"I finished your book a few days ago and have the sequel in my hot little Kindle. I loved the book - you are such a great writer! It really fulfilled all my requirements for a great read. Your knowledge of Egypt is astounding." (Shazartist, a female reader.)
The others crowded inside and their lights revealed two paths painted on the floor and winding into darkness. One was an empty path, the other filled with blue wavy lines representing a river and in between the two paths, a fiery area of red and yellow.
“What do we do?”
“It’s a cosmography of the underworld, usually painted on the inside base of coffins. A map if you like. It comes from a tract called the ‘Book of Two Ways’ or the ‘Guide to the Ways of Rosetau’, said to have been discovered by the Egyptians ‘under the flanks of the Thoth'. One is a river. It travels from the rising sun in the east to the setting sun in the west and the other is a road that travels the opposite way.”
“So we take the road, I guess,” Thompson Rush said. Anson heard his heavy tread shifting towards it.
“Normally you’d expect to. In the Book of the Dead, the soul travels from the setting sun in the west to the east. But, as I recall, the Book of Two Ways is different. We must go from east to the west, which means taking the river.”
“What’s that red painted area in between the paths?” she said to him.
“That’s the ‘Lake of Flame’ that lies between the two roads. No one can survive falling into it, according to the Book of Two Ways.”
“But it’s just a painting.”
“I think this section is filled with psychological danger, an internal journey of the mind…” He broke off. “Do you hear that?”
“What?”
“Wailing.” It was faint, yet it sounded like the far-off wailing of millions, ineffably sad and draining to the spirit.
They listened.
“Nothing.”
Couldn’t they hear it and feel the waves of sorrow?
The fallen mighty - Rameses ll, Wadi-es-Sebua, Nubia
Fifty metres away from the temple, a statue of Rameses lay half buried in the red sand in fallen grandeur, as though cast out of the precinct, while the inner temple showed an image of Rameses worshipping himself as a god.
The murder of an Egyptologist rings alarm bells with the US Department of Homeland Security. Before he knows it they co-opt his son, renegade British Egyptologist Anson Hunter, into an investigation that has stunning implications for US security.
Yet soon their search attracts the attention of radical Islamists as well as the Egyptian authorities. Dark suspicions surface, suspicions that Anson's father found evidence of a secret that will shake the foundations of every major world religion.
Soon, whichever way they turn, Anson and his team find themselves trapped in a labyrinth of intrigue and menace that becomes all too hideously real.
Anson Hunter's special knowledge as an alternative Egyptologist, theorist and phenomenologist may be the key to stopping a catastrophe.
An unusual alternative Egyptologist fiction hero, ancient Egyptian dangers and modern conspiracy
‘I finished your book (The Smiting Texts) a few days ago and have the sequel in my hot little Kindle. I loved the book - you are such a great writer! It really fulfilled all my requirements for a great read. Your knowledge of Egypt is astounding. I found the book to be extremely engaging on all levels. I loved the intrigue without horror and it was full of interesting twists and turns. I also really enjoyed the characters and their development. It was very well written and for a book so full of information it kept you on your toes. I am so glad it is a series, and will be purchasing the others’ - Amazon reader.
Follow renegade Egyptologist Anson Hunter's investigative adventures into the dangers of the ancient past
UPDATE. NEW The fifth Anson Hunter adventure is now out in Kindle edition.
There are more than rescued temples sitting on the edges of Lake Nasser... also images of Egypt and Nubia's early African wildlife, including an elephant, giraffe and more.
THE CRUISEBOAT stopped along the way at clusters of temples that had been rescued and rebuilt on higher ground at the time of the construction of the new Aswan High Dam.
The rescued structures now sat like sublime flotsam and jetsam washed up high on the shores of the lake.
Kalabsha, Kiosk of Qertassi, Beit al-Wali, Wadi es Sebua, Dakka, Maharraqa, Qasr Ibrim, Derr, Amada...
(From "The Ibis Apocalypse" - a cruise on Lake Nasser with renegade Egyptologist Anson Hunter in the company of a mysterious female Mossad agent.)
THE CRUISEBOAT stopped along the way at clusters of temples that had been rescued and rebuilt on higher ground at the time of the construction of the new Aswan High Dam.
The rescued structures now sat like sublime flotsam and jetsam washed up high on the shores of the lake.
Kalabsha, Kiosk of Qertassi, Beit al-Wali, Wadi es Sebua, Dakka, Maharraqa, Qasr Ibrim, Derr, Amada...
(From "The Ibis Apocalypse" - a cruise on Lake Nasser with renegade Egyptologist Anson Hunter in the company of a mysterious female Mossad agent.)
Were Egypt's gods & goddesses the ancient superheroes?
There is a roll call of Egypt's gods and goddesses in my adventure fiction - including Sobek, Heka, Seshat, Ra, Hathor, Ptah, Horus, Thoth, Osiris, Nut, Anubis and more.
But who were these enigmatic beings?
Were they the ancient world's original 'Marvel' superheroes? (Perhaps the young hawk-god Horus, avenging the murder of his father Osiris, was the archetype of the costumed superheroes in 'The Avengers' movie and others.)
The Palermo Stone - a recorded Canon of Kings - and other testaments of the ancient Egyptians speak of divine beings and demigods who ruled Egypt for thousands of years before the first human kings, beginning with Menes, also known as Narmer.
A character asks in The Smiting Texts:
“And these gods, represented by idols - who do you think they were in the cosmological scheme?”
The Coptic priest shrugged. “I do not profess to know where they fit into creation. I often wonder. Were they the fallen Elohim? God’s fallen council? Intriguingly, Genesis mentions early sons of god who walked the earth: Now it came to pass, when men began to multiply on the face of the earth, and daughters were born to them, that the sons of God saw the daughters of men, that they were beautiful; and they took wives for themselves of all whom they chose. There were giants on the earth in those days, the Bible relates, and also afterward, when the sons of God came in to the daughters of men and they bore children to them. Those were the mighty men who were of old, men of renown.
