From archive (archive)
Subject: SUM VII
From: leeper@cbnewsj.ATT.COM (Mark R. Leeper)
Organization: AT&T Bell Laboratories
Date: 15 Feb 90 14:29:07 GMT




			    SUM VII by T. W. Hard
		Harper & Row, 1979, ISBN 0-06-011702-8, $8.95.
		       A book review by Mark R. Leeper

     Okay, I admit it.  I have been intrigued by stories of ancient Egyptian
mysticism since I was a kid and saw the old mummy movies.  Out of curiosity
I will probably read any original novel I can get my hands on that is about
resurrected mummies.  Surprisingly, so far this policy has disappointed me
only twice.  That is because I have found only two such books and both have
been stinkers.  One was Anne Rice's MUMMY, OR RAMSES THE DAMNED of last
year; the other is a novel in some ways very similar to Rice's written ten
years earlier, SUM VII by T. W. Hard.

     Bryan St. John is a medical student, well-versed in anatomy, taken on
an expedition to Egypt to ascertain what he can about the medical history of
any mummies the expedition might find.  There they find the mummy of a great
Egyptian architect.  But there are two funny things about this particular
mummy.  He is carbon-dated to be many times as old as the hieroglyphics
would indicate and he seems almost fresh enough to be brought back to life
by medical science!  Not the author is an M.D. himself and, like many M.D.s,
he assumes that everyone just loves to hear medical details.  I mean, how
many novels treat the reader to photographs labeled "Figure 3a, Anteriogram
showing patient cerebral vessels of Sum VII, Contrast injection R carotid,
Dept. of Radiology, University Medical Center"?  We get the whole thing: a
complete medical rundown of the mummy as they are bringing him back to life.
Michael Crichton can throw in medical exhibits in such a way as to add
authenticity.  Here they seem heavy-handed.  And it is just a bit pitiful to
be menaced by a monster who any moment can go into spontaneous thrombosis.
(I wonder how closely the Frankenstein Monster had to watch his diet, now
that I think about it.)

     Then there is the big surprise ending that became obvious only about
halfway through the book.  It answers such questions as why this mummy is
different from all other mummies, and just how it was that a primitive
people like the ancient Egyptians had the engineering know-how to build the
pyramids.  And it answers these burning questions in the most trite and
predictable manner possible.  But I do not want to say too much and ruin the
ending for anyone who has never read a tabloid in a grocery check-out line.
You can read this book in one sitting, but what a waste of a sitting.  SUM
VII does not add up to much.

					Mark R. Leeper
					att!mtgzx!leeper
					leeper@mtgzx.att.com
					Copyright 1989 Mark R. Leeper