Saturday, September 26, 2015

Her Virtual Field Trip had turned into catastrophe and as the only Egyptologist, Sage felt responsible for their safety

A group led by a female Egyptologist dares a cyber nightmare



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



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.



Then, shockingly, a journeyer dies... really dies, 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 action adventure fiction that hits the ground running.

Keep an eye on a mysteriously obsessed wife in Egypt? How hard could that be?

AMAZON KINDLE

EGYPT. STILL THE WORLD'S GREATEST OPEN AIR MUSEUM

ADVENTURE AND MYSTERY. IT DOESN'T GET ANY BETTER.

Thursday, September 24, 2015

If you enjoy eerie Egypt... some fiction titles to investigate

Just a few of the titles on AMAZON KINDLE

The Osiris Seed Mummy. Fear that grows

AMAZON KINDLE   



Fear, murder and mythology in an enthralling novella.
A mysterious grain mummy is discovered buried in the desert outside a remote Egyptian oasis.
Its finder, Gaia, a young historical climatologist, dreams of saving the planet.
But what has she released into the world? Death strikes and fear grows as a violent sandstorm traps the archaeology team and throws a heavy responsibility on her admirer, young American archaeologist Bradley, second in charge of the project.
Could this be the revenge of the resurrection god against climate change and the destruction of our green planet?

Tuesday, September 22, 2015

WATCHED BY THE POPE, two investigators examine the Vatican's Egyptian obelisk...


Egyptian obelisk, St Peter’s Square, The Vatican



(Excerpt from The Obelisk Prophecy - our investigators, Egyptologist/Museum curator Jennefer and Antiquities policeman, Jon, examine the Vatican obelisk) 


Flocks of believers, and the questioning, descended like pigeons on St Peter’s Square.

Many visitors were fearful, Jennefer noted, casting anxious eyes at the clouds of dust up above.

This was the Vatican, yet it put her in mind of Vesuvian Pompeii, the sky laden with disaster.

Jennefer caught up with her investigative partner who was busy circling the Vatican’s four thousand year old Egyptian obelisk that stood mounted on bronze lions and rose eighty-three feet into the dusty sky.

“What are you doing?” she said.

“I’m trying to tell the time.”

Jon followed a curve of pale travertine blocks set in the cobblestones like the hub of a wheel that fanned out in radiating lines.

“You have a watch, don’t you?” she said.

“We’re standing on one. This square is actually a vast sundial, the obelisk acting as the giant gnomon casting a shadow.” He stopped. “Even with this dust, I can tell it’s almost midday. Or perhaps midnight.”
“Midnight?”

“For the world, that is. Ironic that an ancient Egyptian obelisk is counting down the days to the end of civilization.”

She’d forgotten about the square’s role as a sundial, concentrating on the obelisk’s ancient past rather than on its present utility. It belonged to an unknown pharaoh from around the fifth dynasty, she recalled, and had travelled a great deal before its arrival here.

“I’ll tell you something else that’s ironic,” Jon said. “This circle around the shaft of the obelisk is a symbolic vagina. Those in the know are amused that there’s an act of copulation going on right in the heart of celibate city.” He pointed to the Pope’s balcony. “The Pope looks beatifically over it every time he addresses the throng from up there.”

She frowned.

They were trying to crack a code to stop a world calamity and he was cracking jokes.

But it was more than that. She felt uneasy to think that they were both standing on a marker of time inexorably measuring the hours, reminding her of the urgency of their investigation.

A count down to the end of civilization, he’d said.

The dust-laden sky made it look like the end.

The red dust haze turned St Peter’s Basilica, its cupola, and the embracing arms of Tuscan colonnades around the square into historical sepia that added to the place’s powerful sense of mystery.

“This obelisk is peculiar in being uninscribed,” she said, “which sadly doesn’t reveal many secrets to us.”

“Maybe we’re looking in the wrong place.”

“Meaning?”

He pointed up at a metal globe perched beneath a cross on top of the obelisk.

“What about the secret up there? That hollow globe. Great hiding spot. Legend tells that originally the globe held Julius Caesar’s ashes. But when they moved the obelisk here from an earlier site in Rome, they opened it and found the missing phallus of Osiris instead... no, just kidding. Only dust inside. And no mummy dust, either. Just plain old dust, like the stuff blowing in the sky.”

“Not very helpful, Jon. We’re looking for answers. What can we learn here?”

