Saturday, April 30, 2016

My 'writer's storyboard' for "THE EGYPTIAN MYTHOLOGY MURDERS" (Kindle Fiction)

Writer's storyboard - visualizing some elements helps make a project real through the long months of writing

What comes first - the book or the movie?
As a Creative Director in advertising, I've learnt to think visually. As a result, I like to do a book storyboard using Googled photos - like this opening scene
This approach helps to achieve a heightened sense of reality - as important for the author to sustain enthusiasm overvthe long months of writing  as it is to the reader living the story.
I've almost shot the movie BEFORE I've written the book.


Excerpt from The Egyptian Mythology Murders




Chapter 1




A female mummy from ancient Egypt lay outstretched inside a hospital scanning machine.


The British Museum had brought the mummy to St. Thomas’ Hospital for a non-invasive examination of the body beneath its wrappings.


“We’ll begin by doing the head and neck in two millimetre slices. I’m just relieved that nobody will have to give this patient the bad news that she’s terminal.”


The radiologist had made the joke to bridge the jarring disconnect between ancient death, wrapped up in magical spells, and the modern day machinery of medical imaging. 


The radiation scan - at a dose lethal for the living - blasted through the linen windings. It was like a penetration of sunlight warming the bones after the ache of the desert night.


The machine hummed. A spinning cylinder curved around the mummy’s head like a night sky arching over Egypt.


The sand-dry cells of the body, spread out in an undulating landscape on the CT tray, stirred in a sudden breath.


Life! Resurgent life! It eddied, thickened, mounted in force, blowing, gusting, then blasting through the mummy like a desert sand storm.


She opened one green eye to look out through a small gap in her wrappings.


“Shall we pipe in some comforting music for the patient?” a voice said outside the chamber...


Cross a threshold to ancient Egypt's unknown THE DOOR OF THOTH

Fiction on AMAZON KINDLE

DYNASTY Z-e-r-o. A window into a mythic struggle of men, gods and demigods before the pharaohs

On AMAZON KINDLE

Monday, April 25, 2016

"For fans of Indiana Jones and Stargate"... Grab these adventure and mystery thrillers on Kindle

"Dive into" Roy Lester Pond fiction on Amazon Kindle

ROY LESTER POND Egypt, Mystery & Adventure Fiction Collection
“Compellingly brought to life in modern day Egypt… The Smiting Texts is a fast paced adventure story that will pull you in and won’t let go, even after you turn the last page.

The Smiting Texts was a very enjoyable read which fans of Indiana Jones and the Stargate franchise would do well to dive into."

- Read Between The Lines

***** 5 stars, Amazon
"I loved the book... such a great writer! It really fulfilled all my requirements for a great read. Knowledge of Egypt is astounding" - Amazon reader

Thursday, April 21, 2016

An Egypt adventure thriller series opening I enjoyed writing - 'THE IBIS APOCALYPSE'...



It hurtled down the ramp of a tomb passage... a cubic man forming a crushing volume in stone (opening scene The Ibis Apocalypse)



