Rating:  Summary: What happened to the ending?? Review: Hungry As the Sea is one of my very favorites! Wilbur Smith can transpose you into any setting and bring alive the story like no other.I also recommend reading the Ballantine novels, his first trilogy. The suspense is high and Hungry As the Sea! You just can't go wrong buy this one today! Revisedcode
Rating:  Summary: Disappointing After 50 pages! Review: I actually never finished this one. Came recommended to me by a tug boat captain who started it while waiting for a dredge to fill up his hopper barge. I know how boring it can be steaming to and from the dumping grounds, especially at two knots, but a person would have to be lost on a deserted island to find this book even the slightest bit captivating. It starts out interesting enough, with some high stakes backstory about a captain going out on a financial limb to start his own salvage business, but it quickly degenerates into a cheap Hollywood actioner, complete with plastic characters and a forced romance to boot, which happens as soon as the main character reaches the antarctic to rescue a stricken cruise ship. If you ask me, you're better off with Jan De Hartog, Farley Mowatt, Joseph Conrad, Jack London, and for more contemporary sea fare, David Poyer.
Rating:  Summary: An adventure to read. Review: I have read this book many times and each time my pulse races as Nick and the crew of Warlock salvage Golden Adventurer. I have often hoped that Mr Smith would write a sequel. Without a doubt my favorite.
Rating:  Summary: Smith at his best Review: I think this is one of W.S.'s best. If you are tiring of reading his South Africa chronicles (I was), you will find Hungry as the Sea, set in modern Europe and USA, a nice refreshment. Also, the storyline is good, action-packed in places leaving room for the development of the plot as well. If you are a Wilbur Smith fan, you'll love it. And lastly, for the reviewer above, if you have a problem with Wilbur Smith's symbolic use of names, at least quote them correctly when you criticize them: The main character is Nick Berg, not Alex Berg. Alexander is the villain of the story!
Rating:  Summary: Beginning and ending action sandwiched around boring middle Review: Smith accomplishes a near-impossible feat. One of his characters is a Persian/Iranian woman, and he fails to convey her beauty, allure, and mystery to the reader. Since (IMHO) these women *are* incredibly beautiful, alluring, and mysterious, Smith's failure is especially egregious. His other heroine is a near caricature American woman: bold, aggressive, interested in causes. Conclusion: Smith can't write about romance, love, and intimacy. In addition, his book should have been reviewed by an American before publication. Americans do *not* eat "shrimps" any more than they eat "trouts" or "turkeys". In that context, these are nouns of mass, not nouns of number. Also, there is no United States Coast Guard Service. It's just the U.S. Coast Guard. Finally, Smith starts with a thrilling tugboat-liner rescue, then bores the reader to insensibility with interpersonal relationships among the main characters, and then ends with the extremely unsurprising rescue of another ship (kind of) by our hero in his tugboat. When I can summarize a book in one sentence, it's always bad news. "Tugboats save some ships, some lives, and Planet Earth." Finally, compare Smith's action/inaction pattern with someone like Dean Koontz, who almost always grabs the reader on the first page, keeps up the suspense and thrills, adds a *believable* romantic subplot, and ends with a satisfying and frequently happy conclusion. Smith could learn a lot from Mr. Koontz.
Rating:  Summary: my review Review: This book is the story of a man who wins back his fortune and life from very difficult circumstances. He faces incredible storms and temperatures to salvage a boat with passengers off the coast of Antartica. He next saves an oil tanker who is also carrying his ex-wife and son. As usual, Wilbur Smith writes in excesive detail, but makes every scene, every place and situation seems very real. The characters are also very life-like and you warm up to them imediately. If there was anything I could say against this book, it would be that the author seems to spend too much time describing every scene during the storms and salvages, when it is hard to follow because it gets very technical. Also, the ending is a little disappointing because after he has warmed you up to his ex-wife and son you are left not knowing what happens to them. However, it is overall a very good book and always a pleasure to read a book that is entertaining, alive and written in such a complete way.
Rating:  Summary: my review Review: This book is the story of a man who wins back his fortune and life from very difficult circumstances. He faces incredible storms and temperatures to salvage a boat with passengers off the coast of Antartica. He next saves an oil tanker who is also carrying his ex-wife and son. As usual, Wilbur Smith writes in excesive detail, but makes every scene, every place and situation seems very real. The characters are also very life-like and you warm up to them imediately. If there was anything I could say against this book, it would be that the author seems to spend too much time describing every scene during the storms and salvages, when it is hard to follow because it gets very technical. Also, the ending is a little disappointing because after he has warmed you up to his ex-wife and son you are left not knowing what happens to them. However, it is overall a very good book and always a pleasure to read a book that is entertaining, alive and written in such a complete way.
Rating:  Summary: Ocean adventure and a bit of romance Review: This book shows you the very fine line between love and hate. How a person can say they love you and down the road could'nt care less about you. And that you can't trust ANYBODY. The main character Nick Berg, lost his life's work because of his cold blooded belle wife. This shows you how a man can pull himself out of the gutter with shear determination and a cool intuitve mind. The book has ocean adventure and a bit of romance. Good read.
Rating:  Summary: Another great by my favorite Author Review: This is another very exciting book by my favorite author.It is not only intertaining but also educational,as so many of his books are.It tells of the extreme cold of Antartica,beautiful discriptions of light on the ice bergs,and info on disappearing species from the seas and what is causing it.Just the right mix of romance,suspense, education and excitement! and
Rating:  Summary: Like feeling cheated? Read this book. Review: Wilbur Smith might have created a new genre with this book -junkscience-fiction. The first quarter of this book draws the readerinto the action as the protagonist effects a harrowing rescue/salvage operation at sea in seemingly impossible conditions, leaving the reader hungering for more. Unfortunately it never comes. After the initial fun, the story turns into a shipwreck of ridiculously exaggerated characterizations and baseless political rhetoric. This is a shameless tactic usually employed only by second rate authors. The main character is portrayed as truly god-like, defying death at nearly every turn, able to rule all who encounter him with little more effort than a single glance. Of course, this infallible hero eventually becomes the champion of the political statement which, make no mistake, is the underlying purpose of this book. The drudgery of reading the last three-quarters of the book rewards the reader with nothing more than thinly veiled political/environmental demagoguery where facts are irrelevant, environmental-whackos are saints, and capitalists are evil who shouldn't be, and often aren't, allowed to live. Smith tries to spin a yarn of certain extermination of nearly all life on earth if one particular evil capitalist is allowed to have his way.... Next to the word "hyperbole" in the dictionary, one would expect to find a picture of this book. The writing is rough and doesn't flow smoothly. You'll find yourself periodically checking to see if you accidentally skipped a few pages, wondering how you got to this point. The authorship is as poor as the quality of paper it is printed on. This book went adrift early, and never recovered. If you are going to spend the time to read a book, don't waste time with this one. Upon finishing the book, I felt cheated as will you if you read it.
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