BOY MEETS WORLD
Before picking up fan fiction, some readers are tempted to first revisit the original work. But since a reworked and retold tale is unlikely to match the power of the original, it may be better to come to Stephen Alter’s without paying one’s Mowgli with “a brave heart and a courteous tongue”. Kipling’s vast wilderness surrounded the small villages and their ploughed lands, while the hero of this novel wanders a park infested with poachers in jeeps, and it is civilisation that is everywhere.
