Jan 16, 9am ~~ This is my first official reading of Hungry As The Sea, but I have read it twice in my pre-GR years. I must be getting more critical in my old age because I remember liking it much more Back In The Day than I did this time around.
But it is still a Wilbur Smith book, and that means fast pacing, dramatic adventure, nearly unbelievable feats of strength by the main characters, incredibly male men and incredibly female women. Oh, and a lot of blood and guts due to violent deaths. That is always something to keep in mind with WS.
When we first meet main character Nicholas Berg he is at the very bottom of a low point in his life. He was married to a beautiful woman, had a young son, was boss of world renowned shipping company Christy Marine, and was developing projects that could revolutionize the way crude oil was transported.
But that was before the divorce.
Now Nicholas is angry, hurt, broke, owns nothing except two salvage tugs: one still at the shipbuilders in France and the other in Cape Town South Africa, where the crew are nervously awaiting the arrival of their new tug master, Nicholas Berg himself. Rarely does an owner act as Master. They have heard stories about him, but could he really know enough to be in charge of the hazardous situations a salvage tug encounters?
They will soon find out, and the whole experience will either bring Nicholas back to roaring life or destroy him forever. Add in a little romance and a few encounters with the ex-wife and her new husband (who oddly enough is now in charge of Christy Marine) and you get an idea of the dynamics of the story. Oh, and of course I forgot the hurricane and the potential environmental disaster lurking in the later chapters!
I usually love WS, but somehow this time through the book felt a bit over the top. The first section was the most intense, anything in Antarctica is, you know. But gradually I lost interest and began to wonder just how superhuman Nicholas Berg might really be. There are limits to anyone's endurance, after all. So I ended the book with more than a few eye rolls, and not all of them caused by the events happening on the pages. Some of my eye rolls were triggered by the pages themselves.
I have no idea how I could read this exact edition at least twice before and not remember this, but there were four pages towards the end that were blank. Not four in a bunch, they were spread out, but it meant I was all involved in the action, held my breath, turned the page, and there was no print on it! Have mercy, I couldn't believe it. Luckily it was easy enough to figure out from the following pages what had happened in the blank spot, but when it happened again a few pages later I looked ahead to get prepared. What if some really vital information was missing?!
It wasn't, but it was still a shock all four times.
This year I had six stand alone Wilbur Smith novels planned for my reading, but I have removed one of them since I read it last in 2021 and that is really too soon for a reread. So I will eventually be dipping into four new-to-me titles.
Hope there are no blank pages in them! lol