New Wilbur Smith Book

[Texas Star]

I know that some of you like Wilbur Smith's vitamin-filled adventure novels.

He has a new one due in the USA on May 10. Already out in some countries...

It's called, Those in Peril, and the plot is that a rich chick is captured and tortured by Somali pirates, who want a huge ransom from her mom. The hero has to save her.

I'd link to his site, but gather that it's forbidden here to link to other sites. Just Search for it or use the obvious liklihood, and add "books" after the author's name. I hope that clue is permitted.

His site is very nice, and you can see the various covers for international editions of his books. You can also see the new cover, making it easy to spot at the bookstore.

Smith sometimes drops the ball, but most of his books are really good. His gun knowledge is fair to good.

This one looks like it might be both timely and interesting.

Oh: if you look at his publicity photos from various national visits, you can see him with current wife Niso. (Mokhiniso).
Hefner isn't the only old guy to score a hot wife, and they look pretty close. Good for him!

T-Star

 

[Stonecove]

Thanks for the heads up. I went to Amazon and got on the alert list for the papernack. It will be out august 2011.
Stonecove

 

[CH47gunner]

Thank you sir, I'll be looking forward to it -

Probably my all time favorite author, I'm pretty sure I've read everything he's written.
I've always loved the African adventure stuff starting with H. Rider Haggard who wrote King Solomon's Mines & She.
Wilbur's gettin' pretty long in the tooth - we better enjoy 'em while we can.

Bruce

 

[Texas Star]

Thank you sir, I'll be looking forward to it -

Probably my all time favorite author, I'm pretty sure I've read everything he's written.
I've always loved the African adventure stuff starting with H. Rider Haggard who wrote King Solomon's Mines & She.
Wilbur's gettin' pretty long in the tooth - we better enjoy 'em while we can.

Bruce

Bruce-

Yeah, he's in his 70's, like Jack Higgins. They can both still write as well as ever. I just re-read one of Smith's, The Sound of Thunder, written in the 1960's. I was very impressed with how well he can write.

We lost Robert B. Parker last year. He was about 78, I think. But his Spenser and other series were holding up very well. In his later books, Parker was also pretty gun-knowledgeable. I think I read somewhere that he had a MA carry license, perhaps unique among novelists.

Take a look at Smith's site. It's quite impressive. The number of countries in which he's published is staggering. I think he and his wife have homes in both London and near Cape Town. He got out of Northern Rhodesia about the time that it became independent Zambia.

I've noticed that since South Africa changed so dramatically in the mid-1990's that he avoids contemporary books based there. Probably prudent. But his historical novels are still sometimes set there. He hunts and fishes, so his info in those realms is pretty solid.

You mentioned Sir Henry Rider Haggard. Did you know that he served in the Second Zulu War of 1879? The natives in, King Solomon's Mines had a tribal structure much like that of the Zulu. He was a contemporary of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, who wrote the Holmes books and, The Lost World. But the guns that Haggard gave his heroes in, Mines were far better covered and more plausible than what Doyle gave his crew in, Lost World. I really doubt that Doyle knew guns at all.

T-Star

 

[DeadAye]

Thanks for the heads up!
Finished reading Birds of Prey again and am fixin' to start on Monsoon. I've read Birds 3 times but Monsoon only twice
I guess I'm out of sequence, but these are the only two that I have.

 

[Texas Star]

Many libraries and used book stores have his books, if money is an issue.

I bought an as-new paper copy of, The Dark of the Sun in a used book shop this weekend. It was the second Smith book I read, back in the 1960's. Haven't read it in awhile.

Did anyone here see the movie version, starring Rod Taylor and Yvette Mimieux? I think Kenneth More played the villain, Wally Hendry. It wasn't as good as the book, but is certainly watchable.

T-Star

 

[CH47gunner]

Many libraries and used book stores have his books, if money is an issue.

I bought an as-new paper copy of, The Dark of the Sun in a used book shop this weekend. It was the second Smith book I read, back in the 1960's. Haven't read it in awhile.

Did anyone here see the movie version, starring Rod Taylor and Yvette Mimieux? I think Kenneth More played the villain, Wally Hendry. It wasn't as good as the book, but is certainly watchable.

T-Star

Yep, saw the movie - I'm a Hardy Kruger fan too.
I believe "The Sunbird" was my favorite stand alone book. Followed by the Courtney and then the Rivergod series. All very good stuff.
Not too familiar with a lot of the history of the African colonialization - I do know of the Rourke's Drift battle, enuf of the Boer War to be dangerous, the Mau Mau insurrection, and a bit of the Mike Hoare mercs.
My ultimate vacation would be to go on safari Teddy Roosevelt style.
I'm also thinking most of you guys are Burroughs fans too

Bruce

 

[FTG-05]

My favorite WS book is "The Eye of the Tiger". Although I haven't read that book in like 20 years, I knew who you were talking about as soon as I saw his name. I'll have to see about getting some of his others.

Thanks,

 

[Texas Star]

Yep, saw the movie - I'm a Hardy Kruger fan too.
I believe "The Sunbird" was my favorite stand alone book. Followed by the Courtney and then the Rivergod series. All very good stuff.
Not too familiar with a lot of the history of the African colonialization - I do know of the Rourke's Drift battle, enuf of the Boer War to be dangerous, the Mau Mau insurrection, and a bit of the Mike Hoare mercs.
My ultimate vacation would be to go on safari Teddy Roosevelt style.
I'm also thinking most of you guys are Burroughs fans too

Bruce

Bruce-

Sure, I read the Tarzan books. Never read his Martian or Venus tales. The Tarzan of the books has been portrayed well in only a couple of movies. One was, The Green Goddess, made about 1939. The best was, Greystoke: the Legend of Tarzan of the Apes. A French actor named Christopher Lambert played a very credible Tarzan.

Actually, a woman and I were discussing Tarzan on another board, and I asked there who should play Jane if a really authentic Tarzan movie is ever made. I think that Olivia Wilde may be a favorite, as some of the members there like her in the new, Tron movie. Jane was American in the books, from Baltimore, as I recall. Upon marrying Tarzan, she'd become Lady Greystoke, so she has to be able to handle that. But she should still look great in a sort of Sheena or Veronica Layton outfit. (Veronica was the jungle babe in a, Lost World TV series, played by Jennifer O'Dell. You can see her on her site, although I guess we can't link to other sites. Search: Jen was pretty cute in that outfit, and has been very kind to her fans. She answered a couple of my questions on her site.

The Tarzan books are much better than the movies, and Tarzan is far more polished.

If you want to know about Mau-Mau, read, Something of Value, by Robert C. Ruark and, Man-Hunt in Kenya, by Inspector Ian Henderson, GM. You will probably never be so revolted in your life as when you read the details of that terrorist movement and what it did. You'll never see Jomo Kenyatta as the liberals do, once you know how he planned to take over Kenya.

Henderson was a senior cop, responsible for many counter-terrorist operations, He was responsible for the capture of a particularly disgusting Mau-Mau leader named Dedan Kimathi. Ruark got his oathing ceremony and other details from his friends in Kenya, including details obtained in police interrogations of captured terrorists.

T-Star