Ibis catacomb, el-Ashmunein, Egypt


“SORRY, ANSON. Your search for the stela ends here!”
The voice of the woman funneled down the underground passage, the echoes fluttering off the stone like startled bats.
Anson Hunter, alternative Egyptologist and theorist, felt a chill as the words reached his ears. It was caused as much by the emotional separation in her voice as by its distance. Her voice was startlingly removed. It was also hard and cold. A few minutes earlier she had been a companionable presence at his shoulder. Now this. She had deserted him, stealing back up the ramp of the passage.
Why?
A rumble of thunder came to deepen his puzzlement and then a screech, the sound of stone moving over stone, grinding, scouring. He felt a tremble under his feet. He spun his flashlight. The abrasion grew to a roar that made his eardrums cower.
A slab of darkness surged out of deeper darkness. His beam flared on a block of granite in a humanoid shape. A man mountain. It was a stone block with a carved head on top… a colossal block-statue of a High Priest of Thoth, weighing tons.
The cubic man, with head, feet and hands protruding, squatted on a base with his knees raised and arms folded across them under a cloak to form a crushing volume in stone.
In the turmoil, the passage trembled and so did Anson.
The wigged and bearded face on top of the block wore a
smile that belied the missile’s crushing intent as the statue shuddered over the floor. Hieroglyphs on the front of the block leapt into Anson’s vision like an execration hurled at him, a spell to obliterate an intruder.
The attack of the granite rock slide turned him to stone.
He had seen the block statue earlier, bulking at the head of the passage, and, fearing a trap, had urged his female companion to step over a granite flagstone in the floor, fearing it might trigger disaster.
But she had slipped back and deliberately set it off.
Now he understood the reason for the vast corridor and the ramped floor that plunged into the earth. It was built to speed the massive plug on its rush down the passage.
The cubic man gathered momentum and the sound of tortured stone assaulted his ears as he felt a blast of arriving air hit his body. It felt like a train coming down a tunnel.
He could never outrun it.
Then what?
A glance told him there was no room in the passage to jump clear. That left one option. Jump on board the block statue before it gathered more speed. Go along for the ride.
Instead of fleeing, he went to meet his fate and the stony smile on the face seemed to spread.
Jump! Hold on to the head.
The throaty roar of the slab filled his ears and sparks showered from its base.
He sprang like a suicide throwing his body into the path of a train.
The stone mass slammed into his body. He lost his torch and his wind in the impact. The polished surface tried to repel him and he felt his body skidding. He threw his arms out and hooked them around the pyramidal bulge of the block-priest’s wig, clamped on tight.
He rode the human slab in darkness broken by sparks showering upwards to illuminate sliding passage walls. The flicker revealed the statue’s brutal face and stone ears curved like bowls against the wig. The grind and screech of the block’s descent sent shock waves through the core of the colossus and it seemed to be shaking underneath him as if in a rage.
The slab thundered on. It was as if the priestly defender of the tomb were trying to sweep him off by speed alone.
Down, down Anson slid, riding a rock fall on a journey through the darkness of an underworld.
He had clung to ancient Egypt all of his life and now he was hanging on to it for his very life, not to its mystery or allure or its esoteric beliefs, but to its concrete monumentality.
He never imagined it would end like this in the hell of screaming, spark-showering stone, betrayed by a woman he trusted. Yet this was where his journey had always been going.
His obsession to find a stone book called the Destiny Stela, inscribed with the most dangerous texts ever composed, was carrying him to destruction.


The opening scene from my Egypt adventure thriller “The Ibis Apocalypse” (Amazon Kindle and paperback – third in the Anson Hunter Adventure series following The Smiting Texts (Hardcover and paperback only) and “The Hathor Holocaust” (Amazon Kindle & Paperback). All feature renegade alternative Egyptologist, theorist, phenomenologist and avid blogger Anson Hunter.

The Anubis Intervention - see the complete series...

Wednesday, April 20, 2016

ENTRY POINT to a 10-novel mystery thriller series with an Egyptian archaeological theme

THE SMITING TEXTS.  (An Anson Hunter novel)

A clash of world superpowers thousands of years apart… ancient Egypt and modern America (Out in Kindle and paperback). First in a series of Egyptology adventure mystery thrillers.

The murder of an Egyptologist rings alarm bells with the US Department of Homeland Security. Before he knows it they co-opt his son, controversial historian 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 too hideously real. Anson Hunter's special knowledge as an alternative Egyptologist, theorist and phenomenologist may be the key to stopping a catastrophe.



