30 of 32 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
"Conquer by confusion, I always say", May 30, 2004
There comes a time in every series that covers a large number of years when it isn't possible to go further without the main characters discovering the secret of eternal life. Elizabeth Peters' Emersons - Egyptologists, amateur sleuths, and eccentrics par excellence - have reached a point where the era they chronicle is gradually coming to a close. Trust Peter's to find a solution, though, a new cache of papers that document the 'missing years' of the family's madcap career across the tombs and monuments of Egypt.
Set just previous to the blossoming of Ramses' relationship with Nefret, 'Guardian of the Horizon' documents the return to the 'Lost Oasis,' a last hidden survival of ancient Egypt - the Meroitic civilization that the Emerson's first discovered in the Sudan ('The Last Camel Died at Noon'). Readers will recall that the Holy City was where the Emerson's found Nefret, whom they late adopted. Now, ten years later, Merasen, a young noble, appears in England with a message from Tarek, king of the Lost Oasis, and a close friend of the family. There is illness in the Sudan and it threatens the survival of this hidden civilization. Amelia, Emerson, Ramses, and Nefret quickly set out.
For Amelia and Emerson, setting out on a secret journey means that only half of Egypt knows that something is up. As soon as word gets out that they intend to return to the Sudan to 'excavate,' a whole host of shady characters a drawn by the legends of hidden treasure that are rumored to be at the Lost Oasis. Of course, that means trouble, and the journey to the Sudan is marred by violence, intrusion, and countless twists and turns as the Emerson's carry out one elusive maneuver after another.
When they finally arrive at their destination they discover that nothing is as they expected. Instead of a sick king, they find themselves embroiled in a series of adventures that mix politics, religion, and, of course, just a bit of treasure. While a bit slow in developing, the book builds to a classic Peters' finish, with the Emerson's concocting on scheme after another as they try to extricate themselves unharmed and save the kingdom at the same time.
Elizabeth Peters does a fine job of returning the reader to the Emerson's past without recreating what was originally one of the family's most irritating periods. Instead, the writer allows Amelia and company just enough additional maturity to keep the story interesting without the extreme vaudeville that marked her work at that time. While any reader knows that a certain amount of the experience of reading one of the Emerson stories is rolling one's eyes at some of the more hysterical displays, that has been kept to a low roar. I enjoyed the book, and think that any other fan will do so as well.
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15 of 15 people found the following review helpful:
3.0 out of 5 stars
Far from her best effort., May 11, 2004
I was looking forward to this book, as I do with all of EP's works. I was so disappointed with this book, I had to read it again just to make sure I hadn't imagined it. It felt as if she had written most of this book some time ago, got stuck, and decided later to slap an ending onto it and release it for publication. As another reader noted, there was no reference to the events in this book in any of the other books that followed this one chronologically. I thought that odd, since surely Amelia would have told Emerson at some point later that Sethos was the 'friend'.
The idea to return to the Lost Oasis was a good one, but the execution left something to be desired. Unlike other readers, I was not shocked nor disppointed with Ramses' involvement with Daria (he is human, after all) but I thought her character was not developed enough for me to care about her one way or the other. A little more information on her history would have helped there. I also thought Nefret acted out of character; she is more strong-willed than this book would indicate.
Go ahead and buy this book if you have the rest of the Amelia Peabody series. If you pick and choose only the best of Elizabeth Peters, you can safely skip this one, as it adds nothing to the overall series.
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21 of 24 people found the following review helpful:
3.0 out of 5 stars
A little disappointing, April 3, 2004
Don't get me wrong, this book was as riotously funny and exciting as readers have come to expect from this series. But it felt to me like Peters was still trying to find her characters between the periods of their lives that she's chronicled before. The result was shaky, I often found myself hunting in the (chronologically) later and earlier books to get a feel for whether a character would have said that or acted that way, at this point in his or her development. Partly because the events of this book were never mentioned in chronologically later books, as Amelia so frequently does, it came across as sort of marooned in time and place. Yes, the book hadn't been written yet, but it didn't feel to me like part of the subtext of the series. I would hate to think the series were running out of steam, but I have to wonder, with so many tidy happy endings made and enemies killed off or reformed, what's left? If Peters plans to continue these forays into the past, I'll look forward to the next books-- but with some reservations.
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