When the Lion Feeds (Courtney publication, #1; Courtney chronological, #9) by Wilbur Smith

When the Lion Feeds (Courtney publication, #1; Courtney chronological, #9) Reviews

• 
  Graham

  An outstanding first novel from Wilbur Smith.
  
  This one has it all: romance, adventure, war, intrigue, horror, danger, family saga and betrayal. It brings an era of African history to life both richly and with plenty of verve. It may be a cliche to say so, but I couldn't put it down.
  
  The book is segmented into three sections. The first is an almost autobiographical account of growing up on a rural farmstead. Here we're introduced to a pair of larger than life characters, Sean and Garry, who straight away reminded me of George and Lenny in OF MICE AND MEN.
  
  The second section of the book changes track and covers the development of Johannesburg, the gold rush and life on the stock exchange. I thought figures were boring, but there's the same level of breakneck excitement here as there was in the card games of Fleming's CASINO ROYALE.
  
  The final section explores life in the wilderness, and elephant hunting features a lot. Each to their own, but the African flora and fauna comes to life in the author's expert hands as he explores scenery that he would revisit time and again in his career.
  
  The book ends rather abruptly and afterwards I learned a sequel, THE SOUND OF THUNDER, carries on the same story. I'll definitely be getting hold of it.
• 
  Eric

  When it comes to historical fiction, Wilbur Smith writes some of the best stories I have read. I have been reading the Courtney series out of sequence. When the Lion Feeds is the first book in the series.
  
  Sean Courtney is a character who is larger than life in the story. I found myself totally engrossed in the story. Africa in late 1800's provides the backdrop for this epic tale. A good portion is dedicated to Sean's adventures in the Witwatersrand region of South Africa. This region was one world's most lucrative gold mining area which lead to the founding of Johannesburg.
  
  There are portions of the story I found predictable. This did not keep me being absorbed in the story with a sad ending. On to the next book in the series!
• 
  Rob

  I read this when it was first published back in 1965. At the time I was captivated by the book and read them all with enthusiasm. Now 53 years later my thoughts have changed a bit.
  I can't say that I didn't enjoy it the second time around but there were parts that just made me cringe.
  In essence, this is a melodramatic family saga with the African bush as a backdrop. Sean Courtney's, the principal character, life goes from dizzying highs to catastrophic lows. But no matter how bad things get for Sean, and they get pretty bad, he still manages to pull his boots up and go forward to his next adventure.
  
  The world has become a lot more politically correct over the last 53 years and whilst you may not want to be influenced by it , like or not, you are.
  Whilst reading I had to keep reminding myself that this all takes place 150 years ago and not be too judgemental.
  The wholesale slaughter of herds of Elephants for their Ivory. Sean's Zulu servant treated like loved gun dogs. Sean taking his wife out, for a treat, on a shopping expedition but then only letting her purchase items that he approved of.
  Sean was all these thing and more and was considered a man above others.
  
  Today he would be a, misogynistic racist who kills wild animals for pleasure and money.
  But for all that, if you like family sagas you can't go wrong with this. It has everything, including the kitchen sink.
• 
  BAM the enigma

  I picked this book to fulfill my challenge requirement. I did not expect to enjoy it. It is not what I typically read. I was pleasantly surprised.
  Set in South Africa on the mid to late 1800s, the reader follows the vicissitudes of the rambunctious Sean, who grows from cattlehand on the family ranch to gold miner and ivory hunter. He finds lovers, enemies, comrades. He hunts, kills, invests, and somehow always prevails.
  This is book one in a series of about fourteen. It definitely sparks interest in the next novel.
  
  
  2017 Reading Challenge:takes place in the wilderness
• 
  Debbie Zapata

  I have read many Wilbur Smith titles over the years, but it was not until April of this year that I read three of the Courtney series titles one right after the other. Numbers 4, 5, and 6. Reading those three books made me want to learn the history of this fictional family.
  
  Not only was When The Lion Feeds the beginning of the Courtney books, it was the real beginning of Smith's writing career. His first published novel, it debuted in 1964 and was a world wide best seller (except in South Africa, where it was banned). According to wiki Smith never intended for the Courtney saga to become a saga, but he ended up writing sixteen titles concerned with them.
  
