ blogtour, organized by Random Things Tours.
To promote this book I have an excerpt, but before I let you read it first some ‘basic’ information.
About the Author :
Paolo Maurensig was born in Gorizo, and lives in Udine, Italy. Now a bestselling author, he debuted in 1993 with The Lüneburg Variation, translated into over twenty languages. His novels include Canone Inverso, The Guardian of Dreams, and The Archangel of Chess. For his novel Theory of Shadows, he won the Bagutta Prize. A Devil Comes to Town, previously published by World Editions, is a brilliant, satirical novella about literary publishing. Game of the Gods is Maurensig’s latest novel and was awarded the prestigious Premio Scanno 2019 Literary Award.
Synopsis :
Inspired by the true story of Indian chess master Malik Mir Sultan Khan
The story of a lowly servant who, for an instant, becomes a king.
In 1930s British India, a humble servant learns the art of chaturanga, the ancient Eastern ancestor of chess. His natural talent soon catches the attention of the maharaja, who introduces him to the Western version of the game.
Brought to England as the prince’s pawn, Malik becomes a chess legend, winning the world championship and humiliating the British colonialists. During World War II his skills as a refined strategist eventually drag him into a strange game of warfare with far-reaching consequences.
Inspired by the unlikely true story of chess master Malik Mir Sultan Khan, Game of the Gods is a fascinating tale of karma and destiny, by the author of the multimillion-copy bestseller The Lüneburg Variation.
Excerpt :
FROM THE NOTEBOOKS OF NORMAN LA MOTTA
1
In 1965 I was in the Punjab, sent by the Washing- ton Post to cover the developments of a difficult diplomatic negotiation that was drawing India and Pakistan towards the abyss of a bloody conflict. At the moment, however, the situation seemed to be at a standstill: news was scant and no one could predict how much longer the respite would go on. For some weeks I had been staying in a hotel in Delhi, along with about thirty col- leagues from other countries. The air was heavy, electric—monsoon season was coming up—and we reporters spent the day formulating hypotheses, drinking beer, and playing cards.
The waiting became more and more enervating day by day, and by then I had reached the point where I could no longer stand that state of vitiating dejection. Fortunately, I found a way out of it. What drove me into a seemingly fruitless venture was a comment overheard in passing while we were at the table. The speaker was a Belgian journalist, a veteran, known for his many years of experience in “oriental matters.”
“The weak point,” he said, “the one that will suffer the greatest repercussion from this conflict, will be the border that passes through Mittha Tawana.”
And it was the name of that place, about sixty miles from Delhi, that made me decide to go in search of a certain individual who had been the center of a scandal about a decade ago in New York. Finding a man who has been missing for years in a region as vast and populous as India is already a difficult undertaking in itself; it becomes hopeless on the eve of a war. Yet I felt confident.
To get a clear idea of the circumstances, how- ever, it is necessary to go back in time. The man I was looking for was an Indian who in the mid- Fifties had unwillingly been thrust into the bleak limelight of world attention, suspected of having defrauded an elderly American billionairess, a blind woman, moreover, in order to gain possession of her assets. What drew my attention to that grotesque affair at the time was the prestigious name of the accused suspect: Malik Mir Sultan Khan.
“It must be a coincidence,” I’d told myself. The name was, in fact, also that of an idol of my youth. As a boy, like so many of my peers, I had been a chess enthusiast, and I had my chosen darlings; among them, Sultan Khan had been my favorite. The fact that he came from mysterious India, traveling under the protection of an authentic maharaja, had only fueled my adolescent fantasy.
Finally, the surprise: it was the very same person! There was no doubt whatsoever. The confirmation had been handed to me by a brief press release: the Sultan Khan who had been pilloried by the scandalmongering press had been a great chess champion in his youth. But for readers eager for risqué details, that fact had gone unnoticed.
At the university and later in the years to come I had tried to reconstruct the life of that individual, with the intent of writing his biography. With that story in pectore, I had subsequently even entertained the idea of winning a Pulitzer. But his tracks had been completely covered, and although I’d sent dozens and dozens of letters to the editorial offices of various chess magazines, I got nothing in return. Then, after vanishing from London even before the Second World War, he reappeared again, after ten years, more than three thousand miles away, in the city of New York.
