Seventh Scroll (A Novel of Ancient Egypt) [Libro de bolsillo]

The plot and characters here - unlike The River God - don't represent any great invetive achievement. It is pretty standard good guy/bad guy stuff with lots of cliff hanger action. But Smith handles this kind of thing better than most other authors and can make even predictable situations and characters exciting.

A fun read, especially if you read and enjoyed The River God. I would recommend this, and most of Smith's many novels, to anyone who likes exciting, complex and intelligent stories. His are all this and more.

STORY: In a race against an unknown enemy, Royan Al Simma, a beautiful Egyptologist who has deciphered the lost ancient scrolls, and Nicholas Quentin-Harper, an English adventurer who risks his fortune, search the Ethiopian highlands for the whereabouts of the lost treasure described in the scrolls.

MY FEEDBACK
1) SETTING: There is always something magical about Africa and Egyptian myth. Combine that with locations that are unseen by normal man and you have a nice formula for adventure.

2) CHARACTERS: Likeable good guys and despicable bad guys. No gray characters, which is fine by me and didn't seem necessary for the story. The characters are a little more than just clothes on a skeleton, because the author does flesh them out a bit and give them some clear distinctions.

3) PLOT: I like the plot. The mystery that the characters have to figure out combined with the challenges in reaching their goal kind of felt like an Indy story. Yes, some of it was predictable and telegraphed a mile away. But this kind of story focuses on the magic of discovery and even though the discovery of the character decisions wasn't a strong point, the discovery of the treasure was nicely handled.

4) Audio Book Reader - the reader did an above average reading. Some voice / accent variations for different characters and good acting made it an enjoyable listen.

5) Content - This is what really brought the book down for me. I'm going along at a nice even pace when suddenly we take a detour into a short but explicit sex scene. I wasn't expecting it. I yelled of the words, "marketing ploy" as this combined with some other aspects really turned the story into a "trashy" romance to some extent. It was like a movie throwing in a gratuitous sex scene just so it could get an R rating and attract more patrons. I was disappointed in this unnecessary component.

OVERALL: I liked the book, especially how the author refers to his previous book within this book as if he is also a fictional character in the world of Royan and Nicholas. From what I've read it sounds like I'll like the first book even more (didnt' know at the time there was a first book). I'm not disappointed I spent the time I did going through this one. It is a bit better than good but not what I would consider a very good book.