A fiction writer's most memorable impressions of Egypt

Adventure fiction that spans the sites of ancient Egypt - on Amazon Kindle (photos Brenda Pond)

Egyptian cat... one of our dogs, Rameses, was smitten with it.

We've had dynasties of dogs with names like Seti, Rameses, Pharoah... and now Anubis

The excitement of discovery... in Egypt and archaeology-based adventure fiction

Imagine finding this Egyptian falcon in the sands of Egypt...(my favourite British Museum replica!)

Discover the hidden secrets of ancient Egypt - Roy Lester Pond, Amazon Kindle

Take young people to museums and the 2 THINGS THEY MOST WANT TO SEE...

The dinosaur... and the mummy

If you can still remember the frisson of gazing at both, try the tingle of mysterious adventure friction in 'The Egyptian Mythology Murders" or 'Godseed Resurrection... or other titles on this blog... or visit Roy Lester Pond on Amazon Kindle. 

Roy Lester Pond Egypt Fiction Titles (Non Series)

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"The voluptuousness of ancient Egypt... in adventure fiction..."

ROY LESTER POND FICTION ON AMAZON KINDLE

"The light and shadow of ancient Egypt... in adventure fiction..."

ROY LESTER POND FICTION ON AMAZON KINDLE

UPDATE: Ancient Egypt and Outer Space... is ancient Egypt taking over the universe?

 FURTHER UPDATE

It continues - the curious 'ancient Egyptianization' of outer space...

"Incredible Footage of OSIRIS-REx Being Launched Towards an Asteroid

NASA’s spacecraft will intercept Bennu, a small butpotentially hazardous near-Earth object..." (Observer)

UPDATE

The association continues to build... according to this recent item "Bennu... Formerly known as 1999 RQ36, the space rock was chosen by process of elimination as the destination for the UA-led OSIRIS-REx mission, which will pick up a sample of its regolith and return it to Earth for analysis. Launch is little more than two months away."

We are not the only ones to fuse ancient Egypt and outer space. 

The ancient Egyptians' built creation stories out of stellar events. 
  
The sacred Benben stone, centre-piece of the temple of Ra in Heliopolis, was in all likelihood a conical meteorite that fell to earth in Egypt, its pyramidion shape finding echoes in obelisks and in pyramids themselves. 

The ancient Egyptians prized 'iron of the sky', meteoric iron used in the making of jewellery beads, ceremonial daggers (Tutankhamun's treasure provides a famous example of this) and in the sacred adze used in the opening of the mouth ceremony.

OSIRIS-Rex, Philae and Rosetta are just two more examples, and names, in a long comet’s tail of associations between outer space and ancient Egypt.*

Think of the asteroid Apophis (the great Egyptian serpent god of outer darkness) that threw a scare into us when it was feared it might strike earth.

Think of the canonical use of sarcophagus-like sleep capsules used by distant travellers in science fiction movies, with 'Interstellar' being the latest example.

Like astronauts, mummies are bound up in elaborate white suits with masks for their journey through eternity.

Consider the Great Pyramid as the largest ever gantry for a space shot to put the pharaoh's soul into space and orbit among the imperishable circumpolar stars.

In fact you might say that ancient Egypt devised the first ‘space ship’ – a pharaoh’s barque that traveled through the heavens like the sun in a journey of millions of years.

The first 'space ship'- from ancient Egypt?

*(In one of my fictional adventure mysteries, 'THE RA VIRUS'', I build on this tradition where a meteorite bearing a deadly pathogen is suspected of being the cause of an 'Eleventh Plague of Egypt')

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His flashlight illuminated faces of a cow eared goddess carved into the columns. “What is this place?”

New fiction - The Cleopatra Death Conspiracy

A mysteriously chosen group, they had been driven to this unknown site in Land Cruisers by night, blindfolded.

The vehicles had departed, abandoning them, and they’d been led toiling up a rocky path on a mountain or cliff face and eventually admitted via low passages into some large underground vault where voices echoed in empty space.

