The Mummy by Anne Rice

"Robbers of the Dead. Look away from this tomb lest you wake its occupant, whose wrath cannot be contained.
Ramses the Damned is my name.”

Spoiler warning for those who haven’t read the book yet.

The Mummy or Ramses the Damned is a stand-alone novel. It took place during the early twentieth century. An archeologist and also a shipping magnate, Lawrence Stratford, discovers a tomb of the ancient Egyptian pharaoh. He found some notes on the tomb claiming that the mummy is indeed Ramses II. Before Lawrence Stratford can investigate this claim, he was found dead by his nephew, Henry, inside the tomb. People believed he was a victim of the curse found on the tomb’s door.

The mummy and all the other items found on the tomb – some of them are believed to be jars of poison – are then sent to his daughter, Julie, back in London to be temporarily displayed in the Stratford house before they are taken to the British Museum.

Under Julie’s care the mummy awakens and the two seem to be instantly attracted to each other. Ramses, with superhuman intelligence, quickly learns the English language. He then hides behind the image of Dr. Reginald Ramsey, an Egyptologist. Julie brought Ramses to a museum and recognizes an unidentified mummy as his old love Cleopatra.

The plot thickens as Ramses tries to bring Cleopatra back to life by pouring the elixir to the dead body only to find out that the revived Cleopatra is a raging monster with superhuman strength and uncontrollable hunger left wandering on the streets of Egypt.

The story goes on as the protagonists try to find and destroy Cleopatra while a series of dead bodies have been found. In an attempt to escape Ramses, Cleopatra “dies” when a car she was driving was hit by a train, creating a fiery explosion. Cleopatra, without the others' knowledge, survived the crash, and awakens under the care of a British doctor in Sudan. She vows to find Ramses again someday for revenge.


My views:


I’m an avid fan of Anne Rice. As you all know I have a penchant for suspense and thrillers so naturally I would be drawn to the works of this author. I have always been interested in Egyptology, and finding a novel about mummies written by Anne Rice really got my interest. Like all the other of Rice’s books, The Mummy is a combination of horror and romance. The story deals more on the immortality and the emotional turmoil that goes with living forever. As with most of Anne Rice’s novels, the story has a bit of sexual flair on it. She is able to combine the erotic and the scary without going to the extremes in either direction.

I like how Rice portrayed Ramses. He is like the perfect man and yet so flawed in many ways that he seem to be human when the irony is, he is not. I’m a bit disappointed with the “heroine” Julie Stratford as she was basically just a weepy female. I expected a lot more from her. I enjoyed the wiles of the new Cleopatra though. A beguiling seductress with the strength of ten men – she is like an extreme version of the original Cleopatra.

The only thing that I’m disappointed in is the way Cleopatra “died”. Rice should have chosen another way – a more sensational way – in which an immortal can be somehow destroyed. It appears so lame that an immortal can be killed by an explosion caused by collision of a train.

All in all, I like the way Rice wrote this one where the events are not predictable. Also, it is not part of any series, thus making it easy for anyone who has never read any of Rice's literature before. I think the book is left open for a sequel but so far none has been forthcoming. I would really like to know what would happen to the other characters like Elliot, Alex, and Cleopatra, the most. If you’re an Anne Rice fan, this book is definitely a must read.