Pack your bags kids. Get the sunscreen and your finest pith helmet, because we're taking a trip to Egypt. It's time to get under wraps with The Curse of the Mummy's Tomb AKA Raiders of the Lost Plot.
COVER STORY
I'm mixed on this one. It's a great design of a mummy with the glowing eyes and such. It looks very ominous and spooky, and as always Jacobus does amazing work with shadows. But I dunno, I wish the cover felt more dynamic. Like the mummy shambling forward, arms outstretched, ready to attack. This feels more like he's posing for his driver's license.
STORY
Our protagonist is a kid named Gabe, who is visiting Egypt with his parents on Christmas vacation. Gabe falls into Evan syndrome pretty early on, constantly complaining and wanting water. The family are there in particular to see their relative, the archaeologist Dr. Ben Hassad, Gabe's uncle. Yes, Uncle Ben. I've come too late in the game to make the two obvious references. Well, they're there to see Spider-Man's dead rice, and sell refrigerator parts. After shooting on camels and whining about thirst, Gabe really wants to visit a pyramid with his uncle. When he learns that his parents have to go to Alexandria on business, Gabe throws a massive fit, so they dump him with his uncle and Sari, Gabe's cousin. Wait a second, Gabe and Sari sounds an awful lot like Greg and Shari. Dammit Jovial Bob, you're getting lazy on the names already!
While thinking about Game Boy and the three games that Stine knows were available on Game Boy, Gabe pulls out a mummy's hand that he got at a garage sale. What the hell kind of a garage sale just offers a mummy's hand is beyond me. Now I think it's just a garage sale of goods taken from a family of grave robbers and someone just found there way to a nearby sarcophagus and was like "don't mind if I do" with someone's mummy hand. This book is giving me nothing so far, so I need some material, people. Before Gabe can do anything "interesting" with that hand, he gets attacked by a mummy! Oh wait, this is a Stine book, so it's just Uncle Ben and Sari playing a trick.
Despite this being a serious hazard, Uncle Ben's hands are tied, so he's bringing Gabe and Sari into the pyramid of Prince Khufu while he searches. He tells Gabe that his workers may have unleashed some sort of curse (I assume of the mummy's tomb) as they enter inside. After some spelunking, they meet Ben's crew, including a man in white with a red bandana named "obvious villain"... I mean, Ahmed. Gabe and Sari decide to go off on their own, while Gabe has issues with his shoelaces untying. This happens enough times to be plot convenience. His tying causes him to get lost from Sari, and ends up bumping into a mummy case. Maybe we're finally getting a mum-Oh, it's just Sari playing a trick on Gabe. This book is dull as hell.
They get chewed out by Uncle Ben about leaving, and he takes them home. The next day, Uncle Ben learns that his workers are starting to develop an illness, and leaves Gabe and Sari in the hotel. So, naturally, they leave the hotel, and walk around instead. Gabe talks about how it sure is funny how different the clothes of Egyptian people are. They make it to the museum and look at the ancient tombs. They finally find a mummy, but it's just behind glass. They laugh at how skinny the mummy man is (ha ha, malnutrition). We learn a lot about how mummies had their brains removed, as Gabe is pleased about making Sari sick. They soon discover Ahmed in the museum and back away, only for him to chase them. He catches them and says that he has a message from their uncle. This is where R.L should teach the kids about not accepting rides from strangers, but you know.
And wouldn't you know it? It turns out that Ahmed is taking them away from the hotel, and kidnapping them. The kids escape his car and run away. They enter a cab, only to realize that they're already at the hotel. They run into Uncle Ben, who is in a state of shock over how ill his workers have gotten. They tell Ben about Ahmed, so Ben goes to find out. Fearing Ahmed might come back, he brings the kids with him to the pyramid. Gabe once again has sneaker issues and ties his shoe again. Told you that was a thing. It causes him to get lost again. He could use his beeper to help them find him, but he thinks he'll get picked on, so he doesn't. Gabe is pretty stupid.
He starts hearing cracking sounds, and it turns out that the floor collapsed under him, causing him to fall into the black below. He finds himself in a room with a mummies. He appears to have fallen into the mummification room with the tools and everything. The room also appears to have some sort of tar pit inside of it that's still warm and alive. His beeper is broken, and he can't breathe too well from the room's putrid air, so he appears to be trapped. Not to mention he has an encounter with a pit of scorpions. However, he gets saved by Sari. Turns out she got separated from Uncle Ben too. They see someone show up in the darkness, and it's Ahmed! Dun dun dun!
Turns out that Ahmed was warning them about the curse. He frightened the workers that this curse was real, and threatened to boil them alive in the tars. And now that Gabe and Shari violated the priestess Kala's chamber, he can't let them leave. Since he is a descendant of Kala, he must carry out her wishes. All the mummies in the room are people who violated the chamber, and now it's going to be their fate. Uncle Ben shows up to rescue them, but gets easily knocked out. He throws them into sarcophagi as he boils the tar. But luckily there's an escape hatch for the three of them to get out. But they end up caught by Ahmed again. So instead of making them mummies, he's just gonna dump them in the tar pit. Things are looking pretty grim...
But Gabe whips out his deus ex mummy's hand and raises it up high. Ahmed starts to panic because it coincidentally is the hand of the priestess. The mummies start standing up and moving forward, going after Ahmed. They grab him and lift him high, then throw him to the tar pit. But Ahmed manages to escape, running out of the room. Then the mummies return to their original spots. So our heroes are safe and sound, managing to return to the hotel in peace.
TWIST ENDING
But they soon hear a knock on the room door. It opens, and it's... IT'S... Gabe's parents. Yup, that's all we got for a twist here. At this point, I'll take it if it means this is finally over.
CONCLUSION
The Curse of the Mummy's Tomb is rough. It moves at a slow pace, lacks much for scares, and feels like a lot of the narration repeats itself over and over to pad the book along. We don't get too much for action or suspense for most of the book, and we barely get much for mummies either, instead opting for the villain to be generic as hell Ahmed. Speaking of which, Ahmed isn't an interesting villain, just repeating himself over and over about how he must honor the priestess and whatnot. Gabe is a bit of a whiny protagonist, worse than Evan surprisingly. And while his stuff with Sari tries to be playful, it's just Gabe whining about how Sari is better at Nintendo than him. There isn't enough fun banter to make you want to go on with these two. In the end, this book is a lot like a mummy in a ways. Wrapped up in a creepy cover, but inside is a slow, shambling husk that isn't scary whatsoever. How there could possibly be a sequel is beyond me. The Curse of the Mummy's Tomb gets a D.
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