The book Ramses the Son of the Light is about the Egyptians. This book is written by Christian Jacq who is a World leading Egyptologist and the author of the series Ramses an international bestselling series. This book is about a boy Ramses who is the younger of Seti the Pharaoh of also known as the Lord of the Two Lands. This book starts of by Seti testing his Son Ramses by making him fight with a bull. Ramses passes the test.The Royal family meaning the Pharaoh's family includes Pharaoh Seti, Queen Tuya, Dolora the oldest of them all, Shanaar the older brother and Ramses the younger son. Shanaar is basically next in line for the throne. Shanaar and Ramses both want to be king but only one can be. Ramses has finished his studies and he wants to know what his five friends want to do as a job, so they meet outside in the town and Ahmeni tells that he wants to become a scribe, Setau wants to become a snake charmer, Ahsha wants to become a government worker kind of like a ambassador and Moses wants to become a builder. The five friends go their ways. Ramses is taught by his father about the Ma'at discipline on earth. Seti teaches Ramses about everything that a Pharaoh should know. Ramses then meets a girl called Iset the Fair and they both become Lovers. Seti then has to leave to check on the North-eastern borders. That's when Ramses figures out that Shanaar has made his friend Ahmeni a worker in the stable. Ramses talks to his mother and then ramses takes a test to pass a Royal scribe he passes the test and Ramses makes Ahmeni his secretary. Ahmeni then tries to solve a case about the cheap quality ink, but he injures himself trying to solve the case and alsmost dies. Shanaar then sends Ramses to the desert to hunt because he became a scribe. The carioteer and partner abandons him and leaves him a guy tries to kill Ramses in the Desert but Ramses kills the murderer and is saved by the rescuers. Ramses thinks his brother did it but he didn't and no one wants to find out who did this. Seti then comes back and takes Shanaar to the war and they return back safely, with a peaceful agreement. After that Seti and Ramses go to a temple where at night someone tries to steal the sacred stones but Ramses gets him and kills him. Then Seti makes Ramses the Prince Regent which means he is next in line for the throne. Shanaar gets jealous and makes plans to kill Ramses. Shanaar even gets Ahsha in his team. Then Seti and Ramses go to the desert to solve the mystery about the deaths that have been happening in the desert they almost die in the desert but they survive and come back. Then the Roman king comes to Egypt to repair his ships. Egyptians let him stay in Egypt whil his ships are being reapaired. Shanaar gets the Roman king in his team. Ahmeni figures out that Ramses teacher Sary had paid the charioteer to kill Ramses. Ramses exiles Sary and when he returns from Osiris he marries Nefertari and Iset the Fair as second wife. Shanaar gets Sary and Dolora in his team. Iset the Fair is also in Shanaar's team. The Roman King is also in Shanaar;s team. Now they are just waiting for the Pharaoh to die and when he does the book ends. The book leaves us with question about if Ramses can take on the light from his father and become a good King like his father?
I was in middle school when i bought this book and read it in the same day. In fact, i read the entire collection that day from early morning to late evening, 12 hours of nonstop reading and i didn't regret one second of it. It was a miracle that they translated it into Romanian, because honestly speaking, i don't get on well with French and French doesn't get on well with me.I haven't reread this book since then, but to my 12-13 year old brain, this book (and the others from the Ramses Series) was a masterpiece. OK, i do admit of having a weak spot for any type of book which focuses on Egypt, but Ramses the Great has been a favorite of mine since the beginning. The characters were well constructed and had a certain magic of their own, the plot kept me with my eyes nearly glued to the paper until i was sure the ink would probably remain stamped on my eyeballs, the details, the world construction and the amount of research into that period made me gain a very big dose of respect for this author and this book. I was dead tired, but kept on reading and sometimes rereading several pages that i liked most. I loved the characters, lived the story along with them, experienced their emotions and made me, as a reader feel completely engrossed in it. In my opinion, this is one of the essential requirements for a well written book. And this series didn't fail me in this aspect. True, it probably won't make me feel exactly the same, now after all these years, if i pick it up again and start rereading it since i have read a looot more and broadened my horizons, but this don't change that i absolutely adored everything about these books. I laughed with the characters, i cried with them and otherwise experienced everything in those hours while i read the books. They might not seem so epic to other people, but to me, they have been the reason i later on picked up every book i spotted or managed to put my hand on and read it with the same zeal and devotion. All in all, the Ramses series is a must on my list and on my bookshelves. Definably unforgettable after all this years.I know a lot of people won't share my enthusiasm and love for these books, but it's one person's point of view; i for one adore anything Egyptian and i do admit my review might have been slightly - or more so - influenced by this. But it is still a big favorite and i recommend it to anybody who shares my passion for Egypt and the times of old.
