Michener meets Clancy - or something. Lengthy historical epic with some espionage thrown in. An interesting look at gory safaris and the brutal killing of animals, attacks by hostile tribes, and the beginning of WWII. My first Wilbur Smith book in many years, and not a favorite at all. Too wordy, though he does use words very well. I wasn't fond of the romance, which seemed overly contrived and pretty unlikely, but I did keep reading, except for the pages I skipped. I should have stuck with my TO READ list. This book was a chore, a bothersome pain in the ass. So why keep on reading it?Because I wanted to find out mamma Lucima’s prophecies (which ended up lame so beloved readers don’t expect much) and I wanna complete my 300 books challenge for this year (silly me).The charactersLiked none of them. I felt there were chosen just for the benefit of the story (pointless might I say). No depth whatsoever and the way the two main characters fell in love …“She was so beautiful I felt my heart squeeze.” (Shallow much! How can you love someone you never talked to?!)Oh and that cheesy line “Even her little footsteps were beautiful”. (Oh Lord, how pathetic)Half of this book was about hunting. “Bang, they killed the boar, Bam Bam Bam, they killed the elephant and took his teeth, Bam Bam wait….Fap Fap Fap, they stabbed the lion with the Assegai arrow. (Reminding the reader here how dear Otto killed with ONE DUCKING ATHLETIC MOVE the most powerful twin lion in a blink of a paragraph. Cut the crap Wilbur, this is historical fiction not Marvel) The prose was bland, no climax (I assume the author included the last two pages as its peak), and not much information narrated like Mr. Smith’s other pieces. I was waiting for some incredible descriptions of Africa’s wilderness, Massai’s tribe cultures, assegai’s true power but I got dull dialogues, dreary characters and neuron-killing plot. People slaughtered animals so easily just for the heck of it and none of them had an itsy bitsy remorse for what they had done, this way molding them into ugly disgusting heartless caricatures.My mom says I’m very critical of books and I should simply enjoy what they write because authors at least are trying (not like me).Well mom, you weren't reading this piece of crap. I still love you.Two stars because I learned what a safari is and what a badger looks like.
What do You think about Assegai (2009)?
The author is truly an african at heart. I loved the setting!
—angelbaby54
This was an OK read, but not one of this author's best.
—aleena
