The Wilbur Smith Discussion Forums

Yay I'm so glad!

I suppose - Although what exactly can he write after that? He couldn't make a whole book out of it could he?

Kate gave it a 6. What did you score it at Nefie?

I agree about the open ending. I'm guessing the next book won't be another Egyptian one though. I think it might be one of the 'gap' books to connect the Courtneys.

This doesn't make sense, there are continuity problems, the editing sucks....; I was going to list them all. I have almost on the "Initial thoughts and Questions about The Quest..." Thread. Then I decided no, I will review The Quest this way:

My advice is to be prepared. It's different. WS tells us that on his Web site in the audio clip. Read She by Ryder Haggard first. It won't spoil The Quest. On the contrary IMO it will put you in the right frame of mind. I've never read WS's novels expecting reality & know he uses artistic licence. With his 'faction' stories, I've never been knowledgeable enough to differentiate the fact from the fiction so I never tried. WS is a writer of fiction & The Quest is adventure, touches of horror, a love story and for a change some fantasy.

Sit back with a cup or glass of your favourite beverage and enjoy the journey - you're in for a wonderful ride. I loved it. 8/10 - 2 off for the editing especially the X ref. inconsistencies.

Hi, i have read the book and i quite enjoyed. I must agree though that it wasnt as good as river god or warlock. And that it is a little dissapointing that smith doesnt embilish on taita's magic!! But all in all i think it was a great read, and i hope there is a next one to which taita and fenn find the font again!!

I gave it a 7, Ada. Mainly because of the inconsistencies which annoyed me and made me sad because I wanted this to be one of my favourites. But I mean, I did love the book because of the characters (mainly Meren ) and because the story was pretty awesome. I just wish it could've been more about Nefer as well.

Kate - No, not nitpicky at all! I found all those things really frustrating too - partic 1: the baby name issue of fenn, and 2: the colour of her hair - so not meant to be blonde!
I dont remember the bit in Quest where he was calling Nefer Mem, but yeah, he never called him that - maybe he got confused cos thats what he called Nefer's father???
Also, early on in quest when he is having those dreams of a young lostris - he has that vision of her in the desert riding towards him, and he goes on to recall how she was such a great horse rider etc etc and how she loved that horse he got for her?? what?? i didnt think that she ever rode....?

Alysha wrote:Also, early on in quest when he is having those dreams of a young lostris - he has that vision of her in the desert riding towards him, and he goes on to recall how she was such a great horse rider etc etc and how she loved that horse he got for her?? what?? i didnt think that she ever rode....?

Oh yeah! I forgot about that but I remember when I was reading it how wrong that sounded! Because wasn't she like Tanus and very wary of the horses?

Alysha wrote:Kate - No, not nitpicky at all! I found all those things really frustrating too - partic 1: the baby name issue of fenn, and 2: the colour of her hair - so not meant to be blonde!
I dont remember the bit in Quest where he was calling Nefer Mem, but yeah, he never called him that - maybe he got confused cos thats what he called Nefer's father???
Also, early on in quest when he is having those dreams of a young lostris - he has that vision of her in the desert riding towards him, and he goes on to recall how she was such a great horse rider etc etc and how she loved that horse he got for her?? what?? i didnt think that she ever rode....?

I dont think "the quest" ever claims that fenn is an exact copy of lostris in appearence

Kate - I think so.. But im certain she never rode - in river god he said a few times how only taita, memnon, and one other guy ever rode horses at that stage in time - everyone else thought it was dirty or something.. ah well, despite the frustrating differences i still couldnt put the book down

Chaos - I dont know whether it said that either - but taita def had meories of lostris, and in those memories he says she has golden hair - which she didnt. He also talks about the lock of hair he took from lostris, and says that it too was golden - which it shouldnt have been..

maybe "golden" was just a methaphor :p

Haha, yes, ma-aybe but yeah, it prob didnt say that fenn was a spitting image or anyting like lostris, i think it was just his memories of her with blonde hair that confused me.

It might be just the way I interpreted but didn't he say at least once that she looked the same? I am wracking my brain to think of what context it was in, but I feel positive that Fenn was supposed to look exactly the same as Lostris.

Am I the only one?

kate - well no, i thought the same - didnt taita (soon after first finding fenn when she was still gawky) think to himself something about 'how beautiful she will become'...which i guess indicates that she was going to be just the same as lostris...

Alysha wrote:kate - well no, i thought the same - didnt taita (soon after first finding fenn when she was still gawky) think to himself something about 'how beautiful she will become'...which i guess indicates that she was going to be just the same as lostris...

That is the bit I mean! That was one of the main ones but I'm sure there were others. Were they just very subtle or something? Pretty much from then on I assumed that Fenn looked like Lostris (so I ignored the whole 'she's a blonde' thing)

Glad someone is on the same page!

Maybe they were subtle, i dont know, i cant pinpoint anything else at the moment, but i Def got the same impression

hey can anyone tell me what the little star things on the bottom left of everyones profile mean..?

Alysha wrote:hey can anyone tell me what the little star things on the bottom left of everyones profile mean..?

Its your reputation level

maybe they used hair dye

Hey Kate, you know how we can't change the way we see a character if we already have an image of them in our head (Tom especially lol not bald!) ?? Well, I dunno why but I could easily see blonde Fenn but I still see dark haired Lostris. Werd huh

i_heart_nefie wrote:Hey Kate, you know how we can't change the way we see a character if we already have an image of them in our head (Tom especially lol not bald!) ?? Well, I dunno why but I could easily see blonde Fenn but I still see dark haired Lostris. Werd huh

I know Em! If he describes it to my once I will picture them the same from then on!

[spoiler]Even when Meren didn't have an eye I'm like "It's cool, he's fine.. you can't even notice... he looks the same"[/spoiler]

lol. Is it just us or is it a normal thing to do that?

funny that, even though Tanus has red hair I allways imagine him to have black...