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[skygiants]

You guys may remember when I read that comic book about a romance between a mummy and a professor's daughter because I couldn't find the other book about an adventure with a mummy and a professor's daughter that I was having sudden nostalgia pangs for.

But in the months since, batyatoon came to the rescue and provided me with Pamela Service's The Reluctant God.

The Reluctant God basically goes like this:

OUR HEROINE LORNA: Dad, I don't want to go back to high school! All these people trying to make me care about stupid things like 'democracy' and 'separation of church and state' . . . why couldn't we just have a sensible government like the ancient Egyptians?
LORNA'S DAD: Young lady, you are going back to high school straight after you finish being a brilliant Egyptologist who makes amazing archaeological discoveries on this dig that I am supervising, and that is final.

MEANWHILE, EXCEPT ACTUALLY SEVERAL THOUSAND YEARS AGO

OUR HERO AMENHOTEP: Being the teenaged Pharaoh's twin brother is boring, so I'm going to run away and disguise myself as a commoner, it will be great! :D :D :D
THE GRAND VIZIER: Actually what you are going to do is sacrifice yourself to eternal sleep and become the mummy guardian of our magical Macguffin urns that fix Egyptian mythology so everyone is always happy in the afterlife no matter how many tombs get robbed. That cool?
OUR HERO AMENHOTEP: . . . this was not the plotline I was expecting. D: D: D:

LORNA: Hey, I discovered a tomb with some magical Macguffin urns! Nifty.
AMENHOTEP: Hey, I seem to have discovered THE FUTURE! This is not so nifty.
LORNA: Fortunately, since I speak fluent ancient Egyptian, I can understand you perfectly and moreover find your story thoroughly plausible. Sure, I'll help you steal those magical Macguffin urns back. It'll be fun!
AMENHOTEP: You're not worried about breaking multitudes of laws, stealing an innocent bystander's passport, smuggling an undead person from Egypt to the UK, and getting into car chases despite the fact that you're a fourteen-year-old without a license and I'm a fourteen-year-old who's never seen a car?
LORNA: Nah. I'm a REBEL.
AMENHOTEP: OK, cool by me. Will there be hijinks? I feel I got cheated out of my hijinks.
LORNA: There will be hijinks! And magical Egyptian deus ex machinas up the wazoo! And a trip to the BRITISH MUSEUM! What more could you ask for!
AMENHOTEP: Actually the British Museum makes me sort of uncomfortable, what with all the tomb robbery that goes against every single one of my most deeply-held religious precepts . . . but Lorna's really nice . . . . so I guess that's okay?

AND THEN THERE WAS A HEIST, the end. Recommended for all your improbable mummy/professor's daughter museum heist needs!

Comments

[bookblather]

I would just like to point out that I adore this book forever. AND EVER. And also that the tomb robbing =/= archeology thing was a point that made me think deeply at the age of nine, so points to the author?

[skygiants]

I definitely give her points for bringing it up! I'm not sure I buy that Amenhotep would buy the arguments, but, I mean, he is in the middle of a heist at the time so it's understandable.

I kind of want to reread her BOARDING SCHOOL KING ARTHUR ones now. We'll see!

[bookblather]

Oh my God, she wrote BOARDING SCHOOL KING ARTHUR? Do want. So much.

Also, I think he'd probably have to do more and more serious thinking about the subject before he really came to terms with it, but at the moment, hilarious heist.

(also, this book is the source of my firm belief that all gods are one.)

[skygiants]

Well, technically, Boarding School Merlin, but they get to Arthur eventually! IT'S GREAT.

I might have also forgotten to mention they are post-apocalyptic.

[bookblather]

OH MY GOD. BOARDING SCHOOL POST-APOCALYPTIC MERLIN I CAN'T EVEN. I CAN'T. DO WANT

[rushthatspeaks]

DOOOOO IIIIT THEY ARE SO AWESOMELY WEIRD

[skygiants]

I remember them being amazingly weird! But the real question is, can they seize the Weird Arthuriana crown from Joan Aiken's The Stolen Lake, where Plucky Cockney Dido Twite crushes on Reincarnated Midshipman Arthur and thousand-year-old Guinevere keeps herself alive on the bones of virgins? BIZARRE ARTHURIANA DEATHMATCH GO.

[rushthatspeaks]

I own both (sets of) books, and did in fact several years ago read them close together to make that comparison! The Service books are not quiiiiiiiite as weird as the Aiken, but they are honestly the second-weirdest Arthurians I have ever read. (The Stolen Lake also gets a prize for being Sudden!Stealth!Arthurian in a SERIES THAT ISN'T.) I mean the main emotional metaphor in Tomorrow's Magic is centered around a Cracker Jack prize and yet the book basically works. Man, I love those. Man, I love insane Arthurians.

[skygiants]

(Sudden!Stealth!Arthurian that then NEVER COMES UP AGAIN, although I suppose there wasn't really room for more Arthuriana in the middle of all the child death slavery mines and telepathic hiveminds and werewolves and imported Russian bears.)

If the place where you own them is here and not in storage somewhere else, you should lend them to me! :D Because I don't remember much except a.) boarding school, b.) random time-travel at the end of Tomorrow's Magic, and c.) jokes about Wellingtons.

[ceitfianna]

This. I have such fond memories of this book and still have my copy of it from when I was little.

[izilen]

DO YOU THINK I WOULD LIKE THIS. I'm not sure. I MIGHT. OR I MIGHT NOT. Archaeology feels hmmm.

[skygiants]

HMMM. I think you would probably enjoy it in the right mood if you don't go in with super high expectations! Like, I don't think there's anything that would make you angry, it's a reasonably fun, cute read as long as you are ready to lol rather than be annoyd at the fact that everything, including the archaeology, is adjusted way more for hijinks than plausibility.

[izilen]

SOUNDS LIKE I WOULD IN FACT ENJOY IT. You know I am all for the hijinks. I wish I had more time to read all these books while I can borrow them from you.

[skygiants]

YOU HAVE A WEEK to make the most of! :D :D

[batyatoon]

(pssst: Amenemhat, not Amenhotep.

So was it as delightful as you remember?

[skygiants]

(Whoops, good catch! I have been reading a lot of stuff related to Amenhotep recently is why. *sheepish*)

IT WAS PRETTY ENJOYABLE. I'm not sure it was as one hundred percent delightful as Tiny Becca thought it was, but . . . delightful in a different way? :D