Rating: Summary: Give me more,more,more!! Review: I highly recommend this book to anyone who loves Anne Rice. One of her greatest books in the world. Ramses, I can't get enough of him. The plot of the book is in 2 places, London, England around 1940, and Egypt. Anne Rice promised there would be a sequel and there should be, I need to know what happens to Cleopatra, Ramses' lover from way back when, and the other characters. Ramses the Great becomes Ramses the Damned when he drinks the elixer of life and lives forever. One day the sun awakens him in Julies parlor. This book is erotic, sensual, suspensal, and it leaves wanting more. I read it to my mother and she thought i skipped the last page, because it ended so suddenly. I never have a read a book twice before, but I have read this book three times. Please read it and tell me what you think. This is not just a book for adults, Iread when I was twelve years old and now i am 13, so any age group can read this awesome novel.
Rating: Summary: If you are as romantic about your mummies as I am, buy it Review: When I first started to read this, I was very impressed by the real aura the book gave. It really had that Mummy movie, Indiana Jones, archeolgy dig feel to it. The feeling of history, of it's rightful era ,it was all there. I loved the way Anne wrote each individual's account of the events as they unfolded. Then, in mid-book, I thought to myself, "Self, is this a steamy romance ? You know you hate those." I half way expected Fabio to come in, wrapped in mummy bandages. But guess what ? He didn't. And, the mummmy Ramses, became a real man, the lives that met and were touched by him (old man seeking youth, ruined drunk seeking revenge, young woman seeking love) they were real, too. Then, of all things, my beloved Cleopatra is in the story. I wont spoil anything, so let me finish. This book kept me enthralled, despite myself. I would rank it as one of my favorite Rice works. It, as the vampires do, makes on contemplate immortality and at what price is it worth....
Rating: Summary: Classic Tale With a Twist Review: This book opens like the classic mummy tale, and is even set in 1914, when mummies were all the rage and Egyptology was the hobby of the upper crust British. After the first three chapters, which start out much slower than Rice's usual, you are stuck. You fall in love with Ramses as Julia does. You hate Henry, and grow to like Alex and Elliot. There are laugh out loud moments, especially with Ramses' lost love roaming modern Cairo as the climax to the book builds, and moments in which one is forced to look deeply into what Rice is saying regarding the philosophical/ethical issues surrounding the Elixir of Life, which has made Ramses immortal. It is a nice break from vampires weeping over everything from paintings to musical pieces, and in my opinion, once of Rice's best novels. There was talk of a sequel, but Ramses needs no sequel. We are left with a solid ending and our imaginations of their further adventures, if indeed, there are any.
Rating: Summary: PLEASE ANNE... Where's the SEQUEL?!?!?!?! Review: While my favorite Rice book of all time is The Vampire Lestat (Who couldn't love that rogue?) a close second is The Mummy. I thoroughly loved the book and it's one reason why I remain an Anne Rice fan. I especially liked the vivid description of when Julie meets the Mummy for the first time. I don't often reread books, but this one I've kept close at hand. I've read all of Rice's Witching Chronicles as well as her Vampire Chronicles... and was only really disappointed with Memnoch. But Rice on the final page promises more on the Mummy... Heck, even Lestat hinted at the existence of immortals who walk by day... So let's have more PLEASE! I'm anxiously waiting!
Rating: Summary: A Great Book Without a Great End Review: First off I want you to know I won't give anything away about the book. If I'm trying to decide to read a book or watch a movie I don't want to be told the end, so I won't tell it to you. However this will be hard because it's the end of the book that I wasn't happy with! I've been a fan of Anne Rice ever since I saw the movie Interview With the Vampire and HAD to run out and buy the book and poured through the whole series as fast as I possibly could. I LOVED that series. Once I ran out of books in the Vampire Chronicles I went out and found this one. I started it and read the first eighty or so pages and then got distracted and spent too much time away before picking it up again. It wasn't that the beginning was bad, much to the contrary, it was fascinating! I didn't want to stop reading, but things happen and I did. Well when I picked it up again it had been too long so I had to start over. It was a bit tedious to read through again, but since it was such a good start I didn't mind too much. I was determined not to put it down this time and though I didn't have very much time to sit and read, I managed to find some here and there and after a few weeks was finally done. That was when I found my surprise. I had read this great book with terrific characters and a captivating plot only to find that the end fell very flat. Of course it's hard to describe without giving it away, but there are certain characters that you expect to at least end up happy that aren't even given a second thought and are brushed aside and others that are given almost a fairy tale ending that isn't really very satisfying considering how their character had behaved throughout the book! I also hated how one character was built up to be this amazing person and when you meet them you wish you hadn't because you like the other image much better. Considering this has a partially historic basis to it there's bound to be some fictional playing with those ancient characters, but I didn't really like how she did it. As far as plot, here's the basic plot without giving it all away. Lawrence Stratford is a rich man who spends his remaining years as an archeologist in Egypt where he finds the tomb of Ramses the Damned. Ramses has all these things written around the tomb making reference to him being an immortal man which few believe until he steps out of his coffin a little later in the book. The contents of the tomb are sent back to his home in England where his daughter Julie resides. She is about 21 and very intelligent, but engaged to a man named Alex who really doesn't give her the challenge and adventure her bursting heart needs. He's a wonderful man, just a little too "nice" for her if you know what I mean. Enter Ramses who sweeps her off her feet leaving poor Alex to fend for himself, but that's getting a little ahead. I think I should tell you about her cousin Henry who's a drunk and avid gambler perpetually wasting away his fortune and getting into a great deal of trouble. He has absolutely no redeeming qualities which I find surprising because Anne usually give at least some to her characters. Never the less we all hate him and spend most of the book wishing Ramses would rip his head off. :) One more character worth noting here is Elliot. He is the Lord of Ruthford which gives him status in society, but unfortunately the money with the title left long ago and he is spending a great deal fo the book hoping to get Julie, the daughter of his long time friend Lawrence, and his son Alex to marry to bring some of her wealth to his title. Now don't get me wrong, he's not a bad man, he just has a few failings, and as much as he would like the money, he knows it probably won't happen and wants what's best for Julie as well as Alex. Now the characters are generally interesting and I warn you that Anne Rice often spends a lot of time going into great detail about her character's lives, so the actual action of the book is a little slow coming as we introduce the characters, but as I said, the beginning of the book is hardly boring. I recommend the book because the plot was good even if the end wasn't and the characters were engaging. I think you'd enjoy it if you know not to expect too much from the ending. There's some sexual content, so be careful about letting young children read this or any of her work for that matter. However it's nothing compared to other pieces of her work and those scenes are often very brief, but they are there. I hope I've helped and I hope you enjoy the book!
