“Saqqara, Egypt, 1888, and in
the booby-trapped tomb of an ancient sorcerer, Rom, a young Egyptologist, makes
the discovery of a lifetime: five coffins and an eerie, oversized sarcophagus.
But the expedition seems cursed, for after unearthing the mummies, all but Rom
die horribly. He faithfully returns to America with his disturbing cargo,
continuing by train to Los Angeles, home of his reclusive sponsor. When the
train is hijacked by murderous banditos in the Arizona desert, who steal the
mummies and flee over the border, Rom – with his benefactor’s rebellious
daughter, an orphaned Chinese busboy, and a cold-blooded gunslinger – must ride
into Mexico to bring the malevolent mummies back. If only mummies were their
biggest problem.”
This Indiana Jones/The Mummy hybrid where
author SA Sidor (who has published four thriller under the name of Steven Sidor) adds doses of pulp-ish noir sadly never really gets out of
third gear.
Still, I generally found Fury From
the Tomb to be an entertaining book, filled with mummies, a giant white worm, a
gunslinger, and little tomb robbing on the side. The book is also frustrating in
a few things. I’ve mentioned before of not having a fondness for first person
narratives –it’s a literary device that only works once in a while, and only in
limited genres. But beyond that, I actually found the narrator a bit annoying –he
likes the sound of his own voice and appears to know too much about everything.
Being this way, he goes off on endless rants that goes on for multiple pages and
that would slow the intrigue and adventure down (sort of like if Indiana Jones
stopped beating on Nazi’s to offer a discourse on boot designs of the Third
Reich).
I also like the dynamics of the four
main characters, who Sidor breathes life into. However, it did seem weird to me
that these folks of 1888 seemed completely unfazed with all the supernatural
stuff going on. And the book is way too long and that may be why it took me a
while to actually finish it.
However, I’ve decided to read the
second book, so maybe he ironed out some of the problems from the first book?
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