Blurbal

I’ve read a number of indifferent reviews of this novel and as such my expectations for Triumph of the Sun weren’t high. In fact I was a little bit worried. Stupid me.

Triumph of the Sun is unlike any other of the Courtney novels. Instead of the charms of South Africa we have the harsh-ness of the Sudan desert, instead of the White-Black racial tension we have the Islamic Jihad against the Christian Infidels. Not to mention a whole bunch of new characters - Ryder Courtney, Penrod Ballantyne and the Benbrooke family.

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Guards! Guards!, Men at Arms, Feet of Clay, Jingo, The Fifth Elephant, Night Watch, Thud!( & where’s my cow?)

Ahhh, Captain/Commander/Sir Samuel Vimes, His Grace the Duke of Ankh, whatever name he doesn’t mind being called at the time, what a character. I’m going to state it here and put you under no illusions, the City Watch are my favourite Discworld novels. With such a wide range of interesting and diverse characters, it’s probably impossible not to pick a watch(man/woman/wolf/corpse/etc.) you don’t feel affection for, or at least relate to in some minor way. You may have guessed mine, and if you haven’t, read the first line again more closely.

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Sex, violence and adventure - the simple way to summarise the Courtney’s by Wilbur Smith. A series of 12 swashbuckling adventures charting the lives of ten generations of the Courtney family, all set in the romantic, harsh and mysterious wilderness of the southern African Continent.The series begins in 1667 with “Birds of Prey” where we are introduced to the “British Courtney’s” – an aristocratic family of naval explorers, pirates and entrepreneurs. The series then swiftly hops through the generations of the family, with each Courtney roughly starring in 2 novels – once as the young adult “coming of age” and later as a parent of such a young adult. From pirates and adventurers the Courtney’s from novel to novel become (in no particular order) traders, military leaders, heroes, millionaires, politicians and traitors. The Courtney’s series concludes in the 1980’s with “A Time to Die”, a novel epitomising the series as a whole – an action packed page-turner, full of emotion, violence and romance.

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My first impression on receiving the book was that it “looks” good, nice and shiny with an interesting picture on the front (a map of the world)! The first few pages of the book give the reader a brief history lesson on Africa - it won’t be anything new to Wilbur Smith fans but I think it adds a nice touch to the book, I always like books where I can learn something!

Getting into the actual novel, it starts at a very quick pace and introduces all the main characters quite quickly; although I did find myself getting a little bit confused as to who was who at times. The writing flowed nicely and had a good level of description, fully immersing me into the environment and time period. All the constituents of a good plot - action, suspense and a love story were present. I quickly reached the half way point - I was enjoying it a lot.

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