Most of his misadventures are predictable: the maps aren't infallible, the vehicle breaks down repeatedly, border crossings are difficult, there are plenty of guys with guns shaking people down, and so forth. As with any good travel writer, he has plenty of self-depreciation on hand, and is quick to admit his own mistakes, but it masks a certain smugness as well. A full third of the book is spent obtaining a vehicle, and Steven's wraps things up rather abruptly in the middle of the desert in Algeria. A far better trip about driving across the Sahara and into sub-Sahara Africa is William Langwiesche's Sahara Unveiled and the first section of Robert Kaplan's The Ends of the Earth is a more contemporary and levelheaded look at traveling in West Africa.
The reader is mediocre at best. The myriad of accents required seem well beyond his capabilities, and he pretty much mangles the book's few French phrases.
