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Ramses: Vol. 1: Son of the Light (Mass Market Paperback)

by Christian Jacq (Author)
3.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (22 customer reviews)
RRP: £6.99
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Product details

  • Mass Market Paperback: 368 pages
  • Publisher: Pocket Books; New edition edition (30 Jun 1998)
  • Language English
  • ISBN-10: 0671010204
  • ISBN-13: 978-0671010201
  • Product Dimensions: 17.8 x 11.1 x 2.9 cm
  • Average Customer Review: 3.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (22 customer reviews)
  • Amazon.co.uk Sales Rank: 38,205 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

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    #4 in  Books > Fiction > Authors, A-Z > J > Jacq, Christian

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Product Description

Product Description

This title is the first in a series of five novels chronicling the life of Egypt's greatest pharoah, Ramses II. The story opens with Ramses aged 14 years. His father, Sethi, has created a powerful empire and favours Ramses as his successor, rather than Ramses' scheming older brother, Chenar.
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Customer Reviews

22 Reviews
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 (3)
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 (1)
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Average Customer Review
3.5 out of 5 stars (22 customer reviews)
 
 
 
 
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6 of 6 people found the following review helpful:
2.0 out of 5 stars fairly exciting, but annoylingly shallow, 22 Jun 1999
By A Customer
...By describing ancient Egypt in a literary style, Christian Jacq has made this history instantly accessible and fun. The plot is engaging enough to allow accurate details regarding religious beliefs, mythology and geography to sink in effortlessly. But Jacq is incapable of building plausible characters of any depth. Ramses is just *too* perfect, and other characters are just too simplistic, sticking rigidly to wholly unrealistic models of behaviour. Moses has his spiritual unfulfilment, Ahmeni his tirelessness, Setau his down-to-earthness, but each alone is only two dimensional. Even though Jacq pays brief lip service to the importance of the roles played by women in ancient Egypt, this knowledge is not borne out by the female characters, whose important lies only in that they provide inspiration and sexual pleasure for men, and in a very cliched manner (e.g. chapters often end with the beginning of love-making). In fact, Jacq has allowed his own subjective ideas regarding women and beauty to alienate and spoil his female characters for his audience. As an Egyptian who sees real beauty in the proud and independent North African woman, I was disappointed to find that all his heroines, in addition to being submissive, had fair skin, fair hair, and blue or green eyes (i.e. they're European, like Jacq). Even a quick glance through papyri portraits of ancient Egyptian women shows that such features were not the norm and certainly were not fundamental to any Egyptian definition of beauty. If you want to experience something of romantic North Africa, ancient or modern, the Ramses series (and especially the later volumes) won't be much help.
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3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:
1.0 out of 5 stars About as historical as Carry on Cleo, 28 April 2007
By K. Lester (Bath) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   
How to write a historical blockbuster: start off with cardboard-thin characters and a central hero who is just a compendium of noble virtues, and a few female characters - just for eye candy. Add a wafer thin plot about a non-existent evil brother and a lame subplot about watered-down ink supplies (who cares?) and you're almost there. Now stir in plenty of historical gaffes and rope in a few characters from myth and history who could not possibly have been alive at the time (eg Homer who lived a full 500 years later than the time of this book). Finally finish the book before the hero becomes Pharaoh so the reader has to buy the next volume in order to complete the story of the first! If you're interested in historical fiction then try Manfredi's far superior Alexander (which he manages to fit into 3 volumes) or something by Mary Renault.
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9 of 11 people found the following review helpful:
1.0 out of 5 stars I don't understand what all the fuss is about, 13 Feb 2002
By A Customer
This is the only Christian Jacq book I have read, and it's probably going to stay that way. I thought it was badly written (or, to be fair, perhaps just badly translated), with a plot as thin as the paper it's written on, and very contrived set pieces that rely on things like magic (just because Egyptians thought their pharaohs were gods, it doesn't mean that they actually were) and characters suddenly clutching their chests and dropping dead when the author has written himself into a tight spot.

The characters are wholly two dimensional - they all fall into either the 'good guy' or 'bad guy' camp in a very black and white manner. Each character tends to have one defining characteristic, and no other depth to them whatsoever. The character of Ramses goes through so many arbitrary changes with no reasoning or plot behind them that he was totally unbelievable as a person. I just didn't care whether he succeeded or not.

If it was publicised as purely a work of fiction it would be a bit more readable, but the really annoying thing with this book is that it purports to be the true life story of the pharaoh, leading the reader to believe that Ramses had an evil elder brother called Shanaar (he didn't), that Homer wrote the Iliad in Ramses back garden (he didn't) or that Moses was a close childhood friend of the pharaoh (very dubious indeed).

If you're going to write a novel set in ancient Egypt, you need to do more research than flicking through the Boy's Own Book of the Middle East, and at least try to find out how many Egyptian women have blonde hair, blue eyes and fair skins. Not many, but Jacq hasn't even bothered to get that fairly fundamental background material correct. Everything else is researched just as badly.

In short, if you're looking for a good, accurate, pacy historical novel, look elsewhere. If you read and enjoy this one, fair enough, but PLEASE don't think you've learned anything from it.

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Most Recent Customer Reviews

1.0 out of 5 stars so bad it was insulting
My history with this book is as follows. I picked it up one day at the library and started reading. I got about halfway through it when I got fed up and put it back. Read more
Published on 16 April 2007 by Ahsim

4.0 out of 5 stars good for reading on the bog
reminded me of the Harry Potter books- in so far as the language was fairly basic, yet there was just enough of a story to keep one interested. Read more
Published on 8 Feb 2005 by Tony Blair

4.0 out of 5 stars An interesting introduction to ancient Egypt
I knew little about the ancient Egyptian civilisation and found this series a fascinating introduction to it. Read more
Published on 1 Feb 2005 by George Michalopoulos

1.0 out of 5 stars Stunningly bad
Don't read this book. Its poor. Very poor. Atrocious dialogue (see earlier review). One-dimensional characters . Risible plot. Read more
Published on 6 Jan 2004 by morethansomewhat

4.0 out of 5 stars A good read
This is an easy book to read. It sets out the relationships of the main characters at the start of the book and these build throughout the whole series. Read more
Published on 16 Dec 2003 by minklemar

1.0 out of 5 stars Only fit for loo roll
I felt compelled to review this on principle to bring down it's 4-star rating (how on earth did it get this???!). Read more
Published on 2 Dec 2003 by Insolent Minx

5.0 out of 5 stars Intriguing and captivating
I loved reading this book, and found it hard to put down. If you like reading about ancient egypt, then this is for you. Read more
Published on 26 Oct 2003 by cutemouse

3.0 out of 5 stars Not Impressed!
This book was highly recommended to me, and I must say that half way through the book I was wondering if it was gonna pick up a bit! Read more
Published on 18 Dec 2002 by Meech H

5.0 out of 5 stars The best of the series.
The story opens with the young Ramses facing an enormous bull, under the gaze of the Pharaoh Seti, his father. Read more
Published on 12 April 2002

3.0 out of 5 stars The Son of the light
I tried to read this book, and finally got around to it last week. Several times I picked it up, and then put it down over the year since I bought it. Read more
Published on 18 Mar 2002 by P. Claire Eldred

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