When the blindfolds came off, it had revealed more darkness until they reached for their flashlights. Spurts of yellow beams began washing across columns in an ancient entrance hall.

Lawrence looked around, marvelling at the sight. His flashlight illuminated faces of a cow eared goddess carved into the columns.

“What is this place?” he said in an enthralled whisper.

Here, brought to life, was the setting of every historical fantasy he had ever wanted to write, every dream he ever dared to dream, every mystery he had ever wanted to believe in.

They had been brought here on the wishes of a dead man, James Hollister.

Before he died, the rich and cancer-ridden archaeologist had invited a group of chosen individuals to this secret location in Egypt.

The lure?

The execution of his last will and testament. Hollister would bequeath to them a great secret discovery, which, if ever revealed, would electrify the world.

A group of intrigued beneficiaries.

Did Akhenaten require the use of a stick?

Amarna-style couple thought to be Akhenaten and Nefertiti, Neues Museum, Berlin

Following on from the BBC virtual autopsy program on Tutankhamun and his possible disabilities...

What fiction readers say about "The Egyptian Mythology Murders"

Download it on Amazon Kindle (also paperback)

Book Poster - "The Egyptian Mythology Murders"

Enter the mystery on Amazon Kindle

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A female mummy named Isis from the British Museum is taken to a hospital for a non-invasive imaging scan… so begins a mystery and a string of deaths.

An ancient cycle unfolds in modern day London - and a search for eternal love.

Can Jennefer, a young trainee museum curator and Jon, a police antiquities unit detective, stop the killings in time before a terrible culmination of events? 

Hatshepsut's daughter Neferure with favourite Senenmut

Tenderly holding Neferure on his lap, British Museum

He made for the sculpture gallery.

Egypt, both divinely monumental and naturalistic, surrounded him. Two statues of Pharaoh Amenhotep III, powerfully formed in dark granodiorite, flanked the entranceway to a hall, granting admittance, and inside, as stone slid by, other familiar sights came into view, a red granite lion with charmingly crossed forepaws, and further on, the statue of the Chief Steward Senenmut tenderly holding the daughter of Queen Hatshepsut, the little princess Neferure, on his lap - the child wrapped within his cloak and her face peeping out - then a soaring, crowned head of Pharaoh Amenhotep in the background. And people everywhere, creating a sound of buzzing like voices in a cathedral at prayer time...

The Elegance of Ancient Egypt

The Gayer Anderson cat, British Museum

Ancient Egyptian scarab beetle of crushing scale

 British Museum

On the giant screen they all saw Thompson Rush’s hand descend and his fingers press the keyboard.

He saw it spreading in seconds like a lethal virus, ripping through the world’s computer networks, a metaphysical virus so potent that users could pick it up simply by scanning the Internet, through e-mail attachments and vulnerable Internet information servers.

What evil could it stir in this realm of digits?

He saw it reaching out to children on their computers, corporation workers, police, air traffic controllers, hospital workers, students... He saw the texts of the Destiny Stela as a creature coming alive, like a scarab crawling through the desert of data, streaming strings of binary computer code off its shiny back - grains of zeroes and ones, like sand, as it attacked the pillars of science, reason and religion and faith, taking humankind back to an age of fear where it was at the mercy of primeval forces.

Excerpt from the Anson Hunter archaeological thriller series - Amazon Kindle and paperback

The Underworld Runners.... in Virtual Eternity New Kindle Fiction

EIGHT PEOPLE were running through a dusty landscape. They moved in twilight between cliffs in a rocky desert valley, in the first hour of the twelve hours of the ancient Egyptian underworld night. But they weren’t in Egypt... ‘Virtual Eternity’ fiction. A journey through ancient Egypt’s underworld

They were totally immersed inside a new virtual reality simulator called ‘Virtual Eternity’, built by mysterious tech organization, The Sirius Research Corporation.

Each person, invited under the strictest secrecy, bore a tag – Sage, Robber, Scribe, Prophetess, Gamer, Soldier, Priest, and Neophyte.

Sage ran at the head of the party. She’d been assigned the title ‘Sage’ or ‘wise one’ as an associate professor of Egyptology specializing in mythology and funerary beliefs, despite her youth.

