River God (1993)

This book I read second in the row, instead of starting off with it as no.1.
That didn't harm reading pleasure, though. Despite the books belong together, being both about Taita and his life, they can be read as seperate books.

Well, about the book. I liked it, as I had expected. I liked the story, the descriptions of Egypt life in ancient times, the machinations that seem to be part of royal and political life in all times. What I did wonder about, is that a slave has so much influence, not to say power in the household he works for. If I doubt anything to be true from this story, that would be the part.
In other ancient times slaves didn't have so much influence and despite he could have searched it through plotting and scheming, I'm not sure he would have pulled it off like Taita describes he did.
Taita, the man I'm talking about, portaits himself as a genius, having brilliant ideas, living only for the well being of his mistress and her family.
I'm reading this as a work of fiction though. Maybe Egyptian life in about 1700 BC is portayed well, maybe not. I have no intention to prove it or attack what has been written about that. It was a well constructed, believable, interesting, thrilling book at times. A very nice book to read :-) ( )

The first book of a wonderful series set in ancient Egypt. ( )

Holy cow! what a fun and exciting book! ( )

Note: This was written in response to the abridged Brilliance audio edition of the book.

Jeez, this abridgement is so haphazard and choppy! At one point, the main character starts weeping after coming across the bodies of a family he met the day before...and the meeting scene was cut from the CDs, so it seemed TOTALLY out of context!

LAME.

That was definitely the most frustrating thing about this audio book. I've seen the book, and the hardcover edition was over five hundred pages long! There's no way it could be reduced to a mere 3 CDs without omitting something important. I'm actually quite surprised that the editors decided to cut the book down so much. As it was, the scenes are constantly jumping, and questions are raised that never get answered. I was under the impression that the novel was a sweeping epic, spanning two or three decades...but the compression was such that the true force of time never really sank in.

If this were the only problem, I'd probably make a mental note to pick up the unabridged audio book or the novel at some point in the future and give it another go. Unfortunately, the main character is so completely unbelievable that I'm turned off the book. Taita, the eunuch slave, is endowed with the phenomenal genius of Leonardo DaVinci. In spite of being a mere slave, he's an accurate fortuneteller, a scribe, inventor of the Egyptian chariot, breeder of horses, master physician and surgeon...did I forget anything? Oh yes! He's also a master artist who paints the walls of tombs, too. Where did he find the time to learn all these skills, I wonder? To top it off, Taita is all too aware of his cleverness and his talents, and he's constantly bringing them up and bragging about them. He's the narrator, so he has plenty of opportunities. Ugh! It was so unpleasant.

A curious turn of phrase that was used again and again was "this very Egypt" when talking about the country. I wonder if that's how Egyptians wrote/spoke? If not, it's a very weird choice from Smith, and it gets annoying after a while. ( )

cracking read, the main character Taita, is a little too good at everything though, so although I gave it 5 stars cause I love Ancient Egypt, I think perhaps 4 stars may be more accurate! Either way its a great book that deserves a read. It may not be all that historically accurate, but that's not what I look for in a historical fiction, I look for a great story that happens to be set in a different period. I don't mind if facts etc are twisted to fit the story, thats cool actually cause I'd rather an author sacrifice facts than plot. probably my favourite Ancient Egypt book ( )