ESCAPE HATCH to ancient Egypt mystery

The Smiting Texts, Hathor's Holocaust, The Ibis Apocalypse, The Night of Anubis, The Forbidden Glyphs of Thoth, The God Dig, Egypt Eyes, Artefact, Khufu's Curse, The Son of God Egypt Tomb, The Anson Hunter 1 - 3 collection.

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THE GREY GALLEON. My father in Africa told a story (Book Excerpt from 'Father Africa, Mother Nile', an African memoir by Roy Lester Pond)

Then Rodney Henry Pond came along. My mother re-married, this time to a handsome, towering Hemingwayesque man, without the beard, though he wore one for a time too. Rodney was a chunk of the romantic old Africa and he was an impossible rival for me. He was as prickly as a bull elephant and constantly told me to ‘watch my tone’ and as a result, I developed a fine line of insolence with him that sharpened my language skills. We lived in a small colliery town at the edge of a game reserve, in a valley so hot it seemed that the buried coal was on fire beneath our feet and melted the tar on the roads so that it oozed from the edges of the road surface like slow-moving black tears. Road signs warned of wild elephants. I made a friend, Peter. I was in awe of Peter. He had worse luck with fathers than I did. We used to see his young father buzzing to work at the coalmine on a white scooter. Then suddenly we didn’t see him any more. He had been killed one night in a mining accident. Peter had an aura of grief that was impenetrable. But eventually, inevitably, we connected. We fell into a shared obsession with golf, which Rodney taught me to play, in spite of the dazing heat of Central Africa. My stepfather Rodney was something of an artist and Peter and I would see him at work on the veranda of our house. We watched as he painted a scene of a rogue bull elephant. It had flapping ears and a wide, warning gaze, a force of nature that would need careful handling, like Rodney. Peter, bereft of a father, loved to chat with Rodney as he worked, but I would go silent. People show what they think of you by the way they react when others are around. By saying nothing, I conveyed my hostility. We watched as he used a fine brush to put red sparks in the elephant’s eyes. “That makes him look angry,” Peter said. “They’re easily angered,” Rodney said. “Especially an old bull like this. One day some African miners from the No 2 Colliery stole some dynamite and when to hunt a big bull elephant in the adjoining game reserve. It was noon in Central Africa and the grassy plain shivered in the heat. Three young men were going through the bush.

