Customer Reviews

Cities of the Dead

5 star:		(4)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

The book though slow in parts is still a favorite of mine as it stars as it's lead "detective" my favorite Egyptologist -- Howard Carter! So -- read the Carter's accounts of the discovery of Tutankhamen's tomb in 1923 and then read this book.

I bought this book cheap at a discount shop and then didn'tread it until a year later! Couldn't put it down! Egyptologist HowardCarter finds himself playing detective when a number of unusual mummies come on the market. This book starts out as a pretty predictable who-dunnit but there is an intriguing twist in the story. This is a fantastic book with strong characterisation and vivid descriptions of the Egyptian landscape. Would make a great film.

I bought this book because I had nothing better to read at the time, and was in a really picky phase of reading. I read two, maybe three pages, then left it in my car for nearly a year. While visiting family I found the book in my car and began to read it that night. I stayed up the whole night finishing it. It's not so much horror as it is quietly disturbing supernatural fantasy. It involves the exploits of Howard Carter, an Egyptologist living in Cairo. Recently fired from his job he sets himself up as a tour guide of sorts, and is immediately hired by a young American who wants tours of the shrines and a German baron who wishes to come away from Egypt with a startling souvenir. The plot from there is tightly woven, leading Carter and his American charge through the shadier parts of Egypt and into a frightening conspiracy that to mention here would give away one of the nicest turns of plot in the story. Easily one of the best books I've ever read. I've yet to find anything else by this author, but when I do I shall undoubtedly snatch it up. Very highly recommended.

Offering further proof that there are no narratively fast moving mummy stories, Cities of the Dead is a very methodically paced thriller that may frustrate those wanting a more vibrant horror spectacle. The patient reader may enjoy the loving attention to detail, the lush atmosphere, and that some chills are finally generated in the novel's latter half, thus fulfilling its promise in that department. Recommended to those who enjoy the tease more than the pay off.

Ok. I like this book, a lot. But it is very slow going -- like the others have said it contains a vast store of imagery and characterisation. This novella is for intelligent men/women with the patience and humility to soak up all the double meanings, sly moslem inferences and .. of course... the darling Maspero!

The plot is driving and evocative, although a little predictable. This man, Paine, is a very gifted author! I'm totally suprised this book has been allowed to slide from print. Although... given the nature of the composition/editing, it wouldn't suprise me if the publishers went bust. They clearly massacred Cities of the Dead.

I love to read works like this and would reccommend anyone let themselves be cast adrift in a time we all associate with conservatism, adventure and better manners! Still, it has a flaw which bumps it right off my top spot:

The end. Having ploughed through 200 pages of wonderfully scripted re-animation and some of the finest characters I have ever read -- Paine ends the tale with a rather wet (and briefer than a teenager's first time!) ending. Boom. The roof falls in. Dah. Dah.

Whaaaaat! I can't imagine Mr. Paine _ever_ intended that to be the end of this otherwise fantastic novel....

I'm very, very saddened that the author wasn't allowed to shape his work into a sound and satisfying climax.

None-the-less, thumbs up on this one!

"Cities Of The Dead" is Pittsburgh author and columnist Michael (John Michael Curlovich) Paine's first published novel, and the first, so far, in his loosely conceived historical Egyptian horror novels. The second being The Colors of Hell (1990) and the third being his last published work The Mummy: Dark Resurrection (2007). In his first novel, Paine opens with the sadistic murder of a young child, but don't worry, the death, like most of the content of all of Paine's novels is hardly sensationalistic, and it will be important to the novel's storyline. However, the real story starts pages later as Howard Carter is in the process of getting fired from the Egyptian Antiquities Service by his boss Frenchman Gaston Maspero on the orders from HIS boss Lord Comer. This is because Carter has reported several Frenchmen who were in the process of raping a young Arabian child. The French were insulted that anybody would care, and being the arrogant dogs that they are, demand an apology. Carter refuses, is fired, and then starts on his new career as a guide. His first customer is Baron Rolf Lees-Gottorp (accompanied by his "niece" the blonde Brigit Schmenkling), and who is eventually rooked into buying a mummy of a young girl. Interestingly, the mummy is wrapped with the gauze from two separate dynasties.

