BOOK TITLE: The Mummy: Tomb of the Dragon Emperor
AUTHOR: Max Allan Collins
YEAR: 2008
GENRE: Fiction
SUBGENRE: Urban Fantasy
GRADE: Pass
In the year 200 BC, China ’s Dragon Emperor conquered
his country with an iron fist and compassion for nobody. Karma would take the
form of a sorceress’s curse, which covered him and his army in terra-cotta and
banished them in suspended animation for eternity. Fast forward two millenniums
and the Dragon Emperor is awakened from his curse by the greedy and zealous
General Yang. The globetrotting O’Connell family must now put the mummy back
into the ground by stabbing him in the heart with a mystical blade that was
guarded for many generations. With an endless supply of firepower and unmatched
martial arts skills, the O’Connells truly are the world’s last hope.
Even though this book earned its passing grade (four out of
five stars), it’s not without its glaring flaws, particularly in the cheese
department. The narrator constantly complimenting the female characters’
beauty, the gratuitous explosions, the sometimes off-color use of similes and
metaphors, the instant chemistry between Alex O’Connell (the son) and Lin
(Chinese tomb guardian), and the most obvious cheese of all, Alex and his
father Rick using penis analogies to describe their submachine guns and
pistols. Considering this was once a poorly received movie, I don’t doubt that
these cheesy elements turned off plenty of viewers.
But that’s not to say that this book doesn’t deserve the
praise it gets. All in all, it’s a fun little book filled with action,
adventure, and opportunities for young authors to learn how to write in a
fast-paced manner. It turns out that describing every punch and kick within a
Jackie Chan-style fight isn’t one hundred percent necessary. In fact, that
would take forever and impatient readers like me don’t have forever. We like hard-hitting
action. We like hailstorms of bullets. We like tooth and nail struggles that
bring the warriors to the edge of death and back again. Although the O’Connell family
is blessed with martial arts skills and expensive firearms, they’re no doubt
going to earn whatever victories they get. To put it in Rick’s terms, this
struggle is going to make them HATE mummies!
The wild imagination of this story is something I also want
to praise. Magical elements, bloodthirsty three-headed dragons, barbaric yetis,
immortal Chinese warriors, a pool of eternal life, mystical artifacts, this
urban fantasy has everything you need in order to get those inner wheels
turning. While some of the magical occurrences come off as random at times,
they don’t take away from the action or drama of the book and actually make
sense in hindsight. Look at it this way: how else is a mere mortal named Rick
O’Connell going to beat the crap out of a warrior mummy who won’t stay down?
Anybody? Hello? Yes, the dragon dagger comes off as a McGuffin and McGuffins
are considered literary sins, but if you’ve got a better way to kill off this
seemingly immortal Dragon Emperor, I’d like to hear it.
Sometimes all a reader wants to do is have some fun and
you’ll get that with this third installment of The Mummy series. You could also
consider seeing the movie this book was adapted from, but diehard readers will
want to choose the book instead. The writing style is cinematic in and of
itself, so what are you waiting for? Pick up a copy of this four-star book
today! Don’t be too turned off by the fact that this story has more cheese than
a Domino’s pizza. After all, this kind of cheese would make even a vegan hungry.
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