Two of the men were carrying a length of heavy, hollow steel pipe between them, the third carried a sack over his shoulder. They wore old brown overalls, smudged with coal dust as if they had brought some of the lightless underground up with them in their clothes. The day was glowing like carbon itself, smoking white in the glare. Then suddenly, there was the elephant ahead of them. They found it berthed among thorn trees, feeding calmly on the thorn. A noon-bird gave a monotonous piping note. The miners stopped to rest in the long elephant grass and put down the pipe they were carrying and the sack. As well as the pipe they had stolen sticks of dynamite from the Colliery and a machine called an exploder with a handle that you turn to make the sticks go off. They had seen dynamite at work in the mines, tearing great holes in the coal below the ground. They planned to steal the elephant's ivory and sell it to an Indian trader in Bulawayo. They dreamed of earning enough money to get out of the mines for good. They had followed the elephant for hours to this spot. Even though he was so big, he could move through the thick bush as quietly as a current in the river. He went carefully, knowing when people were following. He even tried to trick the miners by holding back his stomach so he would drop no mounds behind him. But he could not hide his spoor. They knew that the spoor they followed was the spoor of bull and none other. Like the lines on a person's fingers, the lines in the elephant’s feet were special too and even though we had lost sight of him at times, they were sure it was the one. The three miners paused to confer. The two who carried a length of steel piping now fiddled with one end, letting a stick of dynamite attached to wires slide into it. Just then a breeze sprung up, stroking the grass of the plain and blowing the scent of the miners to the browsing elephant, that reacted as if a lever had been pressed inside it. It unfurled its ears and set sail into thorn trees. They followed him for hours before he decided to stop near a donga, resting in the shade of some trees. Afraid that they would lose him again, the miners lost no time working in closer from the donga. The bull elephant faced the gully as if it knew the three men are there; it seemed that the elephant had surrendered the initiative to them and stood by waiting to see what they would do next. Hunters have an old rule about hunting elephants, ‘When hunting the elephant it is advisable to go as close to the elephant as you dare - and then, before firing, go a few yards closer. It does not pay to miss because they do not give you a second chance, just a good trampling.’ The three miners crouching against the eroded wall of the donga began cramming something into the mouth of the pipe. There was a clank and tinkle of metal pieces sliding into it. One of the miners produced a small metal box from a sack he carried over his shoulder. It was the exploder. He clipped a metal handle into a hole in the side of the exploder casing, then he took the two insulated wires that ran from the mouth of the pipe and connected them to two terminals on the exploder. There was sweat on the faces of the miners, while in the forest the noon bird made cooling sounds. They were ready. On a signal from the man with the exploder, they rose, two of them grasping the length of pipe, holding it under their arms like a battering ram, while the third stood to one side, holding the exploder. The hunters climbed the wall of the donga. The elephant gave a hiss like a sigh of escaping steam and shifted, bracing itself. The men went to it, closer and closer. It seemed that they intended to take the pipe right to the feet of the elephant before running. They had a length of wire running from the pipe to the exploder, at least enough to allow them to return to the safety of the donga. They stopped fifteen metres from the elephant, pointing the mouth of the pipe at the tusker. It was lunacy what the miners were planning to do. They had loaded the pipe with an explosive stick and topped it with nuts and bolts and scraps of iron, believing they could use it as a cannon to sink a galleon. The elephant flapped its ears, making dust of the dry mud on its back. It then twirled its trunk and picked up dust, which it tossed up like warning clouds. The three miners waited for its attack, as it flattened its ears, curled its trunk under its body, making itself a smaller target, a sign that it was not bluffing, but was ready to charge. “The bull shrieked and made its lethal rush. The man with the exploder, partly concealed from the elephant by a tree stump, twisted the handle on the exploder. A deafening crash split the day...” Rodney fell silent and lost himself in a detail of the painting? “What then?” Peter said. “What, when?” Rodney said, teasingly. “Oh, you mean the elephant. There was little left of the two miners holding the pipe... The exploder man, protected by the tree stump, was still in one piece but had been flung unconscious or dead onto the ground. The blast appeared to have produced some confusion in the beast for it now acted in an unaccountable way. It went to where the two miners lay and stamped the ground, shrieking at them, long piercing shrieks. It threw a fit of filthy anger, pounding, goring the ground with its tusks, flailing the air with its trunk, all the while shrieking. When this display failed to rouse the miners, it calmed and with its trunk explored delicately the remains on the ground. Remarkably, it then used its trunk to gather the remains together in a pile, before strolling off into the mopane bush, only to return carrying a fallen branch in its trunk, which it deposited over the remains. It kept doing this, building a cairn of branches over the remains. Yet it left the intact body of the exploder. Darkness came. Do you know he did not leave the miners all that night? There were hyena tracks around, but he kept them away. He kept hearing the hyenas and saw their shapes move by in the moonlight as they came to investigate the remains, of the miners. They were in search of an easy meal, but each time they came too close, the elephant charged, and they ran away laughing bitterly. Was he protecting them? It was a kind thing to do after they had tried to take his ivory.” “Did the other miner survive?” “Yes, he lived to tell the story.” “What a smashing story. Thank you,” Peter said. “Your dad is great,” Peter said outside. “Yeah, he’s okay.” I was a bit proud of him and I felt churlish for treating him coolly in front of Peter.

(Excerpt from Father Africa, Mother Nile, Amazon paperback and Kindle

A tumble through a dark tomb doorway of the Egyptian Ibis god Thoth, god of words and magic, ‘translated’ Lucas, an archaeology team member, into an ancient age…

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A WALK-THROUGH AMAZON FICTION CATALOGUE

A gala Nile cruise dinner for the world's top Egyptologists is suddenly invaded by attackers dressed as the gods of ancient Egypt...

What secrets do the invaders seek from Egyptology? Amazon reader: "The story moves at a brisk pace, keeping readers on the edge of their seats."

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A Righteous God vs a Hard-Right God. A Nightmare Comparison.

