Bram Stoker is immortalized through his creation of Dracula. This is a book I have yet to read. I The Jewel of Seven Stars is freely available at Gutenberg.org. This is a relatively short novel. It is set in England as she was before the great wars broke her imperial power.really should in the near future.
Initially, I found the dialogues to be mechanical and fake. But, as it went on, either it grew on me or I simply didn't notice as much.
The tale follows the first person narrative of Malcolm Ross. He is brought into the story by a love interest, Margaret Trelawny. Her father has fallen unconscious, and she has no idea how to help him. So she enlists the help of several people. Her father is very wealthy. Therefore, he manages to get a full time crew of police to watch over him, a doctor, a nurse, not to mention the serving staff (though most of them abandon the house as their superstitions are awakened by the supernatural events take place early in the novel).
Stoker does a great job of building up suspense throughout the novel. The narrator, as well as the professionals around him, try to interpret all the events in a scientific or logical way, much like any reasonably intelligent person would do. But, I feel like, from time to time, mentioning to the narrator and characters that they are, in fact, in a novel where anything can happen. All efforts of rational explanation or assistance is wasted. Abel Trelawny remains unconscious throughout the novel until all reasonable efforts to awaken him are exhausted.
After a period of time, he at last wakes up. But this is only after experts are consulted. The academic leader in paranormal in Britain is disinterested.
The story follows along the ancient past of an Egyptian queen, Tera. Abel Trelawny's entire life is spent trying to put together the pieces of her burial in an attempt to resurrect her according to the writings which accompany her sarcophagus and the mysterious supernatural items which allow such a thing to be possible. However, as he attempts to remove the mummy, Tera, and her mummified cat, great misfortune falls on many of the party. Some are killed. The mummy returns to the cave which they found it. Meanwhile, in England, Adel's wife dies while his daughter is born.
His daughter is basically a replica of the old queen. She even bears the same scar as Tera. However, one distinguishing feature of Tera is that she has seven fingers. The same is not true of Margaret. I often felt that the plot was leading to Tera taking over the body of Margaret. And, in fact, toward the climax of the novel, she does seem to take over the consciousness: supplying Margaret with knowledge which she could not possess otherwise; with personality shifts between something cold and the warm girl that the narrator loved. But, the ending turned out to be rather anti-climactic. What she really wanted was to be released from the world so that she might pass on into the next. Margaret never was in any danger, nor were any of the others once the spirit of Tera became aware that the group were in fact trying to help her rather than to rob her.
Some interesting tidbits about the story that I gleaned from Wikipedia:
Tera, in the novel, is said to have been blotted out by historians who did not want to recognize a feminine ruler. This is compared to the female pharaoh, Hatshepsut, who was also blotted out by historians who did not want a female ruler: "best erased to prevent the possibility of another powerful female ever inserting herself into the long line of Egyptian male kings" (Wilson, E. B. (2006, September). The queen who would be king. Smithsonian Magazine.)
The novel, as a stand-alone product, isn't really the most fantastic. It's good, but not great fiction. However, digging into some of the criticism on the novel, it becomes more interesting as it shows that it is more than just a simple novel: it is a light critique of the handling of women rulers. 1903, the publishing date of the novel, was just a few years after Queen Victoria's death.
Another interesting note made on Wikipedia's article is the mention of how Stoker suggested that Egypt was more advanced than England. Egyptians, in the novel, had discovered electricity and radiation thousands of years earlier. What makes the note interesting is that these were omitted from later revisions of the novel (post 1912), probably because of how it challenges the notion of God and Jesus, not to mention the advanced position of England's technology over past civilizations. While the details mentioned in the story may or may not be true, there is nonetheless a substantial argument being made that the Egyptians did in fact have some means of creating electric light. I am unsure of whether Stoker would have known this. Still, we know that Egyptians of that time had some abilities which manage to confound us today: in particular, the building of the Egyptian pyramids: massive structures built to incredible precision.In light of these additional thoughts, I think it improves my opinion of the novel.