  I found it interesting to see the beginnings of everything after i had read those three later books. I learned how friends (and enemies) got together, and could finally understand all the historic details referred to in passing in other books. And I didn't wait too long after my other reads. All of the characters I met back in April were still fresh in my mind. That certainly helped.
  
  Here we meet Sean and Garrick Courtney, twins born in South Africa in the late 1800's. There is a link between them, and yet there is also a rift as wide as the Grand Canyon and we learn the reasons for that right away. It was an accident, of course. But it shaped their lives as nothing else ever would.
  
  Sean pretty much takes over the tale. He was the more dominant twin, an adventurer, a man's man in a man's world. I tended to like him better, even knowing what I knew of both their futures from the other books I had read. The main thing I was interested in here was learning all of the back story, and boy was it a doozie!
  
  Fortunes won and lost, mining, hunting (the elephant hunting scenes were horrendous, though), bizarre deaths and horses that trippled. (I had to look that one up, by the way. Turns out a horse is trippling when it move the two legs on the right side together and then the two legs on the left. I would call that pacing, but the dictionary's synonym for the word was ambling.)
  
  I could certainly see hints of Smith's future style in this book. It was just as captivating, but there were some gaps in the flow compared with later titles, and not quite as much thoroughness as in other books.
  
  Already I am about halfway through the sequel to this book, which was published just two years later, and Smith's work is much more polished, with the story feeling more complete. I can hardly put the book down. Come to think of it, I have babbled enough here. I'm going to get back to South Africa for more of The Sound Of Thunder.
• 
  Bettie

  John Cartwright Duration: 15:13
  
  Description: 'Something always dies when the lion feeds and yet there is meat for those that follow him.' The lion is Sean, hero of this tremendous drama of the men who took possession of South Africa in the last quarter of the nineteenth century.
  
  Sean and his twin-brother Garrick grew up on their father's farm in Natal. The first part of the book deals with his childhood and youth and his longing to become a successful farmer and hard-hitting fighter like his father.
  
  The tough life of cattle-farming is brusquely interrupted by the Zulu Wars, when Sean and his brother see fighting for the first time. Wilbur Smith vividly recreates the excitement of the war for the young men-their hope of winning their own cattle, the horror of the massacre at Isandhlwana, the heroism of the defence at Rorkes Drift.
  
  'Witwatersrand' is the name of the second part of this book and it tells the story of Sean's fabulous success in the gold rush and his rich life with Duff Charleywood and the beautiful Candy in the new town of Johannesburg, where huge fortunes were made and lost in a morning's dealing on the Exchange.
  
  The atmosphere of this feverish, violent time is brilliantly drawn: the heavy drinking, the elaborate houses, the ruthless abandonment of the failure. Sean and Duff are caught at last in a trap laid by their rival, the sinister and clever Hradsky, and leave Johannesburg for the wilderness to seek their fortunes once more.
  
  And I'm away with the Courtneys at last...
  
  Cracking starter novel.
  
  From wiki: The novel was banned in South Africa on the grounds of obscenity and blasphemy. Heinemann appealed this to the South African Supreme Court and succeeded in having the decision overturned. However, this was reversed on appeal, and the ban stayed.
  
  Courtney:
  4* When the Lion Feeds
  
  Ballantyne:
  4* A Falcon Flies
  4* Men of Men
  3* The Angels Weep
  TR The Triumph of the Sun (Courtney, #12)
  
  Ancient Egypt:
  4* River God
  5* The Seventh Scroll
  3* Warlock
  1* The Quest
  MB Desert God
  
  Standalones:
  4* The Sunbird
  TR Elephant Song
  TR A Time to Die
  2* Shout at the Devil
  TR Eagle in the Sky
  3* The Eye of the Tiger
  1* Those in Peril
  3* Hungry as the Sea
  3* Golden Fox
  3* The Dark of the Sky
  4* The Diamond Hunters
  TR Cry Wolf
  3* Gold Mine
  
  
  
  
• 
  Lynn

  Read 100 pages and decided it wasn't for me. I kept having flashbacks to Rich Man, Poor Man and who wants to be reminded of that crappy potboiler?
• 
  Matt

