King Solomon's Mines / She

4080 She & King Solomon's Mines, by H. Rider Haggard (read 8 Oct 2005) She is an 1887 novel, read because it was bound in the same book with the Haggard book I wanted to read. She is a fantasy and is boring. Leo Vincey is apparently descended from an ancient Egyptian and comes in contact with a beautiful woman hundreds of years old. Leo and she have all sorts of hair-raising adventure but since they are all impossible they do not excite. The other novel in the book, King Solomon's Mines (published in 1885), is a better story. It has some fantasy in it but not as flagrantly. Alan Quatermain and two other Britons seek diamonds in a remote part of Africa. They have a rough time getting there and when they get to the unknown kingdom there is a huge battle in which the 3 Brits take part, on the side of the good natives, of course. There are a few incidents near the end of the book which catch and hold one's interest. There is an eclipse scene, reminiscent of the similar scene in Mark Twain's A Connecticul Yankee iat King Arthur's Court--an 1889 book! So it looks like Twain stole the idea from Haggard, rahter than vice versa. These novels were not really worth reading inasmuch as there is so much better stuff to read. ( )