The Old Testament God appears as a mighty, pharaoh-like authoritarian figure, wrathful, vengeful, jealous, boastful, vain, a partisan player of favourites who demands constant praise from subjects. Authoritarian political leaders appear as mighty, pharaoh-like authoritarian figures, wrathful, vengeful, jealous, boastful, vain, partisan players of favourites who demand constant praise from subjects. (Remind you of anyone?) It’s a nightmare comparison. Maybe conservative sentiment has cancelled the New Testament in favour of the hardness of the Old, instead of the LOVE Of The NEW, favouring Old Testament instead of WHOLE Testament, forgetting that evangelical means acting “according to the teaching of the gospel or the Christian religion.” (It's of course much easier to mirror Old Testament judgementality vs the 'judge not, lest ye be judged' and 'love your neighbour' requirements of the new.)

New Edition. 'THE NIGHT OF ANUBIS" #4 in the Anson Hunter archaeology mystery thriller series

Had a Gala night cruise party for the world's greatest Egyptologists turned deadly? Kindle Edition

THE NIGHT of ANUBIS God-headed invaders board a boatload of archaeologists with hidden secrets . Fourth story in the Anson Hunter series, this novel crackles with the mystery of mythology - and with high tension. A golden horde of attackers disguised in the masks of ancient Egypt’s gods and goddesses… Divine gatecrashers at a gathering of the world’s top Egyptologists aboard a luxury Nile cruise boat. The invaders set up an ancient-Egyptian style judgement scene… is it a reckoning for all of Egyptology? Who are the mysterious attackers? AVAILABLE ON AMAZON KINDLE

"I, The Mummy. Avenger." NEW Edition. Egypt's Ancient Hero Arises, Awakened after a thousand years in a tomb sanctuary filled with weapons...

Egypt's Ancient Hero Arises Action adventure. Awakened after a thousand years in a tomb sanctuary filled with weapons... The Ancient Avenger arises to fight against a ruthless oppressor. The Hyksos conquerors have seized Egypt at a time of weakness following the Middle Kingdom, overpowering all with their superior technology - chariots, hardened bronze weapons and compound bows. And they are now plundering Egypt for its forbidden secrets of power. Can ancient Egypt’s most mysterious hero stop them and resurrect a divided land before the Hyksos can gain Egypt’s most powerful and dangerous secret of all?

WHO WERE THE HYKSOS INVADERS?

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Welcome to Roy Lester Pond Author's Page... Mystery, enigma, archaeology, mythology and adventure reading titles on Amazon

BOOK VIDEO A fiction author's FACTUAL collision with the reality of AI writing and imagery

5 fiction stories begun and written by mystery thriller and historical writer Roy Lester Pond – with vivid story endings injected by The AI Story Machine... stories about, and with, AI writing and image generation programmes. 1. ‘God Against the AI Gods’. Ancient Egypt meets the Gods of AI. The Return of The Digital Plagues of Egypt. 2. ‘Revenge Of She-Who Must-Be-Obeyed.’ Fiction’s legendary “She” meets her creator and destroyer, Author Rider Haggard in search of revenge. 3. 'The Reed & The Sceptre'. Ancient Egypt historical fiction. Queen Hatshepsut and Senmut. 4. ‘Meet Your Maker’. Spy vs Author Creator. Fiction’s most famous secret agent-spy seeks remorse from the author who put him through torture and misery, book after book… 5. ‘The Cursed Ghost of Akhenaten”. A ‘cursed movie’ production, a damnable murder mystery for the Egyptologist detective Daniel Cane… Available on Amazon Kindle.

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Interesting question: "How do I want readers to connect with my book?" I am asked. The challenge for authors (and readers) of The AI Story Machine...

This book is available on Amazon Kindle

Welcome to Roy Lester Pond Author's Page... Mystery, enigma, archaeology and adventure reading

"LOVE this genre" Amazon, 5 stars

The Egyptian Mythology Murders, 5-stars AMAZON UK

"I, The Mummy. Avenger." NEW Edition. Egypt's Ancient Hero Arises Action adventure. Awakened after a thousand years in a tomb sanctuary filled with weapons... The Ancient Avenger arises to fight against a ruthless oppressor. The Hyksos conquerors have seized Egypt at a time of weakness following the Middle Kingdom, overpowering all with their superior technology - chariots, hardened bronze weapons and compound bows. And they are now plundering Egypt for its forbidden secrets of power. Can ancient Egypt’s most mysterious hero stop them and resurrect a divided land before the Hyksos can gain Egypt’s most powerful and dangerous secret of all?

