This is a book to become lost in, a story that happens in our world and yet not in our world, bearing elements that are familiar and foreign at the same time. Adams' setting is a mystery, perhaps somewhere around Mesopotamia, perhaps before the first civilizations we know of have risen, but it is never made clear. At its center is Kenderick the Hunter who encounters the fabled Shardik, an enormous bear out of legend. This has repercussions both for his community and for himself.

It is effectively a straight-up fantasy novel with all the trimmings - action, adventure, intrigue - but it has never truly been marketed as such, for some reason. It does lack the quest motif, substituting a study of how religion guides us, or how it is used to manipulate others to do our bidding. Countless wars have been fought in the name of religion, and the actions of this fictional bear cult stand as metaphor for any one of them. Kelderick is portrayed as more given to rational self interest when the bear isn't around; this element is well done.

Adams' message seems to be "Woe betide those who believe they know the will of God", but the bear Shardik is a powerful symbol that leaves generous room for it to be interpreted in multiple ways. Whether it is a god's messenger on earth or only a titanic force of nature, it presents as "something greater than ourselves", and the story revolves around how people react to that, what they build around it, and what are the consequences. In my preferred view Shardik is merely a big dumb animal following its nature, and Bel-ka-Trazet knew what he was talking about. I'm impressed that I felt welcomed to read it that way and enjoy the story without a narrower view being forced upon me. I was neither spoon-fed nor gagged with one. ( )

This is an AMAZING book! The writing is gorgeous, thought-provoking, rich — like a banquet for the mind. I enjoyed almost every bit, and highly recommend it! The writing of the last bit — which seemed like a post finale — was in a bit of a different style, as though a travel journal, and seemed like it could easily have been left off, and the book suffer none for it.

I listened to the Audible version, read by John Lee, which was well-done and added another wonderful depth to it. ( )

I bought this book with Watership Down, I had no idea that Richard Adams was such a descriptive writer, if i had i wouldn't have picked the books up. I handled the first chapter well with the fire chasing the creatures from their homes but after that i began to skim and skip pages just to get some two sentence dialogue.

I thought this was a spiritual story of a bear but the main character is this weak 'simpleton' that is easily swayed and so drab, the other character were also pretty bland and i found them rather boring. Shardik himself is merely a tool of revolution and perhaps just a symbol of hope after the destruction and war.




To sum up this book in one word: long


this book could have been so much shorter without all the unnecessary babbling.
( )

This is my first review but i thought i should get started so yeah.
This is the second worst book I ever read.
First of all, this is the only book I read from this author, so I can't compare it with his other works.
This reading was so slow, and I couldn't read more than 5 pages at time because it was just so boring. I couldn't care less about any of the characters or how the story would have gone on.
It was written horribly: There were so many intrusive comments that were really just uninteresting and just added to the boredom and to slowing the story. It was mostly told and not shown too.
This book doesn't even deserve one star to me ( )

I got about 50 pages in but the narrative was too disjointed to keep my interest.