  As I begin my semi-annual trek to binge read a sizeable series by an author previously foreign to me, Wilbur Smith seemed like an easy choice. His Courtney/Ballantyne series (some argue they are branch-offs of one another, others that they do not connect at all) should be a wonderfully complex and entertaining collection, worth a few months' investment. Twins Sean and Garrick Courtney were connected by birth, but could not have been more different. Growing up in South Africa in the mid- to late-19th century, their lives were shaped by a world that straddles primitive Africa and technologies from colonial Europe. After a freak accident at the hand of his brother when they were young, Garrick is left without a leg and Sean's guilt mounts. Garrick is able to use this to his advantage, which progresses into young adulthood. When the Courtney brothers accompany their father into a battle with one of the African tribes, Garrick and Sean fight for their country, the former the only one to return. Garrick takes his brother's pregnant girlfriend, Anna, under his wing, choosing to marry her and play father to the future child. When Sean reappears, Garrick must make some significant choices, realising that his brother's massive persona will not fade into the background. Garrick disappears into the bottle and is left out of the narrative, permitting Sean to tackle new and exciting challenges on which Smith takes the reader. Sean explores the South African gold rush, able to make a fortune before he is tricked and loses everything. Refusing to give up, Sean takes up a new path as an ivory hunter, where he is able to rebuild and meet the woman of his dreams. It is then that he begins to set roots in the booming environs of Johannesburg, adding a son to his family and beginning to look ahead to the next generation of Courtneys. An exhilarating beginning to a powerful series whose importance flows from the pages and the attentive reader will surely enjoy.
  
  I had heard much about Smith in my years as a reader, but chose not to approach his books, unsure if they would be of interest to me. Being a great fan of all things historical, I thought I would take the plunge. What is great about this series is that it is set in Africa, an area with which I have little knowledge. The settings are thick with detail in such a way that only Smith could pen effectively, as an African himself. He does not yet tackle much of the racial strive that is sure to transpire in the area, but hints at the Boer War on the horizon. The novel moves along in three significant parts, each of which shows Sean Courtney in his various life paths. Smith effectively weaves a tale to show how Sean dealt with adversity, while peppering the narrative with the life of Garrick, whose demise has not hampered his style. The curious reader may wonder what happens to Garrick, who will hopefully appear in future novels to flesh out his role and the reason Smith used him in the early chapters of the book. While the narrator of the audiobook I chose tried to bore me to tears, I sought to wrestle the story out of his monotonous voice and find vigour in the way Smith approached telling this important inaugural story in the Courtney series. I found success in it and can only hope the numerous storylines flourish with the remaining novels in this series, throughout the three collections on offer.
  
  Kudos, Mr. Smith for this wonderful beginning to an exciting series I will surely devour over the next few months. Show me the wonders of Africa and how it was shaped by internal and external strife.
  
  Like/hate the review? An ever-growing collection of others appears at:
  
  http://pecheyponderings.wordpress.com/
• 
  Bill

  Wilbur Smith is one of those names you see taking up three to four shelves in used bookstores, with weathered spines and yellowed pages. Jeffrey Archer is another one.
  I only bother to mention Jeffrey Archer because I found these two to be very similar in writing styles as well. The fact that the only books I've read by these fellas have been their first may be the reason this is so.
  
  When the Lion Feeds is something I needed at the time (and what do you know, this is exactly how I started my review for Archer's Kane and Abel), and that is simply a good story. You know, just a good story as if someone were to stop you on the street and tell you what happened. For 30 hours or so...
  
  Anyways, what I'm getting at is that like Archer, it's a rather thinly told story for the most part. There isn't a whole lot of ink spent on lavish descriptions or overly complex characterization. Rather you're focused on things that are happening in the here and now (and, thankfully, he totally glossed over any battle details when the time came. I HATE reading battle scenes!).
  
  Smith did pleasantly surprise me a few times with his characters, though. It didn't happen a lot, but when it did I could see a lot of potential to come with subsequent novels. He also surprised me nicely with some of the turns the plot took.
  
  This is very good storytelling. It was recommended by a friend who has read the entire Courtney series, and when I bought it at the used book store, the guy there told me "Oh, I loved that series years ago!".
  So, I'm giving this one a firm 3.5 stars, with the assurance of a good series to fall back on when I just need a good story.
  
