It is only two books now that I have read of Wilbur Smith. Although I admit that "River God" is not a book that I would even contemplate on criticizing on its flaws (it is almost blasphemy if I attempt it), I feel like I can talk something about "Eagle in the Sky", which, when not been close to what the former novel is in terms of its magnitude in the content of well crafted writing or the magnitude of the relevance when been true to history.
"Eagle in the Sky" is an ambitious novel intended to cherish the idea of entertaining the mind with richness both in terms of the material and the psychological. When not failing to do so - it might well be enough for people who feel the urge to pass the time, it does not deliver on certain fronts.
The problem with this book is that, as a reader I could only see the character from outside the person's mind. I was always a spectator. The book should have been about the main characters more than about the story. There are lots of places where the character's feelings are narrated, but there is a subtle limitation to the extent it is done. The mistake, if I can call it that, is the in-your-face narration of the main character's feelings. This is the easiest and the least exciting way to do it.
I will give you an example; this might first look out of context, but observe closely and you will find what I am pointing to:
The main character David Morgan is a skilled pilot. He flies a specific flight with great passion and also manages to join the air force as one of the intruder intercepting flight. Now whenever David tries to fly the aircraft, we see that David took the flight, hit the gas, flew into the sky, shot the intruder; all the while David and feeling a lot of things inside his head, but what is there to the chemistry of David and the aircraft? There is no man and machine relation; there is no subconscious and habitual routine that David likes in the procedure that makes the machine his best buddy.
I would have so much liked to know the aircraft itself as a character. Give it a name, call it with its name. Describe the good and not so goodness of the machine. Ask David show the passion he has in the way he thinks. There is nothing of these sorts in the novel. David is a good pilot, he knows how to fly and he likes it and blah blah blah. Sorry, we are not talking about facts here, this is fiction, we need the character's true nature to come out and entertain as rather a narration that is so unconnected. Do you get where I am going now?
Perhaps plotting a story is restricting the author to feel free in dwelling in the character's fine nature? Or is the author tired of doing research about war aircraft that he so much limits the content about them.
Th novel while having its downside, does not let you down completely. It still has enough to keep your hatred at bay so that you can finish it.
Now going to the title of this post; the lack of the content mentioned above made me feel that I am reading something that is intended to hurry to the story. In short I felt like reading an abridged version of a novel.
Phantoms by Dean Koontz