HATHOR'S HOLOCAUST. (An Anson Hunter novel)

Can a rogue Egyptologist stop an ancient Egyptian apocalypse of plague and global scorching? (Available in Amazon Kindle edition and paperback.) An apocalyptic danger has arisen from the ancient past in Egypt today bringing a threat to the Middle East and also to the West - of plague, pestilence, fiery destruction and global scorching. Anson Hunter, controversial, alternative Egyptologist, theorist, blogger and phenomenologist is the hero of this historical adventure novel with a rich mythological vein. Followed by Western Intelligence organizations, shadowed by a mysterious androgyne assassin, he must race to avert a crisis in a quest spanning USA, Britain and Egypt. Who is behind the plan to trigger an apocalypse? Neo-religionists, Torchbearers with a dangerous New Age agenda, Christian dispensationalists who are eager to bring on the 'end times' or radical Islamists with a hatred of the West? In mythology, Ra Egypt's sun god, hurled an execration upon a rebellious humankind and, in a hot rage, despatched the scorching Eye of Ra, a holocaust sun in the form of the goddess Sekhmet, to destroy them. A marauding lioness, her breath spread pestilence and plague and her claws and teeth death as she swept through Egypt in an orgy of killing. Then Ra had second thoughts and halted her apocalypse. But the execration had been uttered and it was always feared that the inherently unstable agent of destruction - the Female Soul With Two Faces - would one day return to finish off what she had started, cleansing the earth.



THE IBIS APOCALYPSE. (An Anson Hunter novel)

Ancient Egypt’s forbidden power… the world’s fate written in stone. (Amazon Kindle and paperback.) Third in the series of Egyptology adventure mystery thrillers after 'The Smiting Texts' and 'The Hathor Holocaust'...Was Egypt's magical Book of Thoth originally carved in stone - on a stela - rather than written on a scroll? Anson Hunter, controversial alternative Egyptologist and theorist, is obsessed with locating the forbidden Stela of Destiny before the wrong people get hold of it. The Stela, or stone book, of Thoth, Egypt's god of magic, is the most powerful and malefic source of esoteric texts ever written. The texts bring frightening power but also a terrible backlash. Twice in history the contents have come to light - the first time in the reign of Rameses the Great, linked with the Plagues of Egypt and the suffering of the Hebrews, and in 1939 when a German Egyptologist took rubbings of the stone texts to Hitler's Germany before the horrors of World War II. Israeli Intelligence and its allies in the USA become alarmed when the Destiny Stela threatens to break into history once again. As they are all too aware, the Stela of Destiny is the Holy Grail for organisations and conspirators with dangerous political and religious agendas, both in the USA and in Europe. Anson embarks on an investigation under the cover of shooting a screen documentary, pursued by enemies and shadowed by striking Israeli Mossad agent Zara Margolin and suspicious Egyptian authorities, in a hunt that covers USA, UK and secret archaeological sites in Egypt. Can he find and penetrate the deadly series of chambers of the Sanctuary of Thoth that guards the Stela of Destiny before a dangerous new dawn breaks for humankind? 'The Ibis Apocalypse' is a danger-fraught adventure that unfolds against the background of ancient Egypt's enthralling legend and mythology.
Latest in series The Great Pyramid Eternity Key

"There's a precedent for this," she said. "Seth cut the body of Osiris into 14 parts..." THE OBELISK PROPHECY

New novel in the series



London



The bleak atmosphere of the stainless steel zone wrapped itself around them like the cold stink of formalin.

“You recognize him?” the morgue technician said after sliding out the tray for the two visitors, a young man and woman, a policeman from a London antiquities unit, Jon Lawlor, and a young British Museum curator and Egyptologist, Jennefer Jollife.

She tried not to breathe in the chilling air. It was like looking at cuts in a butcher’s shop, the severed portions of the body arranged to the best advantage on a tray. Yet the expression on the dead man’s face made him appear to be resigned to his fate, almost as detached from the situation as the head was from its body.

She felt a choking grief. Martin had been a mentor, a kindly light in her sea of inexperience when she had begun as a junior curator in the multi-universe of civilizations that made up the British Museum.

“Which part of him?” Jon said. “The arms, hands, legs, feet, head…?”

Jennefer looked at Jon with her wide-spaced eyes that some took for innocence but they were the wideness and watchfulness of a falcon’s stare. He was showing his characteristic levity, she thought frowning. This was no time or place for it.

“That’s him all right,” she said. “Professor Bailey. I worked with him at the British Museum. This is too horrible. Poor Martin.”