They learnt something sooner than expected - that their close inspection of the monument had been observed all the while by two burly shadows in black that now appeared unexpectedly at a few minutes past midday on the sundial.

“We wish to hear an answer too,” the one man spoke in an accent that sounded midway between Italian and… German? “You will come with us, please.”

Jennefer blinked in surprise at the two new arrivals. Fair men in black suits.

Swiss, maybe. Swiss guards in plain clothes?

Had their inspection of the obelisk brought them out of the shadowy heart of the Vatican palace?

“Have we broken some cardinal rule?” Jon said, pretending flippant unconcern at the intrusion.

“The Holy Father is hoping that you have learnt something from this monument that will help the world.”

That’s when it seemed to Jennefer that the sun stopped in the sky, just as the sun-god Ra’s boat sometimes paused in the heavens in Egyptian mythology.

Even the crowds of people in St Peter’s Square seemed to freeze, growing as still as the obelisk.

The Holy Father.

“His Holiness is waiting to see you.”

“Jesus,” Jon said.

“Not exactly. Merely Our Lord’s representative on earth,” one of the men said with a glimmer of a smile.

An audience with the Pope?

What next..?

Saturday, September 19, 2015

HUNTING HATHOR A Mythic Novella

Amazon Kindle

Hunting Hath0r: A Mythic Novella.





Author’s note: 'Hunting Hathor' first appeared as a tale within a novel in my archaeological adventure thriller ‘The Smiting Texts’, but is released here in a separate edition for lovers of mythology and ancient romance.



“This tale of an ancient hunter's fate to recapture the goddess of devastation in order to save Egypt is particularly beautiful. Wonderfully clever and original.” THE TRUTH ABOUT BOOKS



Hathor-Sekhmet was the goddess with two faces, one, Hathor, the Sweet One, goddess of sexual love, joy, music and intoxication, the other, Hathor-Sekhmet, the terrible lioness of annihilation, sent by Ra to destroy humankind for their rebelliousness.

In her marauding stage they called her The Confused One in the Night.

Were there times when Hathor slipped from one state to another? One phase, goddess of love, shining in her beauty, and the next a wild and dreadful lioness of destruction? What would it have been like to come across Hathor, the young woman, and not know that she hid another side?

'THE EGYPTIAN MYTHOLOGY MURDERS' - "Love this genre" Goodreads.

New edition. Mystery, murder, a twist of the unknown




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? 

Now a series. Why not read the set - download THE OBELISK PROPHECY at the same time. 






Wednesday, September 16, 2015

They ran for survival in a deadly cyber Egypt. What is "VIRTUAL ETERNITY"?

New edition arriving on Amazon Kindle now


Action adventure in an Egypt mystery thriller with a sci-fi flavour.

Space lander Philae, mothership Rosetta, now a Star Wars Tut Mask!


Is ancient Egypt out of this world? (As seen on the web)
 


Not too long ago, Ancient Egypt landed on a comet.

In the form of the lander Philae, sent from mother ship Rosetta.


Philae and Rosetta were 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 travelled through the heavens like the sun in a journey of millions of years.

*(In one of my fictional adventure mysteries, 'The Ra Virus' I build on this tradition where a meteorite bearing a deadly pathogen is suspected to be the cause of an 'Eleventh Plague of Egypt')

Global danger arises... one controversial Egyptologist investigates.

An Anson Hunter archaeological thriller - Amazon Kindle

Tuesday, September 15, 2015

Thoth as a dog-faced baboon, 'Mighty in his Wonderworking Formulae'

A fine statue of Thoth, British Museum
--> 'Most forbidden and powerful of all is a scroll called the Book of Thoth, a work of frightening thaumaturgy said to have been composed by the Lord of Divine Words himself, the god symbolised by an ibis, or by a cynocephalus baboon, ‘Mighty in his Wonderworking Formulae’.'
AMAZON
 

A space-borne virus in ancient Egypt. An epidemiologist trapped in the past.


A space-borne virus in ancient Egypt. An epidemiologist trapped in the past. TEXT MESSAGES FROM ETERNITY...(The Ra Virus)

"Roy Lester Pond joins my favourite Ancient Egypt authors like Christian Jacq". The Ra Virus - Goodreads

 

 

Monday, September 14, 2015

Female ancient Egyptian eyes like the outlines of fish...

