Brood of the Witch Queen by "Sax Rohmer" 1918

[lobolover]

"Dracula evoked many similar novels of supernatural horror, among which the best are perhaps The Beetle, by Richard Marsh, Brood of the Witch-Queen, by "Sax Rohmer" (Arthur Sarsfield Ward), and The Door of the Unreal, by Gerald Bliss"
H.P.Lovecraft,Supernatural Horror in Literature,The Weird Tradition in the British Islands

That H.P.Lovecraft would have liked "Brood of the Witch Queen" by Ward sems elmentary to anyone having read it.The question put up by such a reader would stand otherwise-how come HPL mentions it so vaguely in Supernatural Horror in Literature?Ive ponderd over this question quite a bit.

With its central figure of the corupt magician Antoy Ferrara and the horrors he evokes within London,the strange ceremonies and customs he takes part of in private,the horridly vivid descent in a narrow path down a secret road in an ancient egyptian Pyramid and witnessing of an unspeakabely horrible ritual performed by Ferrara in the secret heart of the pyramid,the monstrous misusage of a common women by Ferrara for utterly devilish purposes and the final image of his horrible end-surely theese are all things that Lovecraft would have fully endorsed.Especialy when he gave high scores to Gautier and his visions of underground tombs and ancient citadels of the unthinkabely ancient Egyptian land and of its strange and horrid mysteries.

So why did Gerald Biss get the long end of the stick in this situation?Dont misunderstand me,ive read The Door of the Unreal and found it marvelous,however it IS slightly,albeit stil perceptibly marred by the same thing which dilutes the pleasure of Bram Stoker´s Lair of the White Worm to a great decree as well-the vague mater of fact way in which the supernatural crust of the novel is explained between the characters in such a fashion that litle actual place for mystery remains. While in Biss,it happens three quarters through,the final quarter is singificantly short and strong of hapenings of other sorts to not tarnish the book in any great respect.Sadly such cannot be said about the Stoker,for there it is presented to us in the half of the book,which kind of marshes down on the suspense.

So with this brought into the mater-what remains for consideration?
"Rohmer" was able to write tosh too,like his uterly ruined "The Blue Monkey" or his yellow peril novels of no particular interest for the Weird student.However,in this book he atains climaticnes of such mastery of the horrible and the inhuman,that I am not shy to say few besides works by Lovecraft and Chambers themselves,can outmaster them.

One is lead to possibly consider the romantic element to be the reason.It is what drags down "Sinister House" in Lovecraft´s eyes,however I have to agree with Joshi saying how this is an overstatement,as it is very subtle and only as part of the plot.To top it of-Rohmer only has a prety mild description of one victorian-esque "intimate" scene and the entiery of the romantic in a 148 page edition of this book can acount for only 2 and a quarter of a page at the very most.While Biss has far more in far fewer pages.

So we will probably never know.Be it an antipathy to Ward for his other tosh works or some other aspect,however the fact that he stil notes it in his book suficiently for others to read and enjoy is stil a great plus.

End rating-10/11

[andydecker]

I love this novel.

Hilariously old fashioned today and quite a bit reactionary in parts, still it has some of the most memorable scenes of egyptian horror ever written.

[lobolover]

I say its far less offensive then say,E.M.Forster on italians,though I sitl loved his Celestial Omnibus coleciton so far.

And surprisingly,litle to no dicsusion has been done on THIS book.

[dem bones]

If you hit this link to the Dennis Wheatley Library Of The Occult series and click on the cover of Brood ... you'll find Dennis Wheatley's introduction to same.

www.denniswheatley.info/lo1.htm

[andydecker]

Here a few covers of the book. I truly don´t know why I bought it again, if this was an oversight or if the old edition had a weak binding.

The Dennis Wheatley Library:



An american edition:



And here the german edition which back then left a strong impression on my young impressionable mind



It is called "The Mummy Beetles"

[benedictjjones]

^the wheatley edition has the best cover by miles.
not heard of this before so (as usual)i'll keep an eye out.

[lobolover]

you shoudl realy read it.

and for me,the american edition seems to have the best cover.

[andydecker]

Robert Cairn, a young Scotsman, square of jaw, is the son of doctor Bruce Cairn, physician of the pre-WW1 british elite and noted egyptologist. Robert, still studying at Oxford to become a newspaperman, is deeply in love with Myra Duquesne, niece of his fathers best friend, the even more noted egyptologist Sir Michael Ferrara. Virginal Myra lives in Sir Michaels house which is filled with "liberated" egyptian antiques.