“Some kind of elaborate suicide, no doubt,” Jon said, undeterred. She had long ago nicknamed him Metro Man, a good-looking London metrosexual and sharp dresser, with slightly thinning hair, who liked to belie the sharpness of his mind. “I see what’s happened here. This man threw himself on a stack of carefully arranged blades. Or maybe he did it piece by piece. Tricky lopping off pieces of yourself one at a time until you get to your head, but then you’ve got a bit of a problem with no arms.”

“This is hardly the time for levity, Jon.”

Jennefer regarded him with almost as much horror as she did the remains on the tray.

She had to remind herself once again. This was Jon’s way of working. He liked to voice the impossible first ‘to get it out of the way so that he could move on to the possible and probable,’ he’d say, but sometimes his outrageous theorizing made her stretch her mind and question her grasp on reality.

Was it possible? Could she entertain the idea for a second that this was a case of suicide?
The gruesome body parts said no.

Quite impossible.           

“This has to be murder. Worse, an execution.”
“You think?”

She shuddered. Catching a whiff of mortality, she moved a little closer to Jon. He had a relieving tang of an aftershave or a bracing liquid soap.

As a museum curator, she was used to setting out objects and ideas neatly and carefully and labelling them correctly. Clean swept and willowy, even her beauty was ordered, her long hair drawn back on one side of her head and allowed to tumble in curls on the other side of her face.

“There is of course a precedent for this,” she said. “The Egyptian devil-god Seth murdered his brother Osiris and cut the body into fourteen pieces. It's almost as if this is designed to echo an event in mythology.”

“A murder in fourteen parts,” Jon said. “Interesting, Jennefer. If the Professor didn’t do this to himself, then who did? A rival academic, jealous of his research?”

“Seriously,” she said.

“A scholarly terrorist who’s read up on mythology?” 

“Not even terrorists butcher people this way.”

The technician cleared his throat and glanced at the young lady.

“One body part was missing,” the technician said. “Thirteen pieces were found.”

“Being a female, she’s probably spotted that essential missing part already,” Jon said.

“That confirms it,” she said. “When Seth cut Osiris into fourteen pieces, he threw one piece into the River Nile.”

“Which piece?” He was making her say the word.

“The penis.”

He winced.

“Hate that word. So, a mythological copycat killing,” he said.

She shook her head.

“More complicated and sinister than that. Such an elaborate execution is sending a message....” 



Tuesday, April 5, 2016

ANCIENT EGYPT & MYTHOLOGY fiction on Kindle

Mythic fiction

Here, among my range of twenty-something titles are those with a strong mythological flavour:

DYNASTY Zero
HUNTING HATHOR

THE EGYPTIAN MYTHOLOGY MURDERS
THE OBELISK PROPHECY

 See them on AMAZON KINDLE




ANCIENT EGYPT & PARANORMAL style fiction on Kindle

A strong sense of the unknown

If you like a twist of the unknown, here are a range of titles with a paranormal flavour:

THE EGYPTIAN MYTHOLOGY MURDERS
THE OBELISK PROPHECY

THE CLEOPATRA DEATH CONSPIRACY

THE OSIRIS SEED MUMMY

THE DELTA DILEMMA

SHABTI The Egyptian Soul Slave Mystery (Short story)

Probe into the unknown on Amazon Kindle

ANCIENT EGYPT & INVESTIGATIVE style fiction on kindle

Investigative and archaeological adventure thrillers

"THE SMITING TEXTS reads with the personal, narrative pull of a private eye novel,"one reviewer said about the first in my renegade archaeologist series featuring Anson Hunter.

Here are several titles with a strong, investigative flavour:

(Anson Hunter titles)
THE SMITING TEXTS
THE HATHOR HOLOCAUST
THE IBIS APOCALYPSE
RISING OF THE NILE GODS 
EGYPT EYES
THE FORBIDDEN GLYPHS
THE GOD DIG

THE EGYPT EYE CASE 


THE EGYPTIAN MYTHOLOGY MURDERS (investigative paranormal series)
THE OBELISK PROPHECY



Investigate them on AMAZON KINDLE