Week 38 ~ The Buried Pyramid

Week 38 ~ Sept 17-23, 2007

The Buried Pyramid
by Jane Lindskold
(historical fantasy)

This is a fun book with a nice premise, and Mozelle the cat is just the cutest thing ever. I’m not really sure where to classify it, though. It’s a very nice historical fiction to a point, and then it becomes a historical fantasy, and then at the end it seems to be a YA (aka young adult) historical fantasy. Now, I have no problem with YA or historical or fantasy. Or all three combined. My problem is that I like to know going into it what I’m going to get. An example would be the letter game books by Patricia C. Wrede and Carolyn Stevermer - before the first chapter is over, we know the era, we know there’s magic involved, and we know (based on the age of the main characters) that it could be a YA book.

Regardless of the issues I had with the book, it was very enjoyable. I liked reading about the Egyptian theme, and it seems that Ms. Lindskold did her research. I may not know much about Egyptian myths and hieroglyphs, but what I do know matched what was written.

The characters were mostly well-developed, even if one or two was fairly transparent. (By this I do not mean shallow - I mean I saw through their actions from the start, or nearly, and figured out their roles in the plot.) They were not all so easy to pinpoint, however, and there were some pleasantly unexpected parts as well. Definitely an enjoyable book, and it has piqued my interest (again) in the Egyptian myths.

I may one day try another of Lindskold’s books, though I would much rather continue with these characters than start a new series with new characters.