His next customer is the rich, brash, and naïve Henry Larrimer (of the Pittsburgh Larrimers!) who wants to photograph all of the pyramids of Egypt, and who is interested in exploring the mystical side of Egypt. And he too will find himself buying a mummy of a small child. Curiosity getting the best of him, Carter unwraps the mummy, who also has unmatched bandages, and finds that the child has died in agony. Bothered by this, Carter talks to his ex-boss Maspero about these mummies, and finds that Maspero has several of the same type of mummies in storage at Egypt's major museum. It seems that all of the mummies are from the Delta area, which is Egypt's no-man's land. When Maspero then learns of Larrimer's quest, and of Larrimer wanting to go to Athribis and photograph it, Maspero encourages Carter to keep encouraging Larrimer to continue on his quest as the museum could use the photos.

On the way there they find themselves traveling with Father Khalid a major Coptic priest who is outraged by the rumors of the destruction of Athribis by some infidel outsiders. Athribis has indeed been leveled and Carter and Larrimer find themselves in the presence, again, of Brigit, who has been dumped by the Baron, and who is now working for Father Rheinhold, the type of shifty über-Aryan that would have been played by Jan Merlin if this were a sixties movie. One thing leads to another, Brigit and Harry fall in love, Brigit quits her job and joins Larrimer and Carter, and then she disappears.

It may seem like I'm giving everything away, but there is a lot more to than the novel that I haven't even hinted at, and things will build up to an explosive, and tragic conclusion.

"Cities Of The Dead" is not a novel for those who like horror roller-coasters, as Paine is a very slow, and very methodical storyteller, allowing his story to slowly unfold. Paine also takes his time to allow his characters to grow, and grow on the reader, which will then make the novel's ending more tragic than horrific.

Along with Larrimer and Carter, Egypt has is a co-staring main character, so at times this novel often reads like a travelogue as Carter has no qualms about taking the time to describe his travel's through the glorious Egyptian landscape. And for those who pay attention, Paine fills his novel with the caustic dry and wry variety of humor that his later novels would be known for.

I knew going in, that to review a Paine novel, I was going to have to blow a couple of hours checking Paine's facts, as he likes to people his novels with BOTH real and fictional people, with even his fictional characters often being real people in disquise. Howard Carter (1874-1939) was of course a real person, he was a twenty-nine wünderkin when this novel takes place, he really did work for the Egyptian Antiquities Service, but was made to resign in 1905 not in 1903 as mentioned here, and this novel takes place nineteen years before he found the tomb of King Tutankhamen. Gaston Maspero (Gaston Camille Charles Maspero: 1846-1916) really was his boss and it was him that would recommend Carter to the man who would finance Carter's later exploration for King Tut's tomb. Maspero's boss Lord Comer (1841-1917) really did exist, he was chauvinistic imperialist, and even the family of scoundrels, thieves, and smugglers, the Abd-er-Rasuls really did exist. While there was no Henry Larrimer, there does seem to be a prominent Pittsburgh Larrimer family. Even Athribis existed, as does the city of Luxor although back in 1903 it was called the city of Thebes. Why Paine change the city's name way before it was later changed is beyond me, unless he was modernizing it for modern readers.

While slow, and taking it's time to tell Larrimer's and Carter's story, this is no huge monolith of a book, it's short and economically told by today's standards. Paine doesn't overstay his welcome, he tells his story, packs his bag and goes home, with no extra filler, and no direct sequels. This is not a flashy novel, but is for those who like, and appreciate slow, classy, and suspenseful supernatural horror mysteries. Paine has never gotten the recognition that he deserves, and I have reviewed these other novels by him: The Night School, Steel Ghosts, The Colors of Hell, Stage Fright, and Triptych of Terror: Three Chilling Tales by the Masters of Gay Horror.