Assegai: The Courtney Series 13

The twists on the history of eastern Africa offered by Smith are to be expected, but he is incorrect in one core historical detail. His main character, Leon Courtney, is said to an officer in the "3rd Battalion, 1st Regiment, King's African Rifles," though that is an unusual error in Smith's research. Historically, that unit would be a Nyasaland Battalion (3/1 KAR) which was not even formed until January 1917! Most likely, Smith misread the designation 1/3 KAR from historical sources, which would be the First Battalion, Third Regiment KAR, recruited as Smith suggests from British East Africa and based in Nairobi at the time he begins his book, 1906. Starting from a historical error in the first paragraph diminishes the novel for fans of good historical fiction.

My daughter bought this book for me. I have thoroughly enjoyed this book. Wilbur Smith is an excellent writer and the content is always brought together at the end. I would recommend this book to everyone.

Typically Wilbur Smith telling of the Courteny involvment in the politics of pre world war one Africa. and the crossover between black and European cultures.
An adventure novel with life death blod and guts. Very real. Not for the squeamish

Nothing can be better with a cup of early morning coffee than a Wilbur Smith novel. Assegai will capture your interest just by the title and it will keep you reading from the very first to the last page. Shame on You, Mr. Smith.....your story ended and my library keeps growing. Another, please.....

Admittedly this was my first Wilbur Smith novel but I was thoroughly impressed. In some ways the plot was predictable but nonetheless gripping and full of action.
As a writer I am always impressed when I can learn new words, and I ended up with a long list of them to add to my vocabulary.
I also enjoyed the author’s expertise on big-game hunting, early airplane and dirigible flying, and his understanding of the Masai culture. Assegai gets high marks.

I have great respect for Wilbur Smith. I loved The Dark of the Sun and many others but the master has mellowed out. Maybe the first hint was when he dedicated the book to his wife. It's like a light version of an adventure story.
The book starts off believable then falls off the edge of the world.

Hero Leon starts off okay enough, a misunderstood young man who loves Africa and women, then he turns into a superman.
Carrying a wounded buddy on his back (did it really say 30 miles?) learning to fly an airplane and landing it too, on the jungle plain etc.
The White hunters are excellent marksmen dropping beasts w/ one shot etc.
The obligatory German villains, woman and man, are portrayed as equally super-human, super-talented and super-rich.
The British heroine is perfection on two legs; w/ a nearly Princeton education.

I fear Smith has fallen ill to the disease of success. He can write whatever he wants now for his own pleasure so indeed he does; no doubt without an editor. Grandfather writes a new story for the grand kids; not too scary not too sexy but interesting. I will search out his earlier work hoping for more gritty, raunchy realistic fare.

While Wilbur Smith writes engrossing novels, his real talent is in the description of his native Africa. One only has to read a few chapters of any of his novels to understand his love for his native land. Assegai does not fail in this regard. The descriptions of the hunts for African game are enough to make the reader feel he/she is on safari with Leon Courtney.

The time line of this novel falls just before the beginning of World War I. Readers who have followed the Courtney saga will recognize this to be about the same time frame as The Burning Shore. As there is no mention of Sean Courtney or Michael Courtney in this novel, one has to assume it is the family name, but the English Courtneys, not the South African Courtneys. Penrod Ballantyne, Leon Courtney's uncle, was featured in The Triumph of the Sun.

For those who are new to Wilbur Smith's work, and from reading some of the other reviews there are people who have not discovered Smith, I would suggest that you start the Courtney series with Birds of Prey, not necessarily When the Lion Feeds (the first Courtney book Smith penned). Then move to Monsoon, Blue Horizon and then pick up the beginning, When the Lion Feeds, The Sound of Thunder and A Sparrow Falls. Then the reader can move to The Courtneys of Africa series.

Not having read a Wilbur Smith novel for some time, I had forgotten how rich this one was in characters, local flavor, lore, wildlife and excitment. Plenty of interesting folks travel through these pages, fictional rascals and historical figures abound. The central character is interesting but despite his rough exterior is pretty much a lightweight when it comes to dealing with the main baddie. The romantic angle is of note and takes a long time to unravel. The action flows pretty well as characters come and go, some die off and others stand with Leon, the hero.
The hunting segments are well done as is the dialog between the African characters and the Europeans and one gets the flavor of Africa right in their nostrils.
However, Smith is a wordy writer and this novel seemed to drag in parts, too many characters clogging up the storty path and the book was a hundred pages too long, IMHO. I have read many of his other tales, and this one is worth the time but a tad too many pages to wad through to see the final clash between good and evil.

