River God by Wilbur Smith

One of the small pleasures of traveling around so much is to find local writers/books/movies that I wouldn't know otherwise.

Wilbur Smith is the name I never noticed before,although I am life-long bookshop browser. Perhaps I was looking in the wrong direction or simply didn't know him,I clearly remember last year in South Africa checking out his novels in bookshops and thinking "hm,this sounds interesting" but this time I decided to give him a try. Boy,was it worth it.

"The River God" is his famous first (of many) books set in ancient Egypt and its a beautiful never-ending saga in full MGM splendor,with lots of chariot races,wild beast hunting, royal palace intrigues,travels on the Nile and so on - the main character is eunuch called Taita who is all-knowing force behind the throne and he gradually becomes more and more indispensable to royals with his wisdom and knowledge. The period is very well researched and it gives the reader almost the smell of the places,also noticeable is the author attempt to present the story from ancient Egyptian point of view,for example locals initial mistrust to arrival of new,unknown animals (horses) for whom they believe they are man-eaters. The novel was much better than I expected and it was a perfect escapism,I could hardly wait to finish my work and dive into world of old Egypt.

Luckily this novel was just beginning of several ancient Egypt novels with the same characters so now I know where to follow.