Do You like book Ramses: The Son Of Light (1997)?
I wanted to like this more. After all, it's a book about Ramses - probably the best known Pharoah, after Tutankhamen. He's interesting, if just for the fact that he made thousands of statues of himself. Unfortunately, I had a hard time getting attached to any of the characters. Not even Ramses himself. For some reason, all of the characters felt slightly distant. I just couldn't connect with them. Maybe it's the translation? Because there were a lot of grammatical errors which were clearly translation issues. So maybe this is better in its original French. Some of it felt like it was very historically inaccurate. However, when I looked at Jacq's bio, it's hard to imagine he can be anything but credible. He's definitely very knowledgeable in all things Egypt and Ramses. So maybe it was just my own amateur knowledge of Egyptology that was inaccurate. I don't know.Something that bugged me and stuck with me though, was the use of the word "touché". It's a French word that did not exist until the 1900s, give or take. So about three thousand years after Ramses. Having that word in the book just bothered me for some reason. Again, it might be the translator's fault. I don't know. Despite that, I didn't hate it. I love everything Ancient Egypt, so I guess that's no surprise. It was an interesting story, even if some of the plot bunnies were a bit... silly (the secretary gets all upset over cheap ink stones; sure, it does lead to a serious plot point, but it seemed melodramatic). The conversations were just awful. They were very flat. Plus, he doesn't like telling you who is saying what, and I always lost track of who exactly was saying which line. That got confusing after a while. Especially when he would have half a page of dialogue, with no indications of who was speaking at the moment, except for the first two lines. It was really hard to keep track of, especially since all the characters pretty much sounded the same. It was a very easy read because the style was so simplistic (almost boringly so). So I managed to read it rather quickly. And I did read all of it. I wasn't hating it while I read it, but I definitely wasn't enjoying it. It was rather disappointing. I probably won't be picking up the next one.
—Nick
c1997: Pharoah, machinations, Moses, scribe, Nefertari. One of those books that I should have loved! Not so, I'm afraid. Did I perhaps miss that this was written for children or for people with absolutely no general knowledge whatsoever? Sadly, one of my flaws is that I had never heard of Graham Hancock who reviews/reviewed this book for the Daily Mail. He found it 'extremely hard to put down'. So, I looked up his website in which it is modestly stated "author of the major international bestsellers The Sign and The Seal, Fingerprints of the Gods, and Heaven's Mirror. His books have sold more than five million copies worldwide and have been translated into 27 languages." Hmm - clearly I am not as wide read as I like to think I am. Unfortunately, I found the writing style turgid, the characters like cardboard cut outs and the plot line a little basic. Sadly not for me at all so I would be unable to recommend to any of the normal crew. "Although Ramses had never said a word, Ahmeni felt guilty. Taking a day off seemed like an unforgivable sin."
—Ruth
Christian Jacq rarely disappoints with his Egyptian novels but, unfortunately, this series was not to his usual standard. While he has put the same amount of dedicated historical research into the novel he misses the mark a little on some of the more speculative areas. The life of Ramses is fascinating and Jacq certainly manages to get that across but his speculations regarding Moses were, in my opinion, a little off the mark and not really supported by current Christian/Egyptian scholarship. For me personally I found that it detracted somewhat from the overall storyline but otherwise it's an excellent read.If you're not bothered [as I am:] by a little historical inaccuracy then I would recommend this series. If you like your history, Christian or otherwise, to be more accurately rendered then I'd skip this one and try one of Jacq's other offerings.
—Tracey Alley
