Customer Reviews

To Wake the Dead

5 star:		(6)
4 star:		(10)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(7)

 

 

An undead mummy is stalking the halls of a natural history museum. Several captives are imprisoned in an underground vault and sexually tortured in bizarre ways. These are the two main plotlines in a twist and turn filled pulp horror novel from the late Richard Laymon. There are suprises around every corner, laughs and plenty of extreme gross-outs. If you have never read Richard Laymon before this is a fine place to start, but beware: this is undiluted horror-black, no sugar, no cream, but plenty of blood, sex and torture.

Also recommended: BLOOD ROAD by Edo Van Belkom, THE CHURCH OF DEAD GIRLS by Stephen Dobyns, and RISEN by J. Knight.

I picked this up for a bit of gratuitous escapism and it turned out to be a really enjoyable book. OK, so it isn't in the same class as a good Stephen King novel, but Laymon wastes no time in dropping you into the deep end and doesn't get lost along the way. This story is less of a supernatural chiller and more of a splattering gore-fest. The book is actually a very good analogue to the classic B horror movies that were spawned in the 70s - Bravo! It is intentionally confronting as Laymon seemingly tries to squeeze strong scenes into every chapter and this might disturb some people or indeed many. But, if you are looking for a somewhat tongue-in-cheek, page-turning book, that makes no apologies, then this is worth a read.

In 1926 Robert Callahan accompanied his father to Egypt and through an unusual set of circumstances found the tomb of Amara, the favorite wife of Mentuhotep I. He unknowing opened the magic seal that prevented her from walking the night and actually saw the body of the man she had killed. He finds an Egyptian mystic to fashion two seals that will keep her in her coffin and when that is done he smuggles her home to add the sarcophagus to the family's Egyptian antiquities collection.

In the present thieves enter Robert's home and break the seal that binds Amara. Freed, she kills Robert before returning to her resting-place. The collection is willed to the Charles Ward Museum but at night Amara walks, killing anyone whom gets in her way. She looks for her infant son once buried with her and will not rest until she finds him. The police refuse to believe there is a killer mummy stomping around, but one man knows the truth and is bound by his promise to Robert to find a way to stop the mummy's reign of terror.

Richard Laymon is an award-winning author and after reading this book it is easy to see why. Unlike the recent Mummy tongue in cheek (wrap?) movies, TO WAKE THE DEAD is a very scary novel, so frightening that readers will go to bed with the lights on. The author has given the mummy quite a personality without her ever saying one word and somehow he makes her believable to the audience and that is what makes Mr. Laymon so good because few horror novelists ever achieve the stark realism he attains.

Harriet Klausner

I am a HUGE Laymon fan and it pains me to give anything bearing his name one star. But in the midst of all the gaudy sex (which comprises the bulk of the novel), and the tiresome use of "Christ" as a swear on every page, I found I kept asking myself if Laymon had even written this book. This is not one of his better novels in my opinion. It's not scary, it's not creepy, it's just vulgar. The mummy plot was a good one, but there were too many other plots mixed in which watered it down, and by the end of the novel I didn't care anymore. There were new characters being introduced and killed off too far into the book (like chapter 45). All of the sub-plots (if we may call them that) tied together in the end rather messily and, for me, didn't make much sense. I had no idea what any of those people really had to do with the mummy at all. Those extra plots could've been taken out of To Wake the Dead and made into separate novels - that would've been better. I love Richard Laymon's writing, but I had to force myself to finish this book, I hate to say. If you want prime Laymon check out Madman Stan from Cemetery Dance Publications (cemeterydance.com), or, for prime Laymon at a cheaper price check out In the Dark or Blood Games. Anything before this book will do.

I own almost all of Mr. Layman's books and have to say this is one is a nail bitter. As usual he has some sick and twisted moments in the book but hey, that is Layman!! Highly recommend if you like his other books. Couldn't put this one down!

I have now read quite a few of Laymon's books and have learned that you can generally expect quite a few deaths at least half of them being fairly gruesome, women who are unnaturally horny and at least one attempted rape per book. I am generally quite happy with the violence level in the books, but am not a fan of needless sex or specifically meaningless rapes in a book.

This book had very little in the way of original plot. It's about a mummy who we really learn almost nothing about as far as her history or background. There are a plethora of characters who are unfortunately very undefined and not all that interesting. Many characters are included simply to be killed however they get almost a full chapter prior to their demise. There are many deaths, though they are not as nasty as most of his other books. This book seems to be far more about sex and rape than violence and mummies. Just about every character here is either sexually assaulted or sexually assaulting someone. The only character I can think of off hand who is sexually ambivalent is the mummy.

Short Synopsis: Some thieves try to steal a mummy from a private collection; unfortunately they manage to break the seals on the sarcophagus which kept the evil mummy Amara contained. She is then moved to the local museum where she begins wreaking havoc in the evenings. In addition to the mummy we have random people who are being snatched up by an unknown assailant and kept in cages where they are forced to do unspeakable things to keep themselves alive.

I must say that my favorite part of the book is the tale in the diary explaining how Amara the Mummy was found. I had a hard time with this book because most of it was not about the Mummy, or even the characters... every couple of pages someone was having sex, getting raped, fantasizing about sex, etc. I had been hoping for a scary book about mummies and instead this turned out to be "Debbie does LA." The characters are weak, their motivations are strange and un-comprehendible, and sadly the mummy was so underplayed that even the final battle with her was a let down. As if no one in all the thousands of years of her existence thought to try that method? I don't know... I was sadly disappointed with this book.

If you are looking for a good scary read, look elsewhere. If you are a 14 year old boy this will probably be right up your alley.

To wake the dead is another multi-story read from the great laymon which paths all cross at some point in the book...though if you read the back of the book it only explains the premise for one of this books storys and while that story is good the best one is unmentioned. The main focus here is a vicious female egyptian mummy awakened in modern day.....but the book explains the whole back story of course.....the gem here in my opinion centers around the story of a young teenage boy who has a long walk home when he and his gf get in a fight in the middle of nowhere and she speeds away without him leaving him stranded....He's then knocked unconcious in the night and abducted by someone who sticks him in a dark room inside a cage.....but he's not alone, there are 2 other captives here and there both inside cages.....There captor then proceeds to force them to have sex or they die.......yes there is more but i don't want to spoil it.....This is a sick twisted story that i just bathed in...4 stars!

People might not like the three stories that initially seem unconnected, but I found this rather refreshing. The way Richard Laymon brought them together might not have been as smooth as I would have liked, but it was still a lot of fun. My favorite, by far, was the subplot with Ed Lake and the cages. I don't think I blinked once when reading that material -- I was so enthralled... and the "present yourself" gimmick alone was worth the price of the book. Stephen King might be considered the best horror writer, but in my book, the best storyteller is still Richard Laymon. King takes me weeks to finish. Laymon takes me a day or two. That's enough proof for me.

I admit that I never heard of Richard Laymon prior to reading this novel. I actually bought the book hoping to get something with more of an ancient Egyptian "feel" to it. However, I found myself unable to put this book down once I started it! Thrills, chills, and a bit of eroticism add up to one good read. I can't wait read more Laymon!

I am not a horror genre fan, but picked up the book when it looked like a good old-fashioned cheesy "mummy" story. I admit it, give me a story about a mummy or Egypt, and I'll often read it even if only for the chuckle value. This book was so disappointing, that I did not even finish it. The multiple plot lines vary from "fairly interesting" to unsettlingly sadistic and I found no reason to follow the stories through, even just to see if "it all comes together in the end".