  It's also worth noting that this is the first time ever that reading about 1880s stock exchange action got my heart racing. Very nice!
  
• 
  Jane

  SO many reasons to hate this saga of South Africa:
  1. Happy natives who smile like children as they kill themselves working for white men
  2. Major elephant slaughters
  3. Men raping the environment as they cheat each other over shady deals
  4. The same men treating women the way they treat the natives - horribly
  5. Melodramas galore: a man dying of hydrophobia, symptoms described with loving detail; ditto a woman suffering from Blackwater fever; a child forced to witness his brother's leg being amputated; a jealous wife throwing herself into a mining pit; a man killing a leopard with his bare hands.
  And this is just the first in a series of SEVENTEEN books. As Yogi Berra said, include me out!
  
• 
  Sallie Dunn

  ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
  
  When the Lion Feeds had been lingering on my Kindle app for five years until I chose it to fill a prompt in a reading challenge. Talk about flawed characters! (My favorite kind!)
  
  Sean and Garrick Courtney are twin brothers. This is classic strong brother vs weak brother but not so much good vs evil. In childhood there is a terrible hunting accident that leaves Garrick with a lifelong disability. These boys grow into young men with a conflicting love/hate relationship. There is plenty of action in this novel. In the author’s own words: “I wrote about hunting and gold mining and carousing and women. I wrote about love and loving and hating.” In fact, this book, set in South Africa, was banned there for 11 years after its publication for “promiscuity, passionate love scenes, sexual intercourse, obscene language, blasphemous language, sadism and cruelty.”
  
  I was surprised to learn this was Wibur Smith’s debut novel, published in 1964. He went on to write 19 more books in the Courtney family series, and many others as well. He was a prolific writer who passed away in 2021 at the age of 88. I’m pretty sure I’ll read the next one in the series before too long.
  
  ATY Goodreads Challenge - 2023
  Prompt #7- A book with one of the five “W” question words in the title
• 
  Shane

  Reading this Wilbur Smith novel, three decades after I read the last one, The Dark of the Sun, I quickly realized how far I have strayed from reading popular fiction: like hero Sean Courtney, once you leave home, you can never come back.
  
  This book is still a page turner despite its age. Short chapters, each with incidents of dramatic consequence, thread about 20 years of the hero’s life, from his days on the family farm in Natal to his intention of returning home to visit his alcoholic twin brother; the typical hero’s journey: escaping home, adventures abroad and regaining home.
  
  Sean is the opposite of his twin Garrick. His ebullience and impulsiveness leaves Garrick a cripple. His lustful impetuousness lands damsels in distress and Garrick has to clean up after him. He fights in the Zulu uprising, sires bastards, makes and loses a fortune in the Witwatersrand, goes elephant hunting in the Limpopo, loses friends, wives, children and, while still in his early thirties, decides to cut his losses and return home with a stash of ivory. That is, if the home he has known can ever be regained. In a nutshell, that is the story, but there are far too many twists and turns in this plot to record or remember everything in between. Smith leaves the book well poised for a sequel, and for many more featuring the Courtney family.
  
  The culture of the times is pretty clear: the white man is king, the black man follows and puts his life on hold for his fair master, women are chattels, greed is fuelled by gold, racketeering is rife in frontier towns and “In order to live, man must occasionally kill.” Hunting is a possessive love. Scenes of the South African Veldt, and its flora and fauna are authoritatively drawn.
  
  All that said, there is a lot of awkward writing. The characters and their emotions run shallow unlike the deep gold veins that they mine in Johannesburg. Sean bounces back from his many tragedies like a bird shaking off water from its feathers. Some scenes are glossed over for there is too much happening anyway. The foreshadowing is clumsy, almost like an omniscient narrator intruding to alert us to what lies ahead, even reminding us of what is to come during the Boer War, which is outside the time span of this book. The sudden shift in POV, especially when it is carried by a minor or newly arrived character, is jarring. And the melodrama...oh the melodrama... Part three of the book is the best section as it portrays a deeper character investment, as if Smith is maturing in his craft just as Sean is maturing with his many losses.
  
  This is a good adventure story and a great debut novel for Smith at the time. My travels will however be into other lands and other books and I will bid the Courtneys “totsiens.”
  
