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Butcher Bird
In 1973, the Rhodesian Bush War raged as hot as the deserts and jungles where it took place. There were many factions of Africans who wanted to take control of Rhodesia/Zimbabwe from the European colonialists. But one man was willing to do whatever it took to drive the whites from his country, no matter how brutal or atrocious. He had the support of the people and the ability to slip over the borders at will. And his chances of becoming the president of Zimbabwe grew every day. He called himself iLunga, the Butcher Bird.
Sion Michael, a South African fighting for Rhodesia, was a commander of the Selous Scouts, an elite group of trackers who took on the guise of the enemy to walk among them. He and his team called themselves the Butterflies, those who left no trace behind. Authorized to operate outside of Rhodesian borders, they had only one To find iLunga and stop him.
Sion came to Rhodesia to fight someone else’s war. There was no way for him to know how deeply personal his fight with the Butcher Bird would become.
Sion Michael, a South African fighting for Rhodesia, was a commander of the Selous Scouts, an elite group of trackers who took on the guise of the enemy to walk among them. He and his team called themselves the Butterflies, those who left no trace behind. Authorized to operate outside of Rhodesian borders, they had only one To find iLunga and stop him.
Sion came to Rhodesia to fight someone else’s war. There was no way for him to know how deeply personal his fight with the Butcher Bird would become.
371 pages, Kindle Edition
Published November 19, 2016
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Displaying 1 - 4 of 4 reviews
December 13, 2016
There are some stories that need to be told. To some, they may seem just that, stories, but one has to understand that they grew out of a grain of truth and that grain, no matter how minuscule, needs to be spread throughout the world, even if it is on the wings of the story.
Butcher Bird by Robert Leslie, is one of those. It is set in the Rhodesian bush war, the year is 1973, and the atrocities have exceeded everything. Africa has gone through much more than its fair share of wars. The civil unrest has displaced and scarred the people in one way or another. At least some scars are visible, but what has been done to the psyche might never come to light.
This story is of a warlord, a man who fancies himself a leader, and who commits unspeakable crimes for the sake of 'freedom' except, some means can never be justified by the ends. He is iLunga.
Sion is a South African who is now working for the Rhodesian military and who starts on the trail of this 'Butcher Bird'. This is their story. This is the story of all those who risked their lives, their sanity, their everything to right wrongs which should never have been committed in the first place. Who literally had to become as savage as the enemy they fought because there was no other choice and who, somehow, managed to keep their humanity intact through it all.
This is one book I would definitely recommend.
Butcher Bird by Robert Leslie, is one of those. It is set in the Rhodesian bush war, the year is 1973, and the atrocities have exceeded everything. Africa has gone through much more than its fair share of wars. The civil unrest has displaced and scarred the people in one way or another. At least some scars are visible, but what has been done to the psyche might never come to light.
This story is of a warlord, a man who fancies himself a leader, and who commits unspeakable crimes for the sake of 'freedom' except, some means can never be justified by the ends. He is iLunga.
Sion is a South African who is now working for the Rhodesian military and who starts on the trail of this 'Butcher Bird'. This is their story. This is the story of all those who risked their lives, their sanity, their everything to right wrongs which should never have been committed in the first place. Who literally had to become as savage as the enemy they fought because there was no other choice and who, somehow, managed to keep their humanity intact through it all.
This is one book I would definitely recommend.
January 19, 2017
First let me say that you should know something of Africa during this time period, at least, familiarize yourself with the central African conflicts of the 60's & 70's.
So this book is like that time I went to see the movie, Gladiator. I left the movie and for about two hours I was sure that Gladiator had really happened. I would have been really disappointed if I was not so pleased that the movie was so convincing that I never stopped and said, nope, that's not believable.
Butcher Bird is much the same. I did not stop to separate the truth from the fiction. I got into the story (for the most part) without losing my disbelief. This really worked where the book was concerned. The fiction is written well enough to blend with history in the story.
The rest of this review will be divided into what I liked and what I didn't.
What I liked.
1. It was an easy read, which is good with all the language usage in the book. but the way Leslie presents it goes smoothly once you get used to it. At first, it was a bit bumpy then I quickly stepped into the flow and it worked pretty effectively.
2. I am South African by birth and lived/witnessed a small bit of the war. This proved to fill in some holes in my memories of the conflict. It's what drew me to read it. The book reinvigorated my curiosity about the Rhodesian war and I have since delved back into it.
