Warlock: A Novel of Ancient Egypt

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Summary: What happened to the captivative qualities of River God?
Review: What happened? I was facinated by River God, captivating storytelling, real characters. It seems Mr. Smith ran out of ideas for the sequel. After a promising start, his new book "Warlock" turns sour after 100 pages. How many times can one read about the 'perfect' Taita and the Hollywood dreamboy Nefer?
How many overdrawn mutilation scences does it take to portray Trok as a villian? The book reads more like the ancient 'Theogony', in which outnumbered chariot squadrons massacre entire armies on a regular basis and blood-thirsty tyrants simply go through the motions of butchering in-significant characters.
The small number of thought out personalities in this book makes you wonder what kind of kingdom Nefer actually rules. Does anybody have a brain in this place, or is it a herd of cattle that swears allegiance to anything that sparkles under the sun?
Not that there aren't chances to save the story. The priestess at Hathor could give a great view into the clerical life in ancient Egypt. General Prenn provides a chance for a conflict of interest episode. And Heseret's character could be a great depiction of creeping madness. I am not an author, but numerous occasions in this book would have provided me with a chance to write a better version than I read.
For those of you how wish to read about unimaginative battle after battle in a semi-biblical tone (which in itself was not a bad idea), and who get a rise out of mutilations descriptions, this is your book. Anybody want to read a good story: I suggest re-reading the orginal River God.

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Summary: A Major Let Down
Review: River Gods is one of my all time favorite books - first I read the book and then I listened to it on tape. The Seventh Scroll was okay, but I am more interested in stories staged in ancient Egypt so when I heard that Wilbur Smith had released Worlock I couldn't wait to read it. What a let down! The character of Taita was the staple of River Gods - you felt his pain and you cheered for him - he was strong, smart & clever, yet very human. In Worlock Taita is a wizard of sorts - and not a very deep one at that. It is not that I am against tales of scorcery, it is just that Taita was such a fantastic character "as is" - he doesn't need all that mumbo-jumbo. I also felt there was too much war and fighting with too predicatable outcomes. I would like to have seen a little more behind the scene storylines and more clever and cunning acts by Taita.

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Summary: First book I read, and already my favorite!
Review: This is the first Wilbur Smith book I am read. I found out that Smith knows the art of retaining a reader's attention to the end. This book about ancient Egypt is very interesting. It has so vivid accounts that I van sometime feel as if I am seeing it thru my open eyes. I will recommend this book to anyone who wants to read a book with a sound imagination and plot.

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Summary: As good as River God, better than Seventh Scroll
Review: I am much more impressed with Smith as an author of ancient Egypt than as a modern author. I found Seventh Scroll to be a huge disappointment, so I was more than glad to see a return to the Egypt of old. I was even more glad to see the story shift from 1st person. I listened to this book on tape, and unlike another reviewer, had no quality problems with it at all. I could hardly wait to get into the car. And it went on for hour after pleasurable hour. The addition of wizardry was great, in my opinion. Count me as one of the people hoping for a sequel. Or hoping for a movie!

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Summary: Read his early work
Review: Read "The Warlock " in two days. I was dissapointed. The only reason I was not utterly dissapointed is because judging from his last couple of books I have lowered my expectation significantly, and yet still I was dissapointed. To be fair, it is probably not that bad of a book.. but only if you have not read River God and Seventh Scroll. Smith reduced Taita from a clever and cunning strategist to a Harry Potter wannabe.
I miss the Wilbur Smith of "River God", "Seventh Scroll", early Courtney Saga. I am sad that the same person who wrote those wonderful books is now writing Warlock and Monsoon (which is a good book by itself, but in terms of plot is nothing more than a poor imitation of his earlier work. This is the third time in the same family that there are two brothers who used to love each other and ended up as mortal enemy, the second time that the weaker brother's son is actually the illegitimate son of the stronger one )

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Summary: As great as any he has written`
Review: This is as great as any Wilbur Smith has written, and that's saying a lot since I consider all his books great! Very exciting and hard to put down till it's finished.Now, when is his next one coming out?

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Summary: The Old Master Learns New Tricks...
Review: Smith's major works, River God, Seventh Scroll, Birds of Prey and Monsoon are remarkable examples of contemporary adventure writing at its best. With Warlock, Smith has added a new dimension to his adventure formula... fantasy and magic. Just as the reader is met with new tricks from the old master, Taita, so too as the old master, Smith, shown us he's not too old to learn new tricks. This is a masterful, elegant historical-fiction adventure tale that delves heavily in the land of fantasy and magic. Writers like Smith are pushing the bounds of adventure writing to incredible levels. Can't wait for his next...

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Summary: Excellent Book
Review: This is my first Wilbur Smith book, and of course i have purchased the prequel, but it is an excellent book, i could never put it down, and when i did, thats all i could think about. The characters are extremely well developed even if you havent read RIVER GOD. The battles are depicted with extreme detail right down to the exact movements so you can get a feel for what exactly is going on. If you like anything to do with magic or battle or even egypt, then you should read this book.

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Summary: This is great!
Review: I loved this book. I spent all summer reading it when I was supposed to do my required reading of A Tale of Two Cities and A Raisin in the Sun for school. I couldn't put down Warlock because the other two couldn't hold a candle to Warlock! I enjoyed the new characters and the great plot. It was just as good as River God, even though Warlock is more graphic. I loved this book!

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Summary: warlock
Review: Wilbur Smith is an exceptional author. I do NOT recommend purchasing the audio edition by brilliance audio, however. The fidelity and quality of these recordings is below poor. We suffered through the reading of River God,due to our love of the author. At the time, we attributed the terrible fidelity and the predeliction for the tapes to jam while playing to a badly manufactured anomaly. We received the tapes of Warlock (the sequel) last week and couldn't even make it through the first tape. The volume is irregular - painfully so, there is a constant hiss in the background and the tape jams - requiring manual work to free it. Brilliance Audio obviously spent all of their allocated money on the glitzy box and none on the fidelity or quality of the tapes. I do not recommend purchase of the unabridged version on tape.