The Quest [Abreviado, Audiolibro] [CD de audio]

River God, the first in the series, is a solid 5-star book, eminently

re-readable. Seventh Scroll gets 4 stars, Warlock 3. There seems to be

a trend here. I get the feeling that Smith took a lot more time in the

conception and the writing of River God than he did with this book.

There's just too much that doesn't hang together properly and which often

leaves a bad taste in your mouth--like biting into a spoiled part of an

apple.

The Nile in Egypt has dried up--the result of machinations by the evil

Eos, so Taita takes a very small force upriver to locate the problem.

It turns out that Eos has dammed the Nile where it leaves Lake Victoria.

Bizarrely, that does not seem to have raised the lake level at all, but

never mind. I kept thinking about how if someone dammed the Mississippi

close to its source, would the riverbed be dry at St Louis, New Orleans,

etc? The Nile does have other tributaries (such as the Blue Nile, etc),

but not as many as the Mississippi, of course. The plot device seems

weak.

A much weaker plot device--which carries the book through over 100 pages,

involves stem-cell therapy carried out by Eos' minions. Pregnant women

are killed and their bodies are fed to crocodiles. Taita is horrified

by this, but he is perfectly willing to reap the benefits--the restoration

of his genitals. Helping people restore lost genitals, eyes, limbs, etc,

seems quite out of character for the evil Eos. In fact, the sole reason

for this whole device is that Taita benefits and can now enjoy sex again.

He has sex with Eos (unnecessarily graphic--did Smith want to sell the

episode to Playboy or something?) and more importantly, he now can have

sex with his 12 (13?) year old companion. If Anna Nicole Smith's marriage

to a 90-year-old bothers you, try a 150-year-old Taita and his 12-year-old

mistress (I kept thinking that Taita shouldn't date anyone younger than

130 or so...).

Another puzzle centered around Taita's force of 100 troops--which quickly

shrank to about 20 or 30--not very much for such a long dangerous journey.

Fights with native tribes accounted for many of the losses: one of the

world's greatest magicians seems content to use his bow and arrows in

these fights--why not quick bloodless victories using his magic? There

are too many things that just do not feel right in this book--and this

is in very marked contrast to River God, where the action and plot hangs

together well and makes sense. River God has the feel of a carefully

crafted novel--which is in contrast to this book.

i have been an avid fan of Wilbur Smith for close to a decade and anxiously awaited to read his lates tome . unfortunately this book has been a complete disappointment. almost feels like it was ghost written by someone else ! the plot is weak , the storyline is dragging and the climax is wanting .

i just wish he had never written this book . warlock itself was not spectacular like River God but this one misses its mark by a mile . the picture that he draws of Africa and its many tribes is riveting but the rest of the story plods on to its inevitable encounter. there are no surprises , no sudden plot twists.

i am gutted !

I have read and enjoyed Wilbur Smith's books. Couldn't wait to get my hands on The Quest. I can't tell you how disappointed I was when I realized the book is in no way historical fiction. It is fantasy. It's filled with magic and spiritualism that made it impossible for me to suspend my disbelief. Perhaps his young wife liked Harry Potter and asked her husband to write her a book about wizards; or maybe in the early-going where he describes that lobotomy-like operation where Taita gets a knitting needle stuck behind his eye socket is actally a recounting of a procedure performed on the author. Supernatural nonsense has no place in historical novels. I put the book aside and started The Religion which IS historical fiction and is everything WS's books used to be.