Rating: Summary: A thrilling read Review: A fantastic book! This is my favorite Anne Rice novel. A definite page-turner, unlike some of her other lengthier reads. It's pure escapist fantasy. Read this if you want to immerse yourself in an adventurous romance with likeable characters and an exciting, fast-paced plot--expect to be entertained and gratified after reading this. I've read the book twice and was never bored.
Rating: Summary: Amazing! Review: The Mummy is the first Anne Rice book I've read, and it is by far my favorite. I fell in love with every character and every plot line was well developed. How creepy, and a little funny, that Cleopatra was the villain! What a great twist! This is not your average mummy story. It is incredible. What really annoys me, however, is that Anne Rice is not planning on writing a sequel, when the ending is just begging for one! Ms. Rice wants to focus on her more popular vampire and witch novels, when I could not force myself to finish any of them! Even so, I highly recommend The Mummy, but just be aware that you will be left wanting more, and it is very unlikely you will get more. You'll either have to come up with your own ending, or hope that the film version (which I hope will be coming out soon) will give us a good ending.
Rating: Summary: Typical Anne Rice, Just Not With Vampires Review: This book was just the typical Anne Rice novel, only with a mummy instead of a vampire, and an even more unbelievable plot than usual (for her). 1) The grammar is atrocious. (How a supposedly professional writer can even get away with grammar this bad is more of a mystery than her plot is.) 2) The plot is about as predictable as can possibly be. 3) As usual, the book is 40% character development, 50% plot building, 3% bad eroticism (with her usual obsession with gay men), and 7% anit-climax. In other words she builds up a good book but then ends it way too quickly and leaves MUCH to be desired in a way that almost ruins the entire read. 4) The sex scenes (if you could even call them such in this case) were so short and un-erotic that it makes me wonder how ANYONE could believe that she even comprehends how to write erotica. For example, Julie's virginal deflowering, THE major love story of the book, for which the anticipation has been building up through a large portion of the book, is over in the bat of an eye with nary a description. If Julie barely got a good sex scene you can only imagine how pathetic the rest of them were. 5) Several plot-device inconsistancies make the actual workings of (as well as the supposed danger of) 'the elixer' quite confusing. One minute products of 'the elixer' can be crumped and damaged in the absense of sunlight. The next minute we're meant to believe that if people consume immortal livestock and crops (and how could you possibly comsume it if you haven't first cut it into tiny bits and cooked it?) it kills them before they can digest it because somehow in their stomachs and intenstines it regernates WITHOUT sunlight being available, and again after having already allowed itself to be cut into tiny bits and cooked. In other words this is a quite typical Anne Rice novel. If you can somehow get past all of this (as Anne Rice fans somehow find a way to do) then you will most likely thoroughly enjoy the read and hail it as one of her best books yet. Otherwise it at least makes for a good old fashioned waste of time that is marginally better than watching paint dry or grass grow.
Rating: Summary: Where's the next one!? Review: I absolutly loved this book. The only reason I gave it a four, instead of a five was because I found it quite... confusing at times. It is wonderfully written and would be great for those who love Anne Rice's tales of her vampires. But, what I want to know is where is the next one? I believe there should be another book to finish this one, and its greatness up!
Rating: Summary: Vampire fans take note! Review: There is little I can say in praise of Ramses the Damned which hasn't already been said by other reviewers, but I would like to add this footnote: Fans of Anne Rice's Vampire Chronicles might like to pick this one up for the simple fact that there is nothing in it that contradicts those books. As such, they may well exist within the same world, and Ramses makes an intriguing addition to the Vampire mythos: a creature who is the polar opposite of the Vampires in all ways except for one crucial common trait--immortality. It's fascinating to imagine what would happen if Ramses were to encounter Lestat!
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