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jegaevi's review against another edition
1.0
I read this when I was a child. A few days ago I revisited it, and I have to say, the heroine is horribly written. She thinks of nothing else but men, we see her through they eyes of men. Of course she is whiny, erratic, stuck up, prude and stupid, like all women are, right? (that was sarcasm) She does not feel like a real person. Let's just say the book definitely does not pass the Bechdel test.
cristian1185's review against another edition
4.0
Aventura emocionante y trepidante. Muy bien logrado los personajes y el ambiente.
mic_vic's review against another edition
1.0
A truly awful book. So badly written that Dan Brown would be proud of it. Not that his others were deathless prose, but this is atrocious pap.
Clearly in his dotage, Smith is living out his sadomasochistic fantasies in print. This is much like Robert Heinlein when he was losing his marbles yet still writing.
Avoid at all costs.
Clearly in his dotage, Smith is living out his sadomasochistic fantasies in print. This is much like Robert Heinlein when he was losing his marbles yet still writing.
Avoid at all costs.
johan_botha69's review against another edition
adventurous
dark
tense
fast-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
4.5
milanj8's review against another edition
adventurous
fast-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Plot
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? No
1.5
charliek_1970's review against another edition
adventurous
dark
funny
mysterious
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
4.75
paul_cornelius's review against another edition
3.0
A Courtney adventure novel that gets back to the beginnings of the series, A Time to Die recovers somewhat from the downward spiral the series took in its other later volumes. In fact, A Time to Die would have rated much higher had Wilbur overcome the urge to spend 10-11 pages describing elephant sex. I thought it the single worst passage I had read in his books--until later we get to the Sean-Claudia sex scenes on the battlefield, which make the elephant scene look demure and dignified. Yes, this is a volume that focuses on Sean Courtney, the grandson of the proginator of the clan, old Sean who came out of the veldt to invest in gold and timber and start the family fortune. In a bit of a tiresome repeat, this Sean is as big or bigger rogue than the original. But we know that if we've read the earlier books in the series. Somehow, Sean manages to turn a safari hunt for lions and elephants into an abduction of one of his clients and involving himself in a civil war in Mozambique. This latter part is often quite good. And Wilbur himself goes back somewhat to the original focus of his books from the 1960s. So much of the Courtney series became cluttered with unfulfilled side plots and deadend characters. But here Wilbur focuses and gets back into form for a fairly good adventure story about battling across Mozambique and avoiding two rebel armies that want Sean and his friends killed. It works pretty well.
thelauramay's review against another edition
3.0
Things to expect from a Wilbur Smith book:
1. Constant chaos and adventure
2. A particularly macho main character
3. Death of a father-figure within the first third of the book
4. Deaths of most of the hero's friends, while he miraculously scrapes through every possible situation through sheer awesome man-i-ness
5. Weird female characters.
What struck me as I was reading A Time to Die was that WS seemed to be trying to write a 'strong female character' at the start of the book, but actually she just came off as bitchy and kind of stupid. He painted her as this 'typical' feminist, tree-hugging, animal-loving, if-there's-rights-attributable-I'll-defend-them sort of character, stubborn and smart. Yet all she does is whine and get herself nearly killed. This is not a 'strong female character' (though she does eventually grow up), and it saddens me to think that that may actually be author's perception. That's definitely the impression you get while reading this book.
The OTHER weird thing which crops up is how Claudia (aforementioned female lead) thinks. I get that WS is a manly African man, yada yada, but some of the things Claudia thinks are just straight-up bizarre, even disregarding the mid-book character shift. These two sections in particular were so weird that I couldn't not bookmark them:
"'Papa will be proud of me,' she smiled to herself, using the future tense as though her father still existed. 'of course he does,' she assured herself. 'He's still out there somewhere looking out for me. How else would I have made it this far?' His memory was a comfort, and as she thought about him, he became confused in her mind with Sean [her lover], so that they seemed to merge into a single entity as though her father had somehow achieved a new existence in her lover." (p386)
Que? Is it just me who's genuinely never wanted to bang their dad? But wait, it gets better:
"She realised then to just what extent the memory of her father had been absorbed in this man who lay for once like a child in her arms. The two men seemed to have merged in one body, and she could concentrate all her love in a single place. Gently she moved Sean's sleeping head until it nestled against her shoulders, and... she rocked him gently.
...[Now] it was complete. 'My baby,' she whispered, as tenderly as a mother."
Why? Why? Why is Sean her father baby love child? Can't he just be her lover/partner? Is the only tenderness a woman can feel towards babies? Why is tenderness in a non-baby sense and romantic love separated? Why the incestuous overtones?
Overall, I do enjoy WS, but I think I enjoyed him more and I was younger and less critically-minded. They are, however, utterly absorbing, and if you want to be taken well away from the world you're in, there's few better people to do it.
1. Constant chaos and adventure
2. A particularly macho main character
3. Death of a father-figure within the first third of the book
4. Deaths of most of the hero's friends, while he miraculously scrapes through every possible situation through sheer awesome man-i-ness
5. Weird female characters.
What struck me as I was reading A Time to Die was that WS seemed to be trying to write a 'strong female character' at the start of the book, but actually she just came off as bitchy and kind of stupid. He painted her as this 'typical' feminist, tree-hugging, animal-loving, if-there's-rights-attributable-I'll-defend-them sort of character, stubborn and smart. Yet all she does is whine and get herself nearly killed. This is not a 'strong female character' (though she does eventually grow up), and it saddens me to think that that may actually be author's perception. That's definitely the impression you get while reading this book.
The OTHER weird thing which crops up is how Claudia (aforementioned female lead) thinks. I get that WS is a manly African man, yada yada, but some of the things Claudia thinks are just straight-up bizarre, even disregarding the mid-book character shift. These two sections in particular were so weird that I couldn't not bookmark them:
Spoiler
"'Papa will be proud of me,' she smiled to herself, using the future tense as though her father still existed. 'of course he does,' she assured herself. 'He's still out there somewhere looking out for me. How else would I have made it this far?' His memory was a comfort, and as she thought about him, he became confused in her mind with Sean [her lover], so that they seemed to merge into a single entity as though her father had somehow achieved a new existence in her lover." (p386)
Que? Is it just me who's genuinely never wanted to bang their dad? But wait, it gets better:
"She realised then to just what extent the memory of her father had been absorbed in this man who lay for once like a child in her arms. The two men seemed to have merged in one body, and she could concentrate all her love in a single place. Gently she moved Sean's sleeping head until it nestled against her shoulders, and... she rocked him gently.
...[Now] it was complete. 'My baby,' she whispered, as tenderly as a mother."
Why? Why? Why is Sean her father baby love child? Can't he just be her lover/partner? Is the only tenderness a woman can feel towards babies? Why is tenderness in a non-baby sense and romantic love separated? Why the incestuous overtones?
Overall, I do enjoy WS, but I think I enjoyed him more and I was younger and less critically-minded. They are, however, utterly absorbing, and if you want to be taken well away from the world you're in, there's few better people to do it.
alfierose66's review against another edition
3.0
There are a lot of things in these books that don't necessarily age well, but they are accurate for the kind of people that lived in that time. This book did lose me in some of the war-heavy parts, but Claudia saved it for me. By far she is the reason I enjoyed this book at all.