Despite its perks, immortality can, apparently, be a bore.
An ageless Egyptian pharaoh and his band of immortal friends (and enemies) descend on England on the eve of the Great War in a sequel co-authored by mother and son Rices.
In Anne Rice’s The Mummy (1989), Ramses II, known as the Great, whose long reign ended in the 13th century B.C.E., was resurrected in 1914 by English shipping magnate and archaeology dilettante Lawrence Stratford—or, more accurately, reawakened. After ingesting a special elixir, Ramses had become immortal. The earmarks of immortality include insatiable hunger (without gaining weight), capacity for alcohol (sans drunkenness, addiction, and/or liver damage), inexhaustible sexual prowess, and physical invulnerability. Not to mention that it turns your eyes blue. Occasionally, even immortals need a rest, so they secret themselves in a dark place, a pharaoh’s tomb, say, and wait for sunlight to rouse them again. Now the toast of London as Reginald Ramsey, Egyptologist, Ramses has shared the forever potion with his beloved, Julie, daughter and only heir of his now deceased discoverer. Elsewhere, assorted characters of varying longevity are slouching toward a stately home where Julie’s former fiance (no hard feelings), Alex, is hosting an engagement party for Julie and "Ramsey." Cleopatra, whose mummified remains, on display in the Cairo Museum, Ramses had revivified with a few drops of the elixir, is understandably perplexed, being the only immortal raised from actual death. Bektaten, monarch of an ancient African civilization, invented the elixir; she’s after Ramses because she suspects he stole the formula. Seeking the pure blend, not the bowdlerized version they ingested, are the fracti, hangers-on of Bektaten’s archenemy Saqnos, who live only 200 years and hope to extend their sell-by date. Complicated? Definitely, as is the plot to kidnap Julie at the party and the mind-meld that enmeshes Cleopatra and Sibyl Parker, a successful American writer of Egypt-themed pulp fiction. Once the party is in progress, the clashing immortals generate a modicum of excitement, though not enough to justify the copious expository front-loading and preachy dialogue.
Despite its perks, immortality can, apparently, be a bore.Pub Date: Nov. 21, 2017
ISBN: 978-1-101-97032-4
Page Count: 416
Publisher: Anchor
Review Posted Online: Sept. 5, 2017
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 1, 2017
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
IN THE NEWS
A tasty, if not always tasteful, tale of supernatural mayhem that fans of King and Crichton alike will enjoy.
Are we not men? We are—well, ask Bigfoot, as Brooks does in this delightful yarn, following on his bestseller World War Z(2006).
A zombie apocalypse is one thing. A volcanic eruption is quite another, for, as the journalist who does a framing voice-over narration for Brooks’ latest puts it, when Mount Rainier popped its cork, “it was the psychological aspect, the hyperbole-fueled hysteria that had ended up killing the most people.” Maybe, but the sasquatches whom the volcano displaced contributed to the statistics, too, if only out of self-defense. Brooks places the epicenter of the Bigfoot war in a high-tech hideaway populated by the kind of people you might find in a Jurassic Park franchise: the schmo who doesn’t know how to do much of anything but tries anyway, the well-intentioned bleeding heart, the know-it-all intellectual who turns out to know the wrong things, the immigrant with a tough backstory and an instinct for survival. Indeed, the novel does double duty as a survival manual, packed full of good advice—for instance, try not to get wounded, for “injury turns you from a giver to a taker. Taking up our resources, our time to care for you.” Brooks presents a case for making room for Bigfoot in the world while peppering his narrative with timely social criticism about bad behavior on the human side of the conflict: The explosion of Rainier might have been better forecast had the president not slashed the budget of the U.S. Geological Survey, leading to “immediate suspension of the National Volcano Early Warning System,” and there’s always someone around looking to monetize the natural disaster and the sasquatch-y onslaught that follows. Brooks is a pro at building suspense even if it plays out in some rather spectacularly yucky episodes, one involving a short spear that takes its name from “the sucking sound of pulling it out of the dead man’s heart and lungs.” Grossness aside, it puts you right there on the scene.
A tasty, if not always tasteful, tale of supernatural mayhem that fans of King and Crichton alike will enjoy.Pub Date: June 16, 2020
ISBN: 978-1-9848-2678-7
Page Count: 304
Publisher: Del Rey/Ballantine
Review Posted Online: Feb. 9, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 2020
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK TO SCREEN
A breezy and fun contemporary fantasy.
A tightly wound caseworker is pushed out of his comfort zone when he’s sent to observe a remote orphanage for magical children.
Linus Baker loves rules, which makes him perfectly suited for his job as a midlevel bureaucrat working for the Department in Charge of Magical Youth, where he investigates orphanages for children who can do things like make objects float, who have tails or feathers, and even those who are young witches. Linus clings to the notion that his job is about saving children from cruel or dangerous homes, but really he’s a cog in a government machine that treats magical children as second-class citizens. When Extremely Upper Management sends for Linus, he learns that his next assignment is a mission to an island orphanage for especially dangerous kids. He is to stay on the island for a month and write reports for Extremely Upper Management, which warns him to be especially meticulous in his observations. When he reaches the island, he meets extraordinary kids like Talia the gnome, Theodore the wyvern, and Chauncey, an amorphous blob whose parentage is unknown. The proprietor of the orphanage is a strange but charming man named Arthur, who makes it clear to Linus that he will do anything in his power to give his charges a loving home on the island. As Linus spends more time with Arthur and the kids, he starts to question a world that would shun them for being different, and he even develops romantic feelings for Arthur. Lambda Literary Award–winning author Klune (The Art of Breathing, 2019, etc.) has a knack for creating endearing characters, and readers will grow to love Arthur and the orphans alongside Linus. Linus himself is a lovable protagonist despite his prickliness, and Klune aptly handles his evolving feelings and morals. The prose is a touch wooden in places, but fans of quirky fantasy will eat it up.
A breezy and fun contemporary fantasy.Pub Date: March 17, 2020
ISBN: 978-1-250-21728-8
Page Count: 352
Publisher: Tor
Review Posted Online: Nov. 10, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 1, 2019
PERSPECTIVES
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