But there also is Antony Ferrara, Sir Michaels son. Antony Ferrara is obsessed with all things egyptian, his foreign looks and behavior makes him hated on sight – except by the ladies - , he has strange habits like having a cozy fire burning in the summer, he does rumored vile things with woman and has an unsavory reputation.

He wore the silver-grey dressing-gown trimmed with white swansdown in which Cairn had seen him before. His statuesque ivory face was set in a smile, which yet was no smile of welcome; the over-red lips smiled alone; the long, glittering dark eyes were joyless; almost, beneath the straightly-pencilled brows, sinister. Save for the short, lustreless hair it was the face a handsome, evil woman.

Not wasting any time, Rohmer plunges directly ahead into the tale. In Oxford Cairn observes how a swan gets his neck wrung by invisible hands during a storm, Ferrara is burning evil-smelling incense and doing mysterious things with an effigy of the swan. Immediately an ugly suspicion rises its head. The last man kicked out of an English varsity for this sort of thing was Dr.Dee of St. John´s, and that´s going back to the sixteenth century, declares Cairns mate Sime.

Some weeks later Cairn, now in London, stumbles about the girl Ferrara entertained, she has been strangled. Next Sir Michael himself is strangled by invisible hands. Now vile Antony is a rich heir and lusting after sweet Myra, which sets Robert´s blood boiling. And the game is afoot.

Enter Dr. Cairn, who is being called Sir by his son the whole short novel, is a noted occultist too. Which comes in handy when his son is attacked by conjured things that crawled and rustled. Beetles from an egyptian tomb!

What follows is a tale of short encounters with the supernatural, as Antony Ferrara does the black magician trick, raises the vampire ancestor of Lord Lashmore buried in the tomb under the moat of his castle – Merciful God, can such things be!", mutters Robert Cairn – and flees to Egypt, before Dr. Cairn can put a bullet in his head.

'Others have gone to the stake in less enlightened age!'- 'Less enlightened, boy!' Dr. Cairn turned his blazing eyes upon him. 'More enlightened where the powers of hell were concerned!'

The most atmospheric parts of novel are those set in Egypt, when evil Antony dons a mask of crocodile-headed Set on a costume party in Cairo and summons an evil desert wind which make a lot of people ill, just messes with Robert´s mind and is protected by thousands of tarantulas while being in trance, as the Cairns have to discover when they invade his hide-out.

But the most suspenseful part is without doubt the chase in a dark pyramid, where Antony is summoning the witch-queen of ancient Egypt. Which later is revealed to be his mother! Because egyptologists Michael Ferrara and Bruce Cairn found both the mummy of the evil witch-queen and that of an embalmed child-mummy back then, along a certain papyrus. They did the rites, put the child-mummy back into a pyramid, and a month later there was a living six-month old infant lying there, which was adopted and brought up by Sir Michael.

Back in London Antony again reaches for Myra and the Cairns, but the good doctor can turn the tables on the mummy´s son by destroying his Book of Toth. And while Robert can embrace his beloved Myra, Antony gets killed by his own magic.

Sax Rohmer published this in 1918, and in hindsight it is astounding how many elements are to find which later became a staple in most mummy-tales. And I dare say that the concept of a transformed child-mummy into a boy who grows up to be a seemingly normal man is much more interesting then the usual living mummy looking for his re-incarnated girlfriend. Not to mention the many other occult encounters. In the 190 pages is more black magician stuff then a lot of Wheatley novels. The egyptian scenes just seem to be a truer blueprint for Indiana Jones then all the pulps he supposedly is celebrating. Even if (of course) a bit melodramatic in places, this novel just oozes atmosphere.

I guess I am biased, as I read this first in its german edition as a young and impressionable lad. And of course the novel has its faults. The episodic structure, the often one-note characters. But it is still a very good read with – back then terrific - ideas, and seeing this from a genre-perspective it is quite astonishing that this has become a forgotten novel.



In memoriam Günther Decker 1925-2011

[dem bones]

Your review has decided me to finally make a start on the Dennis Wheatley library edition (thanks Nosferatu) once i've finished Thomas Page's The Spirit wherein we've reached an exciting bit. Bigfoot has just got himself entangled in someone's washing.

all the best for 2012, andreas, and keep those fab Paperback Fanatic articles coming! Dr. Morton was my pin-up of 2011.

[andydecker]

thanks dem!! Glad you like the stuff.