We've finally come to one of the books from this series that I've been dying to talk about. And considering the craziness that Series 2000's offered so far, you'd best believe that's saying something. And if you've followed this blog, you'd know I was never too fond of the mummy books, feeling they were kind of dull, so why am I excited to talk about this one. Well, let's take it one step at a time as we cover The Mummy Walks.
COVER STORY
We get a pretty solid cover on this occasion with a more dynamic mummy pose. No more drivers license photo covers this time, this mummy's walkin' all right. Nice detail on the wrapping being uneven and somewhat unfurled. I like how the wrapping is coming off, exposing some of the decayed corpse beneath. I will admit, the angle is kind of weird, giving the mummy sort of a "Keep on Truckin" pose, but it's effective. Plus, some well detailed rocks there, Tim. Nice stuff all around.
STORY
Michael Clarke is at the airport with his parents as they're sending him off to visit his aunt Sandra in Orlando for a couple weeks. Michael's pretty stoked at the chance to see Disney and Sea World, and feels more comfortable in he fact that he's going there on his own. When he boards the plane however, he sees that there's no other passengers on board. He remembers his parents left him a note, to which he reads, and it says "WE ARE NOT YOUR PARENTS." This is of course bizarre, but baby we are just getting started on the road to What The Hellsville.
Before he can even think, the plane takes off. Panicked, Michael tries to get an answer from the pilots, but the door to the cockpit is locked. A man dressed in camouflage exits and introduces himself as Lieutenant Henry. He doesn't divulge any information as to what's going on, but does keep calling Michael "excellency". Michael's confused as hell, but eventually falls asleep. When he awakes, he sees the plane has landed somewhere in the desert. After a quick breakfast, he exits the plane to see a bunch of people celebrating his arrival like some sort of parade. A car arrives with another man inside named General Rameer, who drops another bombshell on Michael. Not only were the Clarkes not his real parents, but his actual parents are dead.
So, it turns out that Michael was the prince of a foreign nation called Jezekiah, who was engaged in a conveniently placed 12 year war that would lead to the death of his real parents. While this went down, he was sent to New York to live with the Clarkes until the war ended. Jezekiah won, and now it's time for Michael to return to his homeland, and apparently to reveal the location of a mummy. Yes, aside from all the insanity here (and still to come) there still is an actual mummy in this book. Turns out that the mummy in question is Emperor Pukrah, the oldest mummy in existence. Michael's parents were tasked with keeping him safe, but when the rebels showed up and tried to steal it, they hid the mummy along with the valuable Jezekiah Sapphire. Now only Michael knows the location. How? Because when he was a baby they implanted a memory chip in his brain!
They pressure Michael into revealing the location, but he manages to BS his way out of it by saying that it's been a long day. What with you know, learning that he's technically a very powerful orphan. They lock him in a room with no form of communique to the outside world. That is until a girl sneaks up on him. She introduces herself as Megan Kerr, an American girl whose parents were also conveniently murdered because between this and Jekyll and Heidi, Stine's really had a yen to off Goosebumps Parents. She was later adopted by General Rameer, who she tells Michael is actually evil and plans to off him after he reveals the mummy's location. A pair of guards then show up and drag Megan out before Michael can get any more answers.
The struggle leads to the door being left open, so Michael tries to amscray out of this heavily guarded castle. However, his attempt to jump out the window is interrupted as he's caught by a guard and brought to Rameer. Rameer teaches Michael a bit more about Jezekiah, then returns to the task at hand: trying to squeeze the mummy's location from him. Michael says he really doesn't know, so Rameer says that's fine, we'll just cut your brain open and take the chip. Despite his protests, they strap him down and ready him for brain surgery, when Michael decides his last ditch effort is to BS his way out of it by saying "oh yeah, I know what cave they left that stupid mummy in!"
He tells Rameer that it's in the back of a random cave, and is told they'll leave the next day. That night Michael is visited by Megan again who says that Michael had better have told them the truth, mainly because Rameer and his army are afraid of a curse. That if Pukrah is in the wrong hands, the mummy will walk once more. Michael says that everything's fine and she says she'll be along with them tomorrow. The next day comes and it's time to find us a mummy that may or may not walk in this book. They make it to the location Michael pointed out. Michael, realizing he'll be dead if he doesn't cop to it, tries to tell Rameer that he lied, when suddenly gunfire goes off as rebels begin to open fire on everyone. AM I SURE I'M READING A GOOSEBUMPS BOOK RIGHT NOW?