3. I really liked the main characters and for the most part, each one was well formed as much as they needed to be with only 2 exceptions. Sion Michael and iLunga. (I will go into some detail in my dislikes).
4. The plot was entirely believable and blended into what I knew about the war/experienced to the point I never stopped while reading it to look it up or question the plausibility of the events as the story unfolded.
Compared to what I have read lately, this book was very engaging.
What I disliked.
1. The backstory on Sion Michael and iLunga was disappointing and disruptive. More so on the part of Sion Michael. I understand what the author is trying to do but it wasn't well executed and in the end, I didn't feel it necessary to the book. It does wrap things up nicely plotwise but I felt cheated by it compared to the rest of the book. (spoilers!) Sion's relationship with Charlie could have been left completely in correspondences throughout the book revealing smaller bits of the backstory without the awkward dialogue which I found strange given the dialogue in much the rest of the book flowed evenly and was at times, priceless. The problem with doing flashbacks like this is all the details that are totally unnecessary to the rest of the book, like physical descriptions of Charlie, her parents, the houses, etc. On their own, they might work but in context with the horrors and stress in the book then seem bizarre and foreign to stop for a flashback and go there- I felt alien to it, I could get why Sion might have felt that way- but that wasn't really shown either. For me, the flashbacks were more like commercial breaks during a TV movie (Dogs of War- comes to mind) leaving thinking it was a good time to go get a cup of coffee or walk the dogs.
iLunga's backstory is totally unnecessary. I can appreciate the need to make him an explainable monster but in the end, the causality of his barbarism cheats him of his villainy and madness that makes his character so interesting/intriguing. I understand that the author felt like he needed to answer the age old question of motivation but I think the book would have been much better if we did not learn any of it. (spoilers) I would have rather liked that iLunga's true identity have been left unknown since so much of war is left with the unexplainable, unanswerable mysteries. I would have rather iLunga to have no direct connection to Sion. It would have changed the ending a bit, but I suspect only in perspective of the way it happened. I felt that the big reveal and backstory just flattened him out into the modern version of a villain. iLunga would have been best served as just being evil without needing to reveal that he was (spoilers) bullied as a kid/downtrodden/forgotten. At worst, he could simply reveal this in some dialogue rather than waste time with a flashback. Which brings me to #2
2. The POV switch from Sion Michael to iLunga. I hated it. I understand why it was there, but again it felt like cheating, know the mind of the enemy. At first, I thought maybe Sion could have read the whole iLunga POV in his journals but then I realized that it didn't really matter. I really liked not knowing what iLunga was up to or why or how better than this sudden change. Let me clarify, the scenes at the where iLunga is present are fine, it's what the victims/survivors witnessed but those preserve iLunga as the antagonist which is what he should have remained. There were plenty of opportunities to maintain this and it could have just remained so for the entire book. I realize there were other character switches, some worked better than others, some didn't but none of them were as disruptive to my reading of the book as when we are seeing the world from the monster's POV.
3. There are places in the book where the dialogue comes across as contrived rather than flowing, but mostly the worst was in the flashbacks, which I am not going into as that's redundant. Dialogue is pretty much the hardest thing to write well. The dialogue here as okay and bearable.
And that's it.
There some minor editing errors, some awkward mistakes, a few continuity issues, but as I said in the beginning, I had no trouble with ignoring these as I was sucked into the story and pretty much kept there despite my problems with parts of the narrative.
So this book is like that time I went to see the movie, Gladiator. I left the movie and for about two hours I was sure that Gladiator had really happened. I would have been really disappointed if I was not so pleased that the movie was so convincing that I never stopped and said, nope, that's not believable.
Butcher Bird is much the same. I did not stop to separate the truth from the fiction. I got into the story (for the most part) without losing my disbelief. This really worked where the book was concerned. The fiction is written well enough to blend with history in the story.
The rest of this review will be divided into what I liked and what I didn't.
What I liked.
1. It was an easy read, which is good with all the language usage in the book. but the way Leslie presents it goes smoothly once you get used to it. At first, it was a bit bumpy then I quickly stepped into the flow and it worked pretty effectively.
2. I am South African by birth and lived/witnessed a small bit of the war. This proved to fill in some holes in my memories of the conflict. It's what drew me to read it. The book reinvigorated my curiosity about the Rhodesian war and I have since delved back into it.
3. I really liked the main characters and for the most part, each one was well formed as much as they needed to be with only 2 exceptions. Sion Michael and iLunga. (I will go into some detail in my dislikes).