At the time I’d been elated. It didn’t seem possible to have found him again after such a long absence. All I had to do was wait for the clamor around his case to quiet down so I could go see him and have him tell me his life story personally, word by word. But things did not turn out the way I had hoped, because, once the curtain had been lowered on the tragicomic episode featuring him as protagonist, Sultan Khan disappeared again.
The Magic of Wor(l)ds
Louise was born and lives in South Wales. From a young age she loved books and dancing, but hated having to go to sleep, convinced that she might miss out on something interesting happening in the world whilst she dozed – much to her mother’s frustration! Insomnia has been a part of her life ever since.
Don’t close your eyes. Don’t fall asleep. Don’t let them in.
Jeremy Elson is the author of the Frank Penny series of adventure books for young adults.
Power is not for the weak or faint-hearted.
Terri was born in Plymouth. At the age of 9 she moved with her family to Cornwall, to the village featured in Jamaica Inn — North Hill — where she discovered a love of writing that has stayed with her ever since. She also discovered apple-scrumping, and how to jump out of a hayloft without breaking any bones, but no-one’s ever offered to pay her for doing those.
Welcome to Fox Bay Hotel, where family fortunes rise and fall …
Elliott Colla divides his time between Washington DC and the Middle East. This is his first novel. He teaches Arabic literature at Georgetown University. He has translated much contemporary Arabic literature, including: Ibrahim Aslan’s novel, The Heron, Idris Ali’s Poor, Ibrahim al-Koni’s Gold Dust, and Rabai al-Madhoun’s The Lady from Tel Aviv.
Baghdad, November 2003. The occupation forces have disbanded the army and there is no police on the streets of Iraq. Inspector Muhsin al-Khafaji is a mid-level Iraqi cop who deserted his post back in April. Captured by the Americans and imprisoned in Abu Ghraib, Khafaji is offered one way out, helping the authorities rebuild the Iraqi Police Services. But it’s only after US forces take his daughter Mrouj that he figures out a way to make his surrender palatable, and even rewarding. Soon, he is investigating the disappearance of young translators working for the US Army.
Robin was raised in a Bradford library but now lives in Oxfordshire with his wife and freshly-minted small person. Trained as an archaeologist, he now works as a proofreader when not wrangling tourists at the Bodleian Library.
The sequel to Night Shift, praised by Crime Review and Cemetery Dance. 
Notionally, I’m a school physics teacher. I’ve worked in a variety of schools in north-east England and started recently as the PGCE Physics tutor at Newcastle Uni. I also write a whole load of textbook materials for schools, my biggest titles being A Level Physics books for Edexcel exam board courses.
A kidnap, a theft, and a murderous moon-worshipping cult: Detective Sergeant Milburn has his work cut out to solve several cases that all appear at once. 
The winner of both a Bram Stoker and World Fantasy Award, P.D. Cacek has published over a hundred short stories and five novels. Cacek holds a Bachelor’s Degree in English/Creative Writing from the University of California at Long Beach and has been a guest lecturer at the Odyssey Writing Camp.
The sequel to Second Lives, praised by Publishers Weekly as “a rewarding exploration of the emotions felt both by those confronting their own deaths and those left behind to mourn.”
Peter Bartram brings years of experience as a journalist to his Crampton of the Chronicle crime mystery series. His novels are fast-paced and humorous – the action is matched by the laughs. The books feature a host of colourful characters as befits stories set in Brighton, one of Britain’s most trend-setting towns.
Murder stalks the beach party…
In his office you will find Rod typing, flanked by two enormous dogs, and surrounded by the ephemera he has collected on his travels.
After what feels like a lifetime of mayhem, Simon Ellice returns to the Hampshire village where he grew up. He enjoys the solace and tranquility of rural life, working on a farm and getting to know the lively locals, but suddenly Si walks right into a deadly mystery. Old friends are going missing and then turning up dead. Someone from the City is spreading their evil tentacles and Si dives into London’s underworld to uncover a conspiracy of poisoning, murder and pagan ritual that threatens those closest to him. Written with Humphris’ razor-sharp style, this is Simon Ellice’s darkest and most challenging adventure yet, touching on themes of sacrifice and objectification, that threaten the very foundations of our civilised world.
