CALL IT RHODESIA

. . . or better yet, call it hacked out, hoked up history. General readers may like this kind of book--it follows the predictable course of a he-man, pioneer progenitor even unto the third generation. The publishers hopefully call your attention to certain likenesses in plot, intent and ability with the late Robert Ruark. However, Ballinger hasn't got nearly the same sustained, lubricious way with sex scenes between white hunter and savage maiden. What this presents is only one African, a bush Uncle Tom, with any dignity. Unfortunately the other stereotypes of the barely sleeping cannibal have been jumping from the jungles to the international headlines and the undiscriminating discriminating reader will be impressed by the reality (?). Alexander Strang went to Rhodesia late in the 19th century, tried grabbing gold from the natives, but switched to farming when that didn't pan out. He snatched his partner's imported intended--an Earth Goddess out of Scotland, whose firstborn arrived almost by Caeserean section during a restless native siege. It shifts back and forth between the dwindling dynasties of the competing ex-partners right down to the declaration of Rhodesian Independence, telescoping the issues, lulling with its likenesses to an American western, peeking at the nasty ways of natives or demoralized white settlers. . . . Call it for what it is -- commercial, embarrassing.