4. The plot was entirely believable and blended into what I knew about the war/experienced to the point I never stopped while reading it to look it up or question the plausibility of the events as the story unfolded.
Compared to what I have read lately, this book was very engaging.
What I disliked.
1. The backstory on Sion Michael and iLunga was disappointing and disruptive. More so on the part of Sion Michael. I understand what the author is trying to do but it wasn't well executed and in the end, I didn't feel it necessary to the book. It does wrap things up nicely plotwise but I felt cheated by it compared to the rest of the book. (spoilers!) Sion's relationship with Charlie could have been left completely in correspondences throughout the book revealing smaller bits of the backstory without the awkward dialogue which I found strange given the dialogue in much the rest of the book flowed evenly and was at times, priceless. The problem with doing flashbacks like this is all the details that are totally unnecessary to the rest of the book, like physical descriptions of Charlie, her parents, the houses, etc. On their own, they might work but in context with the horrors and stress in the book then seem bizarre and foreign to stop for a flashback and go there- I felt alien to it, I could get why Sion might have felt that way- but that wasn't really shown either. For me, the flashbacks were more like commercial breaks during a TV movie (Dogs of War- comes to mind) leaving thinking it was a good time to go get a cup of coffee or walk the dogs.
iLunga's backstory is totally unnecessary. I can appreciate the need to make him an explainable monster but in the end, the causality of his barbarism cheats him of his villainy and madness that makes his character so interesting/intriguing. I understand that the author felt like he needed to answer the age old question of motivation but I think the book would have been much better if we did not learn any of it. (spoilers) I would have rather liked that iLunga's true identity have been left unknown since so much of war is left with the unexplainable, unanswerable mysteries. I would have rather iLunga to have no direct connection to Sion. It would have changed the ending a bit, but I suspect only in perspective of the way it happened. I felt that the big reveal and backstory just flattened him out into the modern version of a villain. iLunga would have been best served as just being evil without needing to reveal that he was (spoilers) bullied as a kid/downtrodden/forgotten. At worst, he could simply reveal this in some dialogue rather than waste time with a flashback. Which brings me to #2
2. The POV switch from Sion Michael to iLunga. I hated it. I understand why it was there, but again it felt like cheating, know the mind of the enemy. At first, I thought maybe Sion could have read the whole iLunga POV in his journals but then I realized that it didn't really matter. I really liked not knowing what iLunga was up to or why or how better than this sudden change. Let me clarify, the scenes at the where iLunga is present are fine, it's what the victims/survivors witnessed but those preserve iLunga as the antagonist which is what he should have remained. There were plenty of opportunities to maintain this and it could have just remained so for the entire book. I realize there were other character switches, some worked better than others, some didn't but none of them were as disruptive to my reading of the book as when we are seeing the world from the monster's POV.
3. There are places in the book where the dialogue comes across as contrived rather than flowing, but mostly the worst was in the flashbacks, which I am not going into as that's redundant. Dialogue is pretty much the hardest thing to write well. The dialogue here as okay and bearable.
And that's it.
There some minor editing errors, some awkward mistakes, a few continuity issues, but as I said in the beginning, I had no trouble with ignoring these as I was sucked into the story and pretty much kept there despite my problems with parts of the narrative.
November 2, 2017
Roberts Leslie's first well written novel Butcher Bird seems like it could be one of many novels already written by Leslie. This fiction story is based on the Rhodesian Bush War or the Second Chimurenga . At times it was difficult to read, I found myself taking breaks from the atrocities that occur out in the bush. One particular chapter gave me nightmares because I could not fathom the extremes that iLunga the butcher bird would go to in order to fight for power and the freedom of his people. For Sion Michael and the Selous Scouts, known as Uvemvane, it is evident that a madman capable of such violence is someone that must never be in power and must be stopped. Their goal is to stop iLunga from further terrorizing in order to gain control or become president. Although this war occurred in the 60's and 70's it should serve as a painful reminder that in the fight for equality it seems that at times we are still so far away. If you love historical fiction this may be the book for you.
January 7, 2017
I was very interested in reading this book because I have not read a lot about African politics/wars. I went into this not knowing much at all about the parties involved and I think that was a mistake. It was hard for me to understand all of the different parties involved. The dialogue in this book is also lacking. It feels very fake and not how people would talk at all. The only redeeming aspect in this book for me is that I did learn something new and it has made me want to learn more about African politics and the fight for freedom that those areas that were colonized by other countries went through.
Displaying 1 - 4 of 4 reviews