  
• 
  Jim A

  This is a reread for me. I first read this about 20/25 years ago. To me the story is run of the mill. What keeps me interested is the descriptions Smith writes of Africa. This novel, the first of the original three Courtney novels, is about making and losing a fortune in the gold fields of Africa and then making another fortune in ivory from elephant tusks.
  
  Good story for any reader who, like me, gets caught up in the descriptions the author is trying to share.
• 
  Claire Hayward

  *edit* upon second thoughts I actually really didn’t enjoy this book… too many of the ‘tragedies’ could’ve been solved with some simple communication, the female characters sucked and it was quite racist (yes it was set in 1860 South Africa and was written by a white man in the 60s but that’s too much for me)
  
  2.5 rounded up to 3 because it was still a book with words and it had some patches of great writing
  
  I liked the general idea of the plot but it would have benefitted greatly from a strong editor and about 200 less pages
• 
  Angie Rhodes

  When it comes to action packed stories, full if excitement, charming hero's and of course the rotten to the. core bad guy, Wilbur Smith is the go to writer.
  Wilbur's books are not aimed at just aimed at men, far from it, they are for anyone, who like me, loves to travel to Africa, from the comfort of my chair' ,
  He also writes about Egypt, (Historical) So go on, pick up a Wilbur Smith, you will be hooked...
• 
  Mari

  "First published: 1964" - one can tell.
• 
  John Paxton

  Good start to the Courtney series look forward to the same action and detail.
• 
  Frank

  ⭐️⭐️⭐️1/2 rounded up to 4
  
  This is the first book that Smith wrote (published in 1964) about the Courtney family in Africa. Although it is the first book written, it is not chronologically first. Smith wrote several prequels to this one including BIRDS OF PREY, MONSOON, and BLUE HORIZON. These novels take place starting in the 1600s and tell of the origins of the family. I have read all of these and enjoyed them a lot.
  
  WHEN THE LION FEEDS is set in South Africa from the 1860s-1890s and introduces Sean and Garrick Courtney, the twin sons of Waite Courtney, a wealthy ranch owner outside of the port of Natal. During a hunting excursion, Sean accidentally shoots Garrick in the leg resulting in it being amputated. Sean becomes guilt-ridden and tries to be Garrick's protector but Garrick uses Sean and manipulates him because of the injury. Then comes their participation in the Zulu war which results in Waite's death and Sean's presumed death. While Sean is missing, Garrick marries Sean's girlfriend and the fallout then drives Sean north to find riches in the gold mines near Johannesburg. He later loses his fortune and goes hunting for ivory where he meets his future wife, a Boer farm girl. And then tragedy ensues...
  
  This book as usual was full of adventure and also provided some history of South Africa including the Anglo-Zulu war and the lead-in to the Boer War. The book was also full of violence and death with some of the main characters meeting brutal ends. It also included the brutality of ivory hunting and the needless killing of magnificent elephants. Although this could be very triggering for some, it was also a way of life during that time because of the value of ivory. Overall, I did enjoy this one and will probably be reading more in the series but I didn't really care for the tragic ending to this novel. I thought it was somewhat contrived and hard to believe.
• 
  Steph Cumbie

  Having read all of his Egypt books (and LOVING them) I decided to tackle his Courtney series set in S. Africa.
  
  The story is broken in 3 parts.
  In the first part I had a hard time at first with the main character (Sean...he was a real turd lol) but once the story got going and other characters were introduced I forgot all about the first part of the book and really enjoyed the adventure.There were some serious ups and downs...I even cried at one point. I had a hard time putting it down at times.
  
  I didn't like the way it ended...too many loose ends...but there are many books that follow.
  I really enjoyed this book but don't know if it was enough to read the rest of the series.
  
  
  
  
• 
  S.R.R. Colvin

  This is one of Smith's older books and what a welcome relief it was to read a real beginning!
  
  This one starts out telling a story of twins Sean and Garrick Courtney and allows the reader an opportunity to grow close to the characters before following them into action.
  
  I am so worn out with books that start in the "heat of battle" with characters the reader hasn't had time to love or hate. I realize that's the unfortunate current formula to get an agent to request a manuscript, but I LOVE that "When the Lion Feeds" is above that.
  
  If all older books are written in this style, then I'm going retro!
  
