The Sunbird

It's a story about a hunchback Archaeologist, his wealthy backer friend, and his pretty assistant and a lost Carthaginian city. It's also an interesting parallel story about the fall of this city. On certain levels it's interesting story with a lot of exciting searching for an Archaeological treasure that I'm sure many Archaeologists would kill for.

But it's also quite a sexist and racist story, but then it was written in the 1970's, when this attitude was common, still not right or justified, but prevalent. The attitude that the only way civilization arrived in Africa was because of the benevolent White folk is incredibly annoying and flawed.

If you pretend that it's a historical story you can almost forgive the attitudes, however it's an almost, which loses this fairly good story many stars.

One of his best (1/1 people found this helpful)

I've been reading Wilbur Smith almost excluively for seven years now. I've read all of his novels, most of them twice. He is an incredible author and this is one of his best books; definatly in the top five and a contender for his best stand-alone book.

The best thing about The Sunbird is that it really makes you feel for the characters, in particular the main character, Dr Ben Kazin.

It's split up into two different sections. The first is set in the modern day and deals with Archeologists uncovering an ancient city. The second section goes back in time and describes the the downfall of the city, introducing characters parrallel to those found in the first half.

This isn't something Smith usually does but here it has worked really well. What brilliant tales of strife, violence, love and war he spins! This is one of his best. It'll make you want to believe it actually happened. I lost several days of a holiday to this book and i can't say i regretted it.

Disappointing (1/2 people found this helpful)

In principle, this book should have been a good offering for the "exotic adventure" genre - it has all the classic African Adventure elements: terrorists, elephant hunters, makeshift airfields, hostile tribes etc., and on top of that, it has an entire half set in ancient Ophia, lost city of Carthage in sub-saharan Africa, with all the accompanying mythology and atmosphere that goes along with it.

Sadly, for all its promise, the book doesn't really hang together very well. The two halves are written in series, rather than woven together as many similar books are done. On the plus side, it makes two immersive, uninterrupted narratives where the parallels come out slowly, rather than being juxtaposed too closely. On the down side, it means you know how the second will end before it even starts, and it means that the first is irrelevant, since you find out the full back story which it is trying to deduce anyway. The other major disappointments were the vague side-plots, which never really went anywhere, and serve no purpose for the plot, except (it turns out) to match the plot twists of the other story.

Either one of the stories would be a great adventure plot, and could be developed interestingly. Sadly, in trying to do both in the same volume, some of the ingenuity is lost, and a large portion of the suspense with it. A sharpened version of either story would have been great, but the demands of weaving the two together has made for an ornately plotted, but ultimately quite disappointing, book.

A right little gem (15/15 people found this helpful)

Only the 2nd stand alone i've read of Wilbur. I must admit that when starting this book, i had quite high expectations since i'd heard it was one of his best.

I can say now that i was not disappointed in the slightest. In fact i was even taken aback a little by its brilliance. This is definitely one book not to miss out on.

Split into 2 parts, the 1st is set in the modern era (1970's) in Southern Africa. We follow the gifted, intelligent but physically deformed (Hunchback) Dr. Ben Kazin and his rich and handsome friend Louren. They share a passion for lost civilisations and archietecture. So when the red cliffs of Botswanaland show a potental sectet to an ancient civilisation and culture, Dr. Kazin thinks that this could be the one, the chance of a liftime, to realise his dreams. Both set of to try and uncover any leads. These efforts are constantly disrupted by many things, namely Terrorists, Violence, Greed and Love.

Even if this doesn't sound like your cup of tea, the way Wilbur writes it eventually weaves some kind of magic spell on you and you are swept into the world of these 2 characters and their dreams. The main character Ben is brought to life so well that you begin to share his passions, happiness, weakness and ambitions with him.

The 2nd part of the book goes back 2000 years and introduces us to the civilisation of Opet. Here our main hero is a courageous, well loved priest/war veterain named Huy Ben-Amon. His close friend is the King of Opet, Lannon. Their civilisation rules the southern continent but a potentially hostile enemy is lurking in the North. Due to their cruelty and complaciency overall as a society, Opet comes under threat by a seemingly unstoppable and relentless foe.

I don't want to talk about the 2nd part in any more detail othewise i might give something away. All i can say is that this part of the book is quite sensational. This has to be Wilbur at his very best.

I found the 1st part of the book very good, but its the 2nd part that makes the Sunbird so special, the way it brings both parts together, making this a right classic!

Breathtaking (4/6 people found this helpful)

Set in two parts, I was stunned at the way part one ended having just been swept along an emotional trail of events ranging from exciting and mystical to shocking and plain outrageous. You wonder what drives certain characters to do certain things and you're left baffled by Dr. Ben Kazim's characteristic display of such limitless continued friendship to those close to him who plainly weren't thinking so much of his best interests recently.

Left pondering the complexities of part one, part two takes you back a thousand years or so and takes you along another trail of similarly emotional events which happened in the same place so long ago. Along the way, questions you had in mind from part one are re-affirmed making you realise just how inextricably linked both the two stories and some of the characters in them actually are. This leads you to think you know how it ends, but although some facts given in part one have to be adhered to a thousand years earlier in part two, you can't help but be amazed at the tangled web of goings-on that lead to them as you read on.

As you read through to the conclusion of part two you are finally given answers to many of the questions you asked yourself earlier on, with lots of gruesome bits, horror and heartache along the way. It's an epic tragedy of momentous proportion which left me feeling shaken and disturbed. The three pages of newspaper cuttings following part two give you hope and raise your feelings to hysterical at least.

Although this book is written throughout in Wilbur's wonderful 'here and now' style it also manages to touch on mystical occurrences, spiritual awareness and might even cause a few people to re-examine their thoughts about reincarnation.

Not for the feint hearted, this is a truly invigorating read. So go on. Be invigorated. Do.

Wilbur Smith

Reader Reviews:

Of it's time (2/3 people found this helpful)

One of his best (1/1 people found this helpful)

Disappointing (1/2 people found this helpful)

A right little gem (15/15 people found this helpful)

Breathtaking (4/6 people found this helpful)

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