One of the party ran past the others to catch up to her. It was Gamer, a compact young Korean-born game designer.

“This place is unreal, huh?” he said.

“It’s real enough for me.”

“That’s what I’m talking about. It’s so real… it is unreal. I always wanted to design an ancient Egyptian VR game, but this, hey, I can’t fathom it out. One hundred percent immersive. Three sixty-degree landscape. Perfect resolution. No lag. All sensory input and inner-ear thing of real movement. Forces on body, real muscle sense. Even sweat and fatigue.” He gave the Egyptologist a quizzical look. “You have the inside story? What is this place all about? Is this a role-playing game, or just an ancient Egyptian environment? What are we supposed to do here?”

“Just experience it and survive,” Sage said. A tall woman, Sage wore a dark blue T-shirt and light khaki trousers and archaeology boots and she cut a lithe figure, running nimbly and easily. “You heard the announcement like a god’s voice cracking over our heads at the start. We’ve got twelve hours to reach the end of the underworld before dawn, surviving the dangerous guardians, gateways and demons of the journey along the way, or we die. Virtually die, one hopes.”

“That is the beauty of game worlds,” Gamer said. “Nobody dies. You just keep coming back for more. Over and over again. You learn from your experience.”

“That’s reassuring. But in this dead and dry landscape, dying seems as real as living.”

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See the fiction collection on this blog and on Amazon Kindle

A great scarab beetle of Egypt's underworld - VIRTUAL ETERNITY

Fiction On Amazon Kindle

“Whoa, what is that?” 

“A scarab beetle.”

“As big as a tank?”

A monster beetle with shining black carapace and spiky legs that scraped and clanked metallically stood up on its back legs and rolled an enormous fiery mass like a planet ablaze ahead of itself, using its front legs. Its claws struck sparks off the flinty stone of the riverbank.

“The sun boat of Ra has now transformed into the scarab beetle Khepri, rolling the sun ahead of himself, just as the scarab beetle rolls a ball of dung along the ground. Khepri is the ancient Egyptian symbol of rebirth. He’s rolling the sun to the eastern horizon to begin the new day...”

(Excerpt from VIRTUAL ETERNITY.)

Eight very different people are chosen to road test ‘VIRTUAL ETERNITY’, an ancient Egyptian virtual reality simulator housed in a complex on the estate of tech billionaire Brandon Viking, a lifelong lover of Egypt’s past.

Each wears a tag – Sage, Robber, Scribe, Prophetess, Gamer, Soldier, Priest, and Neophyte. They must race through the twelve hours and zones of the ancient Egyptian underworld night to reach the end of the journey before dawn, but only if they can survive hideous dangers along the way.

Then, shockingly, a journeyer is killed... really killed, it seems.

They are in a race against time and a struggle against the guardians and monsters of the underworld as well as against each other.

Enthralling adventure novella that hits the ground running.

‘VIRTUAL ETERNITY – A journey through ancient Egypt’s underworld - shocking reality, or deadly Virtual Reality?

 

Thoth is ubiquitous in my Egypt adventure fiction

A fine Thoth baboon, British Museum

In a myth that anticipates the Arabian Nights, Thoth was sent into the desert in the form of baboon to try to locate the goddess Hathor and lure her back home with him. It seems the rampaging Destroyer of Humankind and Goddess of Love, had thrown a huff like a desert dust storm and turned her back on Egypt, loping off into the desert. How did Thoth win her back without being devoured? The little trickster spun the lioness a string of stories, like Sheherazade, drawing her step by step across the desert, charming her all the way home to Mother Nile...

The Egyptian Mythology Murders - mysterious Egypt fiction

New Amazon Kindle edition

A mummy named Isis is taken to a hospital for a non-invasive imaging scan… so begins a mystery and a string of deaths.

An ancient cycle unfolds in modern day London - and a search for eternal love.

Can Jennefer, a young trainee museum curator and Jon, a police antiquities unit detective, stop the killings in time before a terrible culmination of events?