So yeah. We have an actual shootout in a Goosebumps book, complete with people actually getting shot and presumably killed (never goes that far in the description, but unless they're all Storm Troopers, someone's getting killed). And Michael figures that if there was ever a time to run, now's the time. So he makes a dash for it, only to get immediately caught as the shootout has already ceased. General Rameer though is more pissed that Megan had the wonderful idea of ducking under a jeep in the middle of a shootout. Michael fears that this is his last resort, but then learns that they have to purify themselves by burying themselves in sand for hours before they can enter the cave.
They eventually enter the cave and Michael begins to count his last breaths. But lo and behold, they do find a mummy, that then walks and scares off Rameer and his men. It then goes to attack Michael, but reveals itself to actually be Megan in disguise. So, apparently they thought a small 12 year old girl was the same size of an adult mummy, or maybe Pukrah was a really young emperor. But before Michael can again admit he's been lying this whole time, the rebels show up and capture them, bringing them to General Mohamm, the cousin of General Rameer, because the lineage stuff in this book can't be more confusing as hell. Mohamm isn't going to wait around for Michael to make stuff up again and has him prepped for brain surgery. So Michael tries to run for the third time, only to once again be caught by guards because redundancy.
Michael is strapped down, but instead of being cut open, they X-Ray him instead. And sure enough, he doesn't have a memory chip in his head. He's not the right boy. That's a relief. Too bad he still has to be SHOT AND KILLED THOUGH!!! But then suddenly rescue comes in the form of good ol' diplomatic immunity. But Mohamm doesn't care since Michael saw the base, so instead of being shot, he's to be thrown in a python pit. All seems lost until Megan shows up once more and suddenly he's let go and the two are put on a plane headed back to New York. He reunites with his parents who tell him that he was indeed the real prince, but they had the memory chip removed from his brain when he was still a baby. Whole lot of crazy infant surgeries going on in this book.
TWIST ENDING
Then, Michael's parents show both Michael and Megan that Pukrah was hidden in their basement this whole time. Michael finally gets a good night sleep, now that he no longer has to worry about all that insanity in Jezekiah. However, when he goes to find Megan the next day, all he finds is a note. She was a spy for Rameer this entire time, and overnight had stolen the jewel and the mummy. The mummy walks again! But not in this book unfortunately. Little to no actual Mummy action. It's a Goosebumps book alright.
CONCLUSION
This was without a doubt one of the strangest Goosebumps books I've ever read. Despite the mild bit of presumed supernatural elements at the book's end, this was one of the more grounded in reality books the series has ever had. Well aside from the fake sounding country name of Jezekiah. I'm assuming Jovial Bob was going for the least racist sounding fake Egyptian/Libyan country name and this was probably the least offensive. But there's some "too real" stuff in this book that was supposed be about a mummy. Particularly a scene involving a shootout between an army and a group of rebels where actual people get hurt by gunfire. Goosebumps, the book series with the evil dummy and the green slime that turns things giant suddenly goes baby's first Tom Clancy on us. And I really enjoyed it surprisingly. Granted, after the third time Michael tries to make a run for it, it did start to feel a bit redundant. And there's stuff that does feel like padding like the ritual involving burying each other in sand.
The best way to describe this book is if you took How I Got My Shrunken Head and took away the jungle magic, replaced it with a memory chip and sapped any real supernatural elements. And what you get is a book that feels a lot more fresh than what you usually get with Goosebumps. Series 2000, if anything, has proven that it was an era unafraid to buck the trends of what the standard Goosebumps formula was. Be it stuff like Are You Terrified Yet? or even Invasion of the Body Squeezers, it's the feeling of trying to be more experimental and I can honestly appreciate that. Though it also feels like a book that could only exist in a year like 1999, two years before 9/11, so Stine's take on middle eastern conflicts feels more comedic than it actually is. Well, as comedic as a Goosebumps book with gunfire is at least. Overall, this is a definite must read for how bizarre it actually is. Definitely one of the best books in this run so far. The Mummy Walks gets an A.
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