Scarabus

Rating:
Summary: [Bad]
Review: The only remarkable thing about this novel is that people are buying it. It is utterly lacking in momentum and the reader will find himself skipping over long sections just to try to find some small nugget of something interesting. Attention to historical detail is slipshod, at best. The characters never once rise above cardboard [imitators]. Karen Koehler has not written "cutting edge horror" and she surely isn't the next "evolutionary step" in modern horror. She's just imitating Anne Rice, the way that so many of the early gothic writers imitated Ann Radcliffe or Matthew Lewis. This book would be better categorized as "historical romance," as it rarely rises above the sort of formulaic plotting to be expected from such pulp. There are good modern gothic novels. This is not one of them.

Rating:
Summary: A Unique Twist on the Vampire
Review: This is the riveting story of the Demon Scarabus, Lord of the Damned. As told by Scarabus himself, his 3,000 year journey whipstitches back and forth between Ancient Egypt and present day Chicago. In Egypt, the evil cult of the Scarabae conspires to transform a young tomb painter named Tjanefer into the king of their kind, a powerful but controllable demon-priest designed to serve them and their god Scarabaeous. In a horrific ceremony, Tjanefer is made over into an immortal creature who retains the form of a man at times and disintegrates at other times into a mass of flesh-eating scarab beetles. Confused, terrified, and enraged, Tjanefer fights the will of the Scarabae with all his own considerable will, believing that no man is a slave, no man a "leaf on the Nile."

Although Scarabus becomes a monster, he refuses to do the bidding of the cult, striving instead to find a way to reverse the transformation and become a mortal man again. Scarabus also longs for his Egyptian wife Miw, who has become reincarnated several times through the ages, teasing him briefly with the love that defined his mortal years. Now, in Chicago, Christian Tjanefer III meets Victoria Chase, a beautiful woman he believes to be the most recent avatar of Miw's soul. Captivated by Victoria, Scarabus tries even harder to run down the lead of an ancient cup believed to cleanse the bearer of a demonic state. But forces from the past continue to pursue Scarabus, threatening everything he now holds dear.

This is a richly detailed and compelling story of a complex man whose transformation, rather than simply turning him into a one-dimensional evil creature, adds layers to his character instead. He is immortal, powerful, and wealthy. He kills to feed the ba, the essence of the Demon, and he feels no regret for his countless victims. Yet he persists in searching for his love and the return of his mortality. He doesn't have all the answers, even after 3,000 years, and it is the demon's vulnerability--his not understanding everything--that is fascinating. The climax is exciting and full of twists and turns. .

Karen Koehler's hallmarks of vivid imagery, rich detail, and an unforgettable character who lives on the torturous edge between life and death, are again present. Part horror, part love story, this is an original twist on the vampire novel. Ms. Koehler's hero is once again an artist, but it is the author herself who paints a complex tapestry of historical detail, a larger-than-life character, and the questions about free will, destiny and fate that that character, and us, wonder about.

Rating:
Summary: A Unique Twist on the Vampire
Review: This is the riveting story of the Demon Scarabus, Lord of the Damned. As told by Scarabus himself, his 3,000 year journey whipstitches back and forth between Ancient Egypt and present day Chicago. In Egypt, the evil cult of the Scarabae conspires to transform a young tomb painter named Tjanefer into the king of their kind, a powerful but controllable demon-priest designed to serve them and their god Scarabaeous. In a horrific ceremony, Tjanefer is made over into an immortal creature who retains the form of a man at times and disintegrates at other times into a mass of flesh-eating scarab beetles. Confused, terrified, and enraged, Tjanefer fights the will of the Scarabae with all his own considerable will, believing that no man is a slave, no man a "leaf on the Nile."

Although Scarabus becomes a monster, he refuses to do the bidding of the cult, striving instead to find a way to reverse the transformation and become a mortal man again. Scarabus also longs for his Egyptian wife Miw, who has become reincarnated several times through the ages, teasing him briefly with the love that defined his mortal years. Now, in Chicago, Christian Tjanefer III meets Victoria Chase, a beautiful woman he believes to be the most recent avatar of Miw's soul. Captivated by Victoria, Scarabus tries even harder to run down the lead of an ancient cup believed to cleanse the bearer of a demonic state. But forces from the past continue to pursue Scarabus, threatening everything he now holds dear.

This is a richly detailed and compelling story of a complex man whose transformation, rather than simply turning him into a one-dimensional evil creature, adds layers to his character instead. He is immortal, powerful, and wealthy. He kills to feed the ba, the essence of the Demon, and he feels no regret for his countless victims. Yet he persists in searching for his love and the return of his mortality. He doesn't have all the answers, even after 3,000 years, and it is the demon's vulnerability--his not understanding everything--that is fascinating. The climax is exciting and full of twists and turns. .

Karen Koehler's hallmarks of vivid imagery, rich detail, and an unforgettable character who lives on the torturous edge between life and death, are again present. Part horror, part love story, this is an original twist on the vampire novel. Ms. Koehler's hero is once again an artist, but it is the author herself who paints a complex tapestry of historical detail, a larger-than-life character, and the questions about free will, destiny and fate that that character, and us, wonder about.