  
• 
  Jesse

  Wow. The end of this book just stunned me. This was quite an amazing story and given the length of this series (13 books in total from the looks of it) and the mass-market paperback-edness of it, I was expecting a lot of heroism, action, some tragedy and just an overall feeling of fluff. I could not have been more wrong. This was utterly fantastic and riveting. Adventure, coming-of-age, drama and historical fiction full of brutal realism and humanity. For the most part, the characters aren't heroes or people to look up to. They're flawed, make major mistakes and pay dearly for them. I'm totally sold and am eager to see how the story develops.
• 
  Sean N Noonan

  An exhillerating adventure, the excitement and pace are breathtaking. The way in which action and passion are mixed leads me to want to be able to write with such a style. The world the book describes never really existed, the characters and morals are more fantastical than real life drama, but that is part of the story's beauty.
  
  Hat's off to a Master story teller! Not that I am the first to say so, nor the foremost...
• 
  Manuela

  Buono, anche se a mio avviso non il migliore di Smith; decisamente migliore Monsone. Importante per la delineazione del personaggio di Sean Courteney, che sarà protagonista anche dei successivi romanzi della saga dei Courteney.
  
  Riletto dopo quasi 25 anni, devo dire che è invecchiato bene.
• 
  Harry Gordon

  Excellent old fashioned African adventure complete with buxom babes and Zulu warriors.
  Wilbur Smith is interesting. Will check out more in this series.
• 
  Ram

  First thing I have to say about this book is that reading the description of the book in Goodreads, gives away allot of the plot and basically includes spoilers.
  
  So when reading this book, the plot (or at least the main direction where the plot was going) was not a big surprise.
  The descriptions and the incidents that lead to the plot were interesting and very era dependent. Nowadays, this would be considered not very political correct but I assume they describe the era accurately.
  
  The book is well researched and gives you a good indication of the events, people, environment and atmosphere that lead to the establishment and growth of Johannesburg.
  
  I read the first four books of Wilbur Smith’s Ancient Egypt series and I have read at least another one of his books that is not part of that series but I don’t remember which. This book met my expectations, it is not a gem of literature but it does include some action, romance, drama, history,
  adventure, nature and more.
  It is a good representation of it’s genre and I will probably continue to the next one soon.
  
  My rating for this book is between 3 to 4, closer to 4….. so I rounded it up.
  
• 
  Furnison

  7/10. Had a read it 35 years ago I probably would have given 5 stars. But, tastes change as you age.
• 
  Arthur

  This is the first volume in the two volume of When the Lion Feeds by Wilbur Smith from the Courteney series. This may obviously be the same ISBN for both the first volume paper back issue and the hard book of its entire two volumes in one book. I read the first volume and rushed back to get the second volume in vein of reading most of the Courteney series.
  The average point’s skillmanship writing and some loose writing contained here. The story starts first with the background as life being important to two young boys growing. Then they turn into men. Life changes for them because of strife around the world that doesn’t seem to affect their life. They are fortunate and wealthy. They are around cattle. Life during well known gold rushes going into years that becomes an area of great tinkering and knowledge. And is a certain taste for everyone’s having aforethought in realms this type of literature for sure.
• 
  Bonnie

  Wilbur Smith's very first book. This book starts the Courtney series and takes place in South Africa just before the Boer War. Sean and his twin brother Garrick borrow their father's shotgun and go hunting while their parents are out. Sean trips and accidentally shoots his brother. Garrick loses his leg, and thus starts the saga of the Courtney brothers. Sean eventually leaves the family farm and strikes out with his ever faithful companion and servant Mbejane. There he finds wealth, power, adventure and eventually love. But is that love really meant to last... A well written, fast paced, historically accurate adventure that will hold you to the very last word.
• 
  Conrad K.

  Wilbur Smith has always been a favorite of readers in Southern Africa. His style of writing seems to hit a note with many who live in that region. This book - the first he published in 1964 - tells the story of two young brothers growing up on a farm in Natal and torn apart by actions in their youth. They become involved in the Zulu Wars and then, as young men become rich in the Witwatersrand Gold Rush. This is family saga that contains everything - danger, poverty, victory, injustice, romance, sickness, sadness. All of the drama and intensity of the Dark continent. A must read.