R. Chetwynd-Hayes – The Awakening

[dem]

R. Chetwynd-Hayes – The Awakening (Magnum Books, 1980)

Blurb:
1658: Van Hoorn and Abdul discover an ancient tomb – that of Queen Kara, the Evil One. But the Curse of the Pharaohs falls upon them and both are killed in a terrible storm which reseals the tomb.

1961: Sir Matthew Corbeck and Jane Howell, after a long search using Van Hoorns’ notes, rediscover the tomb and bring out the mummy of Queen Kara.

Kara’s Spirit is determined to live again. Having waited thousands of years, her time is nearly right. When Sir Matthew ‘s daughter is 18, Kara makes her move. And with Sir Matthew’s help to reincarnate her, her evil powers grow again. Too late, he realises the danger to his daughter…and there is nothing he can do to stop it…

The second and, as it turned out, final Chetwynd-Hayes novelisation, banged out inside a fortnight. Never having seen the film, have no idea how faithful his version is to the script, but following quote suggests not religiously so. Breezed through the first quarter last night and already The Awakening is shaping up as a jolly ripping romp.

"It was marvellous. I got £2, 000 for that. I read the script and pinched a bit from H. Rider Haggard, some from the Arabian Nights, and got a story out of it somehow. I found it was ridiculously easy. I also saw the film all by myself and thought it was stupid - why didn't they find an original idea? Anyway, it flopped, so I think I was right. I only found out afterwards it was based on Stoker's book because Arrow's original edition was selling better than my version. However, my book sold 15, 000 copies, so Magnum was pleased."

R. Chetwynd-Hayes, interviewed by Stephen Jones and Jo Fletcher, Skeleton Crew, Sept. 1990

"Really, look at him! Strolling through the desert like it were Hyde Park. He really should have been born three hundred years ago. Then he would have bedded live queens - not dug up old ones."

Thats heavily pregnant Mrs. Anne Colbeck, 29, bigging up her archaeologist husband ,Sir Matthew, to his doting young assistant, Jane Howell. Despite pregnancy and an aversion to all things bones and tombs, Mrs. Colbeck has dutifully accompanied Sir Matt on expedition to the valley of the sorceress. The marriage isn't what it should be. Beautiful, frightfully posh and used to getting her own way, Anne is desperately miserable in the realisation that, in the great scheme of Colbeck's affections, she will always come a poor second to any old pile of mouