This book is so-so it has the same problems as the other pair of books I read from this publisher (Titan Books), the Charlie Human authored Apocalypse Now Now and Kill Baxter. There is no subtext to speak of and characters tend to be functions of the plot. The atmosphere is neutral, and the author really sets up no mood but at least there is some descriptive text, spare, but it’s there.
The story concerns the passengers of a flight that now have superpowers, and someone is capturing or killing them so, the protagonist, Aman Sen, joins up with a handful of other super-powered passengers including the patriotic Indian version of Superman, Vir Singh, against the small group of villains led by Jai, an invulnerable, super-strong and fast military man with dreams of world domination. There are some good ideas in here and I enjoyed the setting, and cities in India, but this was effaced by the lack of sensory detail and mood apart from Mumbai smelling like dead fish (apparently).
There are plenty of action scenes and just like in the previously mentioned books, they get to the point of gonzo, but they also share the same weakness, shared by books in the Men’s Adventure genre, they go on too long and the outcome is really too easy to foretell if you’ve read more than a handful of fiction novels. I enjoyed the last third of the book more so than the first two-thirds as it seemed that the story and its author finally found some footing and built some forward momentum. However, the lack of any undercurrent to carry me along through the first two-thirds has shaped my opinion the most.
I did like that Uzma had a character arc influenced by Aman, but I felt the absence of an arc for him and Vir, Vir especially. I think that Uzma's may be the only character arc in this novel. I also enjoyed this:
Aman ignores the usual mountains of random hatespeak, links to porn websites and teenaged Americans yelling at everything and everyone around them[.] [g.280, emphasis mine]
But I am puzzled by this:
At some point of time – Vir is not exactly sure when – he started helping people. He saved a boy from falling off a cliff in Mongolia; he fought off bandits who were invading an old people’s home in New Mexico. [pg.251, emphasis mine]
I also felt that the text was too long, the author should have refined the story and cut it down to probably half its current length of 360 pages. Would I recommend this one? Probably not if you’re not into superhero-type stories otherwise, maybe. I am currently reading its sequel so there’s that. It was just okay. ( )

Thoroughly enjoyable romp.

A fun look at what happens when an entire airplane worth of passengers get superpowers - not the most sophisticated writing but good idea and good characters. Fun!

After an Indian Airlines flight is exposed to something strange, everyone on board starts to develop powers. A really intriguing exploration of what superhero powers would look like from a different national perspective, albeit one heavily influenced by American pop culture via movies. There are some clear bad guys, but Basu presents the good guys as mostly well-motivated but not too clear on what “the right thing” is, which I liked. ( )

A fun read. ( )