Monks took up residence in many of ancient Egypt's tombs. From the novel The Smiting Texts on AMAZON KINDLE

What if words from Egypt's ancient past could kill… and nobody listened to an archaeologist's warning

!st in the series - Amazon Kindle


What if words from Egypt's ancient past could kill… and nobody listened to a renegade archaeologist's warning....

Could the power of ancient evil ‘smite’ across time?

Meet the archaeologist adventurer Anson Hunter in the first in an archaeology thriller series, followed by The Hathor Holocaust, The Ibis Apocalypse, The Anubis Intervention, Egypt Eyes, The Forbidden Glyphs and The God Dig.


Anson's special knowledge as an alternative Egyptologist and theorist may be the key to stopping a catastrophe.

Fantasy Egypt for younger readers 'The Princess Who Lost Her Scroll of the Dead'



Books of the Dead were magical scrolls that acted as passports to the other world. They were essential to the ancient Egyptians, a guide that allowed them to pass safely through the challenges of the gates and guardians of the underworld.
What happens when a young girl discovers she has been tricked by a greedy scribe, her costly scoll swapped for a blank one so the original can be sold again?

Now young Nefera must face the terrors of the underworld alone, clutching a worthless scroll.

Then a boy tomb robber Ipy and his pet monkey join her.

Can they help her find her way to the Fields of the Blessed?

What is the secret they are keeping from her?

They must hurry and reach the Judgement Hall before dawn or be lost forever...


AMAZON KINDLE (for younger readers written as Roy Pond) 

And...

What did the museum curator's daughter do... and see?

Sunday, September 13, 2015

What is The Obelisk Prophecy? Coded threat to the world?

NEW. AMAZON KINDLE
'X-FILES meets THE MUMMY' in this new series.
Detectives and Egyptologists are in sister professions. Now the unusual team of Jennefer, an Egyptologist museum curator, and Jon, an arts and antiquities policeman, is back together in ‘The Obelisk Prophecy”.
The exciting fiction sequel to ‘The Egyptian Mythology Murders’.
Egyptian obelisks are potent symbols that pierce the skies around the world. London, New York, The Vatican…
But now one obelisk represents the clue to a world-threatening mystery.
Working against secret enemies the team must race to find and penetrate the riddle of the one obelisk on earth that holds the key to salvation.

"THE FORBIDDEN GLYPHS" - a cache of writings of unthinkable power

Archaeology adventure thriller - Amazon Kindle


Egypt’s Lost Library of secrets and technology.
Trigger for a dangerous new age.

Imagine a cache of writings of unthinkable power.

Renegade Egyptologist Anson Hunter does. In fact he has a controversial theory that somewhere in Egypt lies the lost library of Thoth, guarded by his consort the goddess Seshat.

In legend, this library contained all the forbidden knowledge of ancient Egypt, both human and divine, including secrets of lost technology that built the pyramids.

Anson’s theory throws him into conflict with international seekers who have dangerous agendas for the world.

To save a loved one, Anson Hunter must seek the forbidden glyphs in an ingenious lost sanctuary guarded by traps set by the calculating goddess Seshat.


The Anson Hunter series ON AMAZON KINDLE

Thursday, September 10, 2015

What is this little 'angel' from ancient Egypt?

Actually a Ba figure

This sweet little Ba (Soul bird) in the British Museum makes me think of the lost soul of the young princess in my children's story: "The Princess Who Lost Her Scroll of the Dead" (Amazon Kindle)


Here's another Ba

And a whole flock

The most extraordinary cat scene in the ancient world - Egyptian tomb chapel of Nebamun

A ginger marauder tackles 3 birds at once as Nebamun goes fowling in the papyrus marsh. B.M.

Rare ancient Egyptian full-frontals - faces, that is.

Tomb chapel of Nebamun, The British Museum
An artistic lyric poem in paint - this wondrous ancient Egyptian tomb scene is made all the more remarkable by its break with the art canon.

Tuesday, September 8, 2015

Mystery fiction from the home of ancient mystery, Egypt

First in the series of paranormal mystery thrillers


A female mummy is blasted with radiation in a hospital imaging scan... could it trigger ancient evil like a terrible blast from the past?

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


'THE EGYPTIAN MYTHOLOGY MURDERS' - Amazon Kindle.


Now followed by 'THE OBELISK PROPHECY'

The greatest character in my archaeology fiction? Ancient Egypt

"Compellingly brought to life"

A dry wit with sarcastic observations

"Written through alternative Egyptologist Anson Hunter’s sphere of perception creates a sense of experience and empathy that draws you in from the start...