And for Young-Ancient Readers, the ever popular

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THE TUTANKHAMUN RAID : "A Blockbuster USA Tour... A Tour De Force Heist" Kindle Edition by ROY LESTER POND

The Boy King's Gold... a Blockbuster USA Tour... a dazzling display of criminal daring. It was an outrageous plot:- Extract Tutankhamun’s priceless gold on its blockbuster tour of the USA. But who is the enigmatic mastermind behind the disappearing act and why have they done it? Will they demand a pharaoh’s ransom for its return? And what will become of a pair of US hostages, a museum Egyptologist and a female National Geographic feature writer traveling with the treasures? A golden target, the most famous treasures in the world... gone... the fabulous golden artefacts of Tutankhamun, about to appear in the USA in the biggest blockbuster exhibition since the world wide pandemic, have been stolen.

WHO IS THE ENEMY? Religious 'Dispensationalists' eager to bring on the 'End Times'... Neo-pagans... Torchbearers with a dangerous New Age agenda... Radical Islamists with a hatred of the West?

Who is behind global plans to tap into ancient dangers and trigger apocalypse? Who are global conspirators with ancient Egypt agendas that Anson Hunter battles in his archaeology series? Pursued by Intelligence agencies, Anson Hunter, controversial alternative Egyptologist and theorist, is the hero of historical adventure and mystery thrillers with a rich mythological vein.

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'OLD HAT', THEY AREN'T. "I didn't know modern day archaeological mystery thrillers like this could be written today," a reviewer wrote.

Anson Hunter is a likeable, conflicted hero who grants value to the ancient sacred, yet probes forbidden secrets, hidden dangers and global conspiracies that take their impetus from ancient Egypt.

THE SMITING TEXTS. (An Anson Hunter novel) A clash of world superpowers thousands of years apart… ancient Egypt and modern America. 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.

Available on Amazon Kindle and in paperback.

Can't take too much reality? GET LOST in ancient Egypt's mysteries in these modern day fiction series...

...and stand alone novels.

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VIDEO "PASSAGES". Underworld Egypt...A thrilling journey through a psychic landscape. Enter at risk to your soul.

NOW READ A PASSAGE FROM THE BOOK. What disturbed him more was the fateful ring of her words. “You will have to face your own personal demons that guard each doorway,” she said. “You must guess the guardians’ names to identify them first so that they show themselves and then face and conquer them, one by one.” His interest and nagging misgivings grew. “Or what?” “You fail.” “And?” “Failure means you don’t survive.” “My life depends on it?” “Exactly. It’s either you - or your personal demon. Only one can survive. Which is it to be?” It was a startling thought. Imagine if it were true and hell was a not a place of impersonal tormentors as traditional Christianity painted it, he thought, but rather one where the demons were those of your own making. Did the ancient Egyptians have a glimmer of this? “Face my demons? I’ve got plenty of those, but I wasn’t quite expecting a tour of hell,” he heard myself say. Hell had always been a troubling idea to him. As a writer with a childhood love of Egypt and a later leaning towards a faith, he had wrestled with hell as much as he’d wrestled with faith. Hell was exactly that to a thinker. Hell. And he wasn’t alone in his feelings, he learnt. Celebrated Cambridge University Don C.S. Lewis, ‘England’s must reluctant convert’ and author of the Narnia books had issues with hell and had surrendered only reluctantly to biblical authority. Of hell, he said: “There is no doctrine which I would more willingly remove from Christianity than this, if it lay in my power. But it has the full support of Scripture and, specially, of Our Lord’s own words...” There was no dodging it. The Apostles’ Creed, recited by millions in church every Sunday, hammered the stake firmly into the sand: Christ ‘descended into hell’ and on the third day he rose again. But if there were a hell, could it be anything like the Egyptian hell with its gateways and guardians?

Enter 'Passages' now.... on AMAZON KINDLE

A group of hand-picked investigators is driven blindfolded across the desert to a lost tomb belonging to a mysterious owner. Then the tomb is deliberately sealed, trapping them underground. A young female Egyptologist, an historical fantasy writer, a cold-case detective, a documentary film-maker, an historical scholar… Now the darkness turns deadly.

5-stars Amazon Kindle and Goodreads.