Wilbur Smith (1) (1933–2021)

The novel opens in the 1870s in Natal - one of the colonial possessions of England in what will one day become South Africa. Sean and Garrick Courtney, the twin sons of one of the local ranch owners, spend their days hunting and playing under the hot sun. Until a tragedy strikes, Garrick loses his leg (due to his brother's negligence) and the relationship between them changes. Sean tries to make up for it, Garrick gets more and more bitter and manipulative.

And all that story unfolds while show more the world around them changes - they both end up in the Anglo-Zulu War - Garrick comes back a hero, Sean and their father are presumed dead. Until Sean comes back home to find his pregnant girlfriend Anna married to his brother and confirming the father's death. Had it been almost anyone in the world, that may have been the end of it but Anna wants a revenge for being forced to marry Garrick (because she believed Sean to be dead) so she spins a story and causes the two brothers to fall out permanently and Sean to leave, leaving all he owns to his unborn son.

And this is where the story really begins. While the Natal chapters are interesting and the war is tragic, they serve to set the scene for the future. Because Sean 's adventures are just beginning - he gets in the middle of the Witwatersrand golden fever, gets extremely wealthy and participates in the founding of Johannesburg, then have to run out of there after trusting the wrong people and ends up chasing ivory into the Bushveld, gets married, gets a child and then loses almost everything again when his two worlds meet for the first time. It is an adventure novel set in a place and time which is almost forgotten.

It is the story of Sean but it is also the story of the land that is to become South Africa - with all its beauty and weirdness, with the large open spaces and the wild animals, with the local tribes and the colonists - Dutch, English and Portuguese (and anyone else who shows up...). Sean's best friend may be white but his constant companion is Zulu and there is also a friendship there, albeit unconventional and looking almost insulting from our viewpoint - but both men respect each other and listen to each other and both learn from the other. There is a play on race and the changing in perceptions around it (and in how race is being used and abused at the colonies) - it is a world in flux where your yesterday's friend is an enemy tomorrow (the Boer war is coming soon) and your enemies may be the ones to save you next time.

And in counterpoint to Anna from the first part of the novel are the women of the later parts - Candy and Katrina - different as two women can be and yet, both of them hardworking in a men world. Their meeting ends up being the undoing of Sean's world - because none of them understand the other and neither Sean understand any of them.

The novel finishes almost where it started - with Sean looking back to Natal and deciding to go back home. It is a long novel and yet when it finished, I wanted more - Wilbur Smith is one of those storytellers that knows how to keep you interested. I am definitely planning to read more from Smith. show less

It is easy to see why Wilbur Smith is such a global success with 40+ titles and 130+ million sales. He writes no nonsense narrative driven adventure stories for an adult audience. Literary flourishing is rejected in favour of storytelling that draws the reader in with believable character and high action.

In this volume we follow Saffron Courtney - young, beautiful, talented - through the course of World War II. As a secret agent for the SOE she helps to smash a corrupt spy ring in Belgium show more and then, as the war comes to a close, chases down and rescues high value allied prisoners in German camps. In parallel, we follow her lover, Gerard Von Meerbach - an anti-Nazi German forced to fight - as a decorated fighter pilot in th Battle for Stalingrad and then as a political prisoner in the German camps for his refusal to publicly support Hitler and the Nazis.

Both Saffron and Gerard are believable characters with plenty of nuance and are placed in situations where the outcome is not always certain. This is not going to win the Booker or a Pulitzer, but as out-and-out high quality entertainment I think this is hard to beat. show less

I don't mind trashy when it's fun, but Wilbur Smith's strangely incompetent Gold Mine isn't fun. On the face of it, it looks promisingly solid if unspectacular: a South African gold mine is overseen by a square-jawed heroic manager, while seedy corporate types scheme to contrive a site disaster that will give them a large payout. Clichéd stuff, and cliché can work well enough sometimes, but this book completely fails to deliver.