"A universally likeable lead... equally likeable due to his sarcastic observations and dry wit as he is due to his agreeable nature."


- Read Between the Lines.

Meet Anson Hunter in the archaeological adventure thriller series

"I never thought I’d agree with Hitler on any subject,' Anson Hunter reflected

UPDATE


Neues Museum, Museum Island, Berlin
“WHAT THE GERMAN people have, they keep,” Adolf Hitler famously responded when Egyptian authorities suggested that the famous bust of Queen Nefertiti in Berlin ought to be returned to Cairo.
I was standing among other admiring visitors in front of the bust of the iconic queen in a long gallery at the north cupola of the Neues Museum, when I recalled the Fuehrer’s response. The suggestions from the Egyptian authorities had risen to the level of rancorous clamour in recent years, yet there were still no signs that Nefertiti was going back to Egypt anytime soon. The queen’s image was everywhere, on postcards, in books and on publicity posters. Nefertiti had the pulling power of a superstar.
Was it James Bond’s creator Ian Fleming who’d remarked that the ancient queen of Egypt could make an entrance today in a designer gown and give the beautiful people a run for their money?
I never thought I’d agree with Hitler on any subject, I reflected, shaking my head in wonder at her beauty. The timeless elegance, lovely neck and airborne eyebrows produced a powerful effect on the beholder. If I had Nefertiti I wouldn’t part with her either…

Excerpt from 'The Ibis Apocalypse', archaeological thriller, Amazon Kindle
AMAZON KINDLE


Saturday, September 5, 2015

IS THE NOVEL DEAD? Or in a care home? Or maybe in an RV?



Was Will Self getting at me as an author on the road?


Interviewed at the Melbourne Writers' Festival here in Australia, Booker prize contender Will Self (The Umbrella, The Shark) denied that he ever said the novel was dead.

What he said was "The novel is in a care home. Or in Australia it would be in an RV".

Is this me?

Friday, September 4, 2015

'I see the mummy of my darling cat Miu coming,' Nefera thought.


"The Princess Who Lost her Scroll of the Dead" Amazon Kindle for young readers


NEFERA was quite enjoying the attention.


   The death of a king’s daughter was a big occasion and the royal procession of the coffin through the mud brick city to the tomb in the desert hills was a spectacle not to be missed.
   Especially this one. It was all for her.
   She stood mingling with bystanders who lined the way of the procession as it made its way through the shimmering city before crossing the river, yet nobody in the crowd seemed able to see her among them.
    “She was just a girl,” a woman in the crowd said, wiping her nose as she sobbed.
    ‘Am I a ghost?’ Nefera wondered, recalling the Egyptians’ belief in an invisible double known as the Ka. ‘It does not seem so. I feel as alive as ever.’
   At the front of the procession walked a number of solemn men carrying flowers and trays of offerings of oil, perfumes, cakes, bread, haunches of beef, ducks and vegetables and more. Others carried clothes, tables, chairs, jewellery, cosmetic boxes and other tomb goods.
    ‘I see my golden lion couch coming,’ Nefera thought. ‘And my golden sandals and caskets of jewellery and, most important of all, the mummy of my darling cat, Miu.’


For young readers (Published as Roy Pond)

Thursday, September 3, 2015

"You're right, there’s a phallic link with this and all obelisks," she said. THE OBELISK PROPHECY

Excerpt from THE OBELISK PROPHECY. New archaeology thriller


 
“You’re right though, there’s a phallic link with this and all obelisks,” she said. “Phallic symbolism was not exactly unknown in ancient Egypt. An obvious example is the raising of the Djed pillar ceremony, an ancient Egyptian ritual echoed in the mediaeval harvest Maypole which revelers raised and danced around, another phallic celebration.”

“Freemasons believe it,” Jon said. “Firmly.”

“And in ancient Egypt, many of the golden gods in their shrines in the holy of holies in temples were ithyphallic in form.”

“Ithyphallic. Love you Egyptologists. You mean they had erections like obelisks. A high priestess called ‘The Hand of the God’ would satisfy them each morning to release the god’s creative force into the new day.”

Although Jon was a policeman, he’d been in love with ancient Egypt since he was a child and his pull towards Egyptology was almost as strong as hers. He had been a successful police detective at first, before what he called ‘his useless passion’ drew him to work in London’s Metropolitan Art and Antiques unit, fighting the illegal trade in stolen antiquities. 

Mysterious face of ancient Egypt #6