Here's a rousing adventure/romance in the classic mold from Wilbur Smith. It's a return to form after much of the last decade turning out (for him) substandard work. Leon COurtney is a soldier/hunter/lover as other Smith protagonists often are, but we're revisiting settings and situations seen in the classic "Courtneys of Africa" series from the 80s and 90s that recall some of his very best. The hunting scenes are vivid and the plot, though predictable, is serviceable.

If you like this, you'll enjoy the many thousands of pages of the first ten books in the Courtney saga (starting with "Birds of Prey," "Monsoon," and "Blue Horizon"-- when you get to the end of book 11, "Rage," stop and skip the last two in the series-- a precipitous drop in quality begins there.

Most of Smith's stuff is worth reading, and is beach and vacation fodder of a superior class-- if you like brawling, bloody multi-generational storytelling with some sex and some history and plenty of fighting, he delivers the goods.

The book started great and I was quickly hooked, but eventually I started losing interest after about 200 pages. I kept on reading though for I liked the style of writing. Usually I finish reading a book within a week; this one took me just over a month to complete. The book lacked intrigue and thrill, and was not gripping. No real story either, but rather a very descriptive narrative. I also felt the ending was rushed.

The part where Leon is taught how to fly an airplane was very unbelievable in my opinion. I know a thing or two about flying, and it is not that easy to teach someone to fly. Furthermore, who would entrust his airplane to a completely new beginner? And why would someone teach a complete stranger whom he has just met to fly?

I have read better books by Wilbur Smith, and I look forward to a more gripping and believable book in the near future.

Like another reviewer here, I have read every one of Smith's books, almost all of them multiple times. One exception was The Quest, not only his worst but tripe by any standard; he appeared deranged in this wishful nonsense. I agree that Triumph of the Sun was mediocre, and I'd say that Assegai ranks about the same. Specifically, Assegai regurgitates Smith themes while adding little or nothing that is new, taking inappropriate leaps in the story line, and degenerating into a quickly-dashed-off, unconvincing finale. I simply don't understand how authors who've written a large number of excellent novels, like Smith, can deteriorate into such poor offerings. Bernard Cornwell did the same with Sharpe's Devil, even John D Macdonald with Lonely Silver Rain.My guess is that they get tired of it and refer it to their assistant, who fills it in as best they can. They get away with it since they have so much influence.

Assegai is set in British East Africa, during the early years of the 20th century. The story centres around former soldier turned game hunter, Leon Courtney, who runs safari hunts for rich clients. In a lot of ways the story is fairly standard Wilbur Smith fare with vivid, colourful descriptions of Africa, its wildlife and its people, which I enjoy.

However, I did not think it was one of his better novels. Some parts of the story had me transfixed, while other parts had me skimming over the pages. This was probably because I did not think the characters were quite up to his usual standard, and therefore I could not empathise with them as much as I would have liked.

I also felt I had to suspend my disbelief, in some of the scenes involving Von Meerbach's aircraft, which were about five years and a World War ahead of their time!

All of Wilbur Smith's books are adventure books, mostly fast-moving, and all of them showing a knowledge of his settings and full attention to research. A few had something extra - a character that evokes empathy within the reader. These are the truly great books in my opinion. 'The Sunbird' was the absolute best, and also 'Burning Shore.' Smith is such a well known author, and he's hardly going to pay attention to this one reader, but if he wanted to improve, I would suggest he try and analyse why a few of his novels do have better characterisation than others. With this one, I was bored with Leon and irritated with Eva. It was an effort to finish the book.

Wilbur Smith is a great story teller, and Assegai does not disappoint. He is one of the few authors that I buy in hardcover because I cannot wait for the paperback. However, I was a little disappointed with the ending, which was a bit abrupt. (I think the book could probably have been another hundred pages or so, to tie all the threads together). But now that I know the back story of the Courtney fortune, it makes me want to read the whole series over again.

I gave it four stars because there are a few places in the story that do not really hold together (the crashing of the dirigible being one of them). But all in all, a good read.

Leon Courtney, an officer in the British Army in Africa in 1913, has taken on two rather onerous jobs. One makes him partner in a company that offers safaris to wealthy clients in darkest Africa. Leon's first such safari includes Kermit Roosevelt and his somewhat famous father, Teddy.

After the terrible death of his partner, Leon continues the business on his own and takes on a client deeply ingrained with the German Army. War is about to break out and this man is part of it. One of the only good things for Leon because of this encounter with the Graf is the Graf's teaching Leon to fly. The other is the Graf's mistress, whom Leon falls in love with and the feelings are returned.

Both Leon and this woman turn out to be spies for the British and between them but separately they have to take on the Graf and stop his incursion into South Africa as the Great War starts.

I found this book enjoyable but long, but still recomendable.