RAMSES THE DAMNED

In the wrap-up to his trilogy, Ramses the Damned is part of a band of immortals with an important mission.

As readers of the preceding installments—The Mummy, or Ramses the Damned (1989) and Ramses the Damned: The Passion of Cleopatra (2017)—will know, the one-time Egyptian pharaoh is now going by Reginald Ramsey and is married to Julie Stratford, the daughter of a dead Egyptologist. The two are among the recipients of a letter from an immortal queen named Bektaten, warning them to resist the urge to get involved in the great war which is about to engulf the planet and inviting them to come hang out at her manor in England if they need a refuge. The group of people who receive the letter has significant overlap with those on a hit list carried by Russian assassins, each of whom has been equipped with an amber gem that brings statues to life, after which they can be controlled like avatars in a video game. When Ramsey and Julie are attacked, he has a vague, millennia-old memory of seeing the stone at one of his pharaonic initiation ceremonies—but feels a little awkward about bringing it up since he was tripping at the time. In any case, after the first three assassination attempts are foiled (that's immortality for you), everybody does indeed head to the manor to plan next steps. In addition to offering what sounds like an orgasmic experience of healing when stabbed or shot, immortality has many other benefits. The immortals have vast appetites for food and sex and can eat constantly with no ill results. Since the authors are mother and son, the seeming paucity of sex scenes is probably for the best. We get a brief three-way including Cleopatra, her young British lover, and an American novelist who receives and experiences Cleopatra's emotions "like a symphony across a telephone line." The other one involves the male lover of the dead Egyptologist, who is not quite himself when restored to life from his coffin but is more fully revived by a hand job.

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