And so it begins… our now traditional list of Hallowe’en-y stuff that we humbly bring to your attention throughout October. Our very own Hoarder on the Threshold of all things Horror, Randy M, begins with a review of a book that has more than a touch of the Universal Monsters about it… as you can see by this great cover!
“Excuse me, Mr. Hardy, but I think I can save you and the elegant lady, but we must act quickly before the ghouls finish eating in the pit.”
— from chapter 17
Consider being a newly minted Egyptologist with no place to go. What would you do if an eccentric millionaire offered up financing for an expedition?
Dr. Romulous Hugo Hardy has reason to reminisce about his days at the University of Chicago, where he twiddled his thumbs as he ached to start a dig in Egypt. Montague Pythagoras Waterston, having heard Hardy was promising from his professors at the University of Chicago, offers funding and Hardy is off to Egypt without questions. He comes to rue this.
When Hardy’s initial excavations come away empty, Waterston sends directions to another site, far from where other Egyptologists have determined there are ruins to unearth. Waterston claims he learned of this site in a dream and while Hardy is dubious, the funds are from Waterston so the expedition moves on.
The new site is devoid of life. No birds or small animals. At the base of a skull-shaped rock Waterston told to look for, they uncover a stairway leading into the skull’s mouth. Dreams have bothered Hardy, even before arriving, but there’s work to do, find the mummies Waterston has assured them exist, and get them back to America albeit illegally. First, though, they must survive the tomb.
Early on Fury from the Tomb feels a little like the first Brendon Fraser The Mummy movie in that it shares a similar touch of Indiana Jones with a liberal dose of the best of the Universal and the Hammer Studios mummy movies. When they reach America the author stirs in something like the The Wild, Wild West TV show. Sidor has the knack of mixing these elements with his events and with character development while also describing his setting concisely; he evokes the time and place in few strokes as he follows his premise all the while maintaining an action/adventure story pace. Along the way, Hardy meets a lusty Brit, a couple of Pinkerton agents, a surprisingly talented and funny ghoul, and he partners with a young Chinese dining car attendant and his parents, a gunslinger with a miraculous knack for surviving and Waterston’s daughter.
There are some gory moments as well as moments that are nicely otherworldly, and I want to note that not every author can mix mummies, vampires, gunslingers, ghouls and Satanic monks and make it readable much less entertaining and at times funny, but what makes it a quick, smooth read is our awareness of Sidor having fun, taking his craft seriously even as he doesn’t necessarily take his story seriously, the underlying humor of description and character reactions thoroughly melded together.
A sequel came out in early 2019, The Beast of Nightfall Lodge, which I hope to read later this year. Having read this as the pandemic began, I can assure you as escapist reading you’d be hard pressed to find better.
FURY FROM THE TOMB by S. A. Sidor
Angry Robot, 2018
448 pages
ISBN: 978-0857667618
Review by Randy Money
