Awful Narration

I regret buying/using a credit on the audible version of the quest.

Narrator poorly portrays the main character. In the previous books/audiobook he is confident and clever. The narrator makes the character voice sound weak and lacking the confidence that makes him THE warlock. It feels as though the narrator does not know the character at all, did not read the previous books and constantly use the same inflections on sentences.

He even says the main characters NAME completely different then all the other non audible audio books.

6 people found this helpful

Just Don't

River God was an excellent book and the author should've retired to a quiet life of bull fighting or oil drilling never to publish again because each consecutive book in the series gets worse and worse. The historical inaccuracies are so egregious and the plot holes so outlandish that reading becomes an act of masochism.

Do yourself a favor and don't listen to or read this abomination, especially if you have any glimmer of historical knowledge.

4 people found this helpful

Once again Mark made a great story come alive

with Mark this great story line became a great experience I found this 4th (5th) book of the series the most enjoyable

Simply inexplicable

Although this series started well, each book is progressively disappointing. Despite the somewhat negative and at times offensive portrayal of black Africans depicted in this series, I very much enjoyed River God. The Seventh Scroll was an entertaining departure to modern day. Desert God, was at least a continuation of the original story, but the character of Taita was wildly different from the amusing, egotistical and hilariously narcissistic, but lovable character that you come to know in River God. The Quest, however, is a stunning and utterly mind-boggling inaccurate departure from the story that the author so artfully wove in River God.

It is as though The Quest was written by a different author about an entirely different main character having the same name of Taita. Not only is Taita different, but the author repeatedly contradicts the facts of his own previous story. The character of Lostris was never in love with Taita. The premise of River God was the great love between Lostris and Lord Tanus that would transcend the ages. The author depicts Taita as an ancient virgin in Book 4, when in Book 1, he was gelded on the command of his maniacal master as punishment for having taken another slave as a lover. That Taita the eunoch magically grows a penis, is made young again and claims the re-incarnated Lostris as his lover is nauseating. Another of the wild inaccuracies in The Quest is that in their first life, Taita met Lostris as an adolescent on the verge of womanhood, contradicting the plot of River God, in which Taita raised Lostris from infancy after her mother died in childbirth. Either way, it is straight-up creepy that Taita should have a sexual relationship with a child whom he raised.

It is as if the author suffered a bout of total amnesia and does not remember writing River God. He completely destroys his own characters and tells a fantastically ludicrous tale that left me feeling bewildered throughout. It ruined the series for me. Do yourself a favor and stop listening after Book 1. If you must, proceed with caution through Books 2 and 3, but do not waste your credit on Book 4. Book 1 was a masterpiece. I felt saddened to see a talented author destroy the marvelous story he originally created. Simply inexplicable.

That Wilbur Smith !

As always with the word Smith, nothing short of wondrous. This book as every of his other would be as entertaining if it ended at the end of any one the incredible adventures he leads us through. There are several "happy endings" throughout this story. It has multiple climaxes and each one is as potent as the next.
Just when you think that Nothing could make a "smith" book better, along comes Mark Meadows, to light the bowl and pour the Remmi...

A good book but it’s more fantasy than historical fiction.

I enjoyed the story although I wouldn’t call this historical fiction it’s more like a fantasy novel that takes place in ancient Egypt and the part of Africa that today we call Kenya. Data has to journey up the Nile all the way to what I’m assuming is modern-day Lake Victoria although it’s called something different back then where he hast to locate and defeat of witch that has dried up the Nile and sent some plagues onto the Egyptians.

Wish I Could Say I Appreciated This.

I thoroughly enjoyed River God. I thought it was phenomenal. It had a few touches of historicity, and the mysticism was vague and ambiguous. My kind of literature. I then TOLERATED The seventh scroll. I salute it for its originality and cleverness, and I enjoyed it, still, though it was dragging me away from my most favored place and time in history. Warlock was an even bigger departure from the prior two. Not only was the historicity odious, and appalling, but it leapt from the realm of loose historical fiction and fun plot twists to full-blown, unabashed, wholly supernatural fantasy, and book four transgresses even worse. I am a few hours into this, and the HORRENDOUS lack of historicity makes me physically ill. Especially with the last two books, Wilbur Smith has made every effort to make EVERY SINGLE POSSIBLE THING an unnecessarily horrifying challenge. There is such a thing as doing too much, and he really, really, REALLY overdoes it here.

I can look past the dubious moral issues in the first book, and while I want to know how Taita pulls it all off, the appalling lack of historicity and overt use of magic and wild supernatural fluff under an incessant barrage of unnecessary tension makes this something I refuse, absolutely refuse to finish. I did not enjoy the last book, either, and I am desperately hoping to get my credit back. I bought this book with hopes of redemption. I take these digressions personally and will skim over future Egyptian books from the library in the future. For me, audiobooks are things I like to revisit. This is NOT my cup of sherbet. If you love wild mysticism and graphic depictions of horrible violence, this book is for you. If you're looking for something with a bit of believability and historicity, stay as far away from this as you can. I went against my own better judgment buying this. I regret this tremendously.

amazing

just as you think ... boring.... it whips up your imagination and flare your inquisitive aura

Wilbur Smith and the Egypt series

I have just finished The Quest, book 5 and about to start the next audiobook in the series. I will be sad to have series end.

A great epic in a wonderful series

Since Wilbur Smith is one of my favorite authors, and his Egyptian books one of my favorite series, there should be little surprise that this epic I novel is likewise a favorite. Epic in both number of pages and geography, his descriptions of Egypt to Ethiopia are vivid and wonderful... I only wish the outcome of Aos might have been more prudish.