Customer Reviews

Khai of Khem

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As the son of the royal chief architect, Khai Ibizin grows up believing that the Pharaoh Khasathut, ruler of Khem, is a god until he actually meets the man as a pathetic old man who cares only for young virgins to share his bed and obtain the eternal life. Having no respect for the God that fell from his mental pedestal, Khai defies the Pharaoh and flees to nearby Kush where he meets Queen Ashtarta, who gives him sanctuary.

Ashtarta and Khai fall in love and plan to marry. However, war between her country and that of Khem is imminent. Ashtarta looks into a magic pool seeing something she does not comprehend. Khai is in a weird locale where silver birds fly humans inside their stomachs and carts with people inside their bellies move without animals amongst other strangeness. The Pharaoh's wizards have sent Khai's ka into the distant future; if not returned soon he will die. Khai's friend Manek Thotak is sent forward by Ashtarta's wizards to bring Khai's ka home. In modern day London Khai lives as Egyptologist Paul Arnott with knowledge of how weapons work.

This is a reprint of a 1980s action packed tale in which Ancient Egyptian belief elements seem genuine. The key players (a withered pharaoh, a heroic champion, a benign queen, and a sacrificing friend) are all fully developed whether they are in the "present" or in late twentieth century England. However, what makes the tale still strong is the time paradox of whether Khai's return to the past could change "future" history by bringing back modern day knowledge to Ancient Egypt.

Harriet Klausner

Brian Lumley has always had excellent taste in literature. His work brought the proto-genre "weird tale" of the early 21st century into its later decades with modern cinematic flourishes. By 1980, Robert E. Howard and H. P. Lovecraft had been influencing him for decades. With an excellent understanding of pulp fiction in place, he blasted his way through page-after-page of super high-energy (bordering on spastic), gritty archaeological fantasy/sword and sorcery in Khai of Khem. The story seems to be something of a fever dream, with its introductory chapters thrown out almost immediately as what seems to be a different story is developed. The misdirection and time-hopping eventually reconcile, leaving a lasting taste of moments out-of-time and a long-lost world history.

For all the merits of modernizing the pulp weird tale, Lumley's upping of the the grittiness-factor for the grit-heavy 80s makes for some uncomfortable and unnecessary moments. There's some pretty vile stuff - some rape scenes that I really could have done without - which seem more like the author expurgating forbidden thoughts than devices used to say something about the characters or human condition. Suggestiveness and hinting (which all Arkham house alumni learned at one point) are out the window in favor of anatomical terms and graphic descriptions. Rape, sex and violence seem to happen constantly and interchangeably, so that the scenes that I -think- were meant to be sexy made me weary and sick. Certainly, coercing someone's emotions like this should be for some purpose other than cheap adrenaline shots? I know there's a subset of horror readers who eat flat, graphic sexual brutality for breakfast, but I am not a member of this group. If someone is going to screw with my head, it better be for a reason.