This novel is a tribute to Universal Studio’s ‘The Mummy’ (1932) which spawned continual imitations, successors, parodies, and mutations. There have been so many successors that they have nearly obscured the fount. The original, by the by, is moody, understated, and terse, whereas most of the spawn are bland, bloated, and blurred.
It starts with a museum of antiquities in Cambridge (England) among myopic bookworms and nerds, along with some shadowy figures who turn to kidnapping when Google Translate fails, and a dark prince. In addition, far away there is a newly discovered and untouched tomb in the Egyptian desert. With these ingredients the ride should be fun! It is a mile a minute once the big gong sounds!
The prize Mummy in the Cambridge Museum breaks out of the glass case that has held its 4000 year old remains. Gulp! He staggers around with an ancient hangover. Woe to anyone who gets in his way. Careful, all ye who look upon Mummy!
Soon the Brotherhood of Wannabe Villains appears to assist Mummy, while the Librarians rally to oppose them. Caught between are assorted Gypo nerds. There is a demonic cat. Feline situation normal.
The cast assembles in the desert where they find the requisite dusty diggers under the direction of Maggie, a fiery site manager, who scares the Mummy. In a straight-up no-holds-barred fight Maggie against the Mummy, the fraternity brothers bet on the Mags, but then changing the odds, the evil queen-pharaoh is reanimated for the showdown in a gore feast. Bad! Good! Turns out, at the moment of truth it was the wrong Mummy! How’s that for a plot twist. It is so hard for evil queens to hire good help for an eternity. Incantations, EEO, hexes, KPIs, mesmerism, spells, LSAT, GPS, minimum wage; nothing is enough!
There are flash backs to the Lost Dynasty Egypt to explain the shrouded players: the priest, the pharaoh-queen, the rebel, and…[was there a cat?]. These seem to go on a little but it is all relevant at the end.
The prose is expository, no flourishes, no elevation, no psychological depth, no big words, but well paced. The characters are differentiated in manner and speech. It reads like a film script to some extent, a comment that would please the author, I expect.
I came across Robin Bailes’s ‘Dark Corners’ movie reviews on You Tube by accident but once I found them, they became addictive. The man has a razor tongue and a mastery of the form with few equals. His five-minute reviews are informative, amusing, insightful, and devastating. Other reviewers on You Tube are, by comparison, self-indulgent, verbose, unfocused, and boring. Better yet, I lodged a suggestion for a film to review and he replied, and later screened the review acknowledging my suggestion. That feedback loop worked, a rarity that.
I signed on as a You Tube follower, became a regular hit at his web site, donated to his cause at Paetreon, and now bought this, his first novel, does all of this make me a Bailesee?
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