21 of 22 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
The mummy walks!, July 9, 2004
Sexy immortals with angst to spare are the cornerstones of Anne Rice's fiction. "The Mummy or Ramses the Damned" takes a different direction, mixing romance with horror and supernatural thrills. It has its flaws, but the raw energy of the book keeps it roaring up to the finale.
Lawrence Stratford uncovers the mummy of Ramses the Second, or "Ramses the Damned." But before he can unravel the mysteries around the mummy, he's murdered by his amoral nephew Henry, and the mummy is shipped to England. Lawrence's daughter Julie takes possession both of the family fortune and the mummy -- only to have the mummy revive when exposed to sunlight, and try to kill the murderous Henry. He's Ramses, an Egyptian king who drank an elixir of eternal life taken from a Hittite priestess.
Long ago, he faked his own death and wandered the world, eventually returning to Egypt and becoming the mentor/lover of the legendary Cleopatra -- only to lose her first to Antony, then to death. At first, Ramses is thrilled by the early-twentieth-century England, and he and Julie start to fall in love. But on a trip to Egypt, he comes across the mummy of Cleopatra, and revives her with a vial of the elixir. Except that this Cleopatra is mad, murderous, torn by her old loves and hates -- and unkillable.
This is not your parents' "Mummy" story. Except for one mildly funny scene where Rameses first revives, there are no stumbling mummies covered in bandages. Instead we have a tortured immortal who wakes up into a new world, while still being rooted in the Egypt of three thousand years ago.
Rice's lush prose is well-suited to the splendor of early twentieth-century England, when Egyptology was the fad -- she has lots of fun with the lace, pearl buttons, and opera houses. Her most awkward points are when Rameses is marveling at/criticizing 1914 England. At the same time, she gives new twists to the tale of the mummy, such as having him romance Cleopatra.
Ramses gives a slightly new twist to the tormented, lonely immortal, by having his almost childlike response to things like faucets and shoes. Julie falls for him a bit too quickly (yes, he's gorgeous, but what else?), but a good love interest. The other characters -- the youth-craving Elliott, his clueless but sweet son Alex, and the money-hungry, evil Henry -- are all intriguing and fully explored. But Cleopatra is what makes the book -- she's seductive but mad, tormented but still loving. Dislike her, but Rice will make you pity her too.
"The Mummy or Ramses the Damned" gives new twists to the story of a mummy come to life. Rather than an undercooked horror novel, Rice gives a thrilling, chilling look at immortality, and how what you want is not what you get.
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18 of 20 people found the following review helpful:
3.0 out of 5 stars
Batter down the what?!, August 6, 2002
I wasn't quite sure what to expect when I read this book. It starts off great, but doesn't really add up. Everyone refers to this as a "great love story," but I found that hard to believe. It's a little contradictory, we're supposed to believe Ramses loves Julie so much, but he spends an entire day sleeping with prostitutes in a brothel and only a couple of days later "batters down her virgin door" in the desert. If he's so insastiable, how will they maintain a one on one relationship when that kind of addiction would kill a mortal woman? Can mummies pass on diseases?
As for the characters, Julie starts off really interesting but gets whiny, boring and weak towards the end. You start off admiring her and by the end want to slap her. She loses something(besides her virgin door).
On the plus side, it does have a "vibe" that sort of stays with you. I love all things Egypt, so I had fun reading that. The flashbacks were interesting enough. All in all, it's entertaining. But the writing in the love scenes is pretty cheesy(see door reference above).
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12 of 13 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Not your atypical Mummy story, October 7, 2004
I rarely read any books of Anne Rice's that isn't part of the Vampire Chronicles sereis. I've tried but they never captivated me like her popular vampire books have. The one book by Anne Rice that I do like that has nothing to do with vampires is "The Mummy or Ramses the Dead". This time Anne explores another legendary monster...the mummy but in her book, she makes the mummy, or Ramses as he is called, the hero not the monster we have seen in old horror movies. In a similiar vein to her vampire characters, Anne has Ramses the second immortal. He had drunk the elixir of life making him wander the planet for all eternity. Ramses who had been asleep for thousands of years is excavated in the early 1900s by Lawrence Stratford. Ramses witnesses Lawrence's unexpected passing. Later he finally awakens to save Lawrence's daughter from being murdered by her greedy cousin. In the vein of the vampire chronicles, Anne mixes horror and romance which I actually enjoyed. Critics may have panned this book but I loved it. I especially enjoyed it when Ramses makes the mistake of reawakening an old love only to realize what a mistake that was and the one person he does love is Julie Stratford. Even though the storyline is pretty cheesy and is just a Harlequin novel with a horror twist, "The Mummy" is a good book. It's a different take on the myth of the mummy.
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