At first, this was just because of the OTT meatheadedness of show more the book. Our protagonist is Rod Ironsides (I'm already cringing…), a hypercompetent man's man irresistible to women ("those huge eyes swept over him. This was fairly standard reaction for any woman between the ages of sixteen and sixty viewing Rodney Ironsides for the first time, and Rodney accepted it gracefully" (pg. 23)). As with every other male character in the book, you can practically smell the beef, and there is a lot of ho-yay talk about "arms as muscular and sinuous as pythons" (pg. 55) and powerful bodies glistening with sweat.

The prose and dialogue both clumsily inform us about the men's prowess: Rod Ironsides is "Piston Rod" in bed, "powered by steam" (pg. 38), and Rod is told he is lucky "that neither the quickness and heat of your temper, nor the matching speed and temperature of your genitalia have gotten you into really serious trouble" (pg. 29). Women in public have to remain seated when he merely looks at them, lest "any moisture" show on their dress (pg. 78). They feel "bruised internally" after being with him (pg. 127) and end up breathlessly thanking him for being more than enough man for them (pg. 128). And that's before we get the constant slew of bosom-gazing, leg-gazing, bottom-slapping and hip-swaying – even when a woman is fleeing during an action scene, we are told she "ran with the full-hipped sway of the mature woman" (pg. 250). This is not a Millennial reaction from me, and I have little to no problem with the dinosaur stuff when done with a bit of charm or purpose. Like I said, if it was trashy and fun it would be OK, but it is incredibly gormless and I was embarrassed to be reading it. It's low-grade Mills & Boon for men.

But the real killer for the book is its complete flavourlessness. The mining stuff is overly technical without the bonus of being interesting or educational, and the corporate stock exchange subplot is both confusing (there are no names for its characters – only descriptors like 'the fat man') and interminably dull. The main plot with Rod Ironsides always seems to be building and then you realise the book's nearly finished and then it's gone, and it doesn't intersect with the corporate conspiracy stuff in any compelling way. Rod is sort of a bystander in his own story, and gets no resolution at the end. Add to this the inexplicable decision to end the book with Hettie. She is an improbably-written harpy-like floozy who gleefully cheats on her husband with his brother, feels elated when said brother is killed, then cheats on her husband again, and then feels elated when he gets killed too. The book ends with Hettie collecting a lot of insurance money for the deaths and walking off into the sunset, unrepentant. There is no reason at all for this. In a story this crude you at least expect resolution, for it to get the basics right. But Gold Mine can't even do that. It can't even reheat the old clichés competently, and it leaves a sour taste. show less

I have not read any books by Wilbur Smith previously and I probably would not have read this one except I was on holidays and had run out of reading material so I thought I would give this one a try. It reminded me a lot of Ian Fleming’s Bond books that I read when I was a teenager because my brother had a stash of them. It was written in 1991 which perhaps explains the faintly chauvinistic tone but still rubbed me the wrong way.
Daniel Armstrong was born in Africa in what was then show more Rhodesia. As a young white man he fought for Ian Smith’s forces until he saw the unfairness of the fight. He loves Africa and its peoples and makes his living by producing films about Africa. He has returned to Chiwewe National Park in Zimbabwe where he worked as a park ranger. He is making a film about the elephants and the illegal ivory trade which accounts for the slaughter of hundreds of elephants each year. The National Park also kills elephants because there are too many to be supported in the park. From these cullings and confiscations from poachers the park has built up an enormous stockpile of ivory tusks. This has drawn the attention of the Taiwanese Ambassador, Ning Cheng Gong, who is a collector of ivory. He wants a very special gift for his father because that would cement him as the heir to his father’s enormous empire. With the help of Chittie Singh, a middleman for poachers all across Africa, he has arranged for the ranger’s stash to be stolen. This necessitates killing the ranger, Johnny Nzou, his family and servants. Daniel, who has been friends with Johnny since childhood, discovers the bodies and Johnny’s dying note which fingers Ning. He then makes it his mission to avenge the deaths by whatever means necessary. Of course this involves beautiful women and dangerous deeds but he triumphs in the end.
I’m not a prude but there is way too much description of violent sexual acts which I found entirely unnecessary for the storyline. I know they were probably meant to show how horrible the bad guys were but slaughtering animals, killing men, women and children and enslaving others and raping the land would have been enough for me to understand they were bad.
I won’t be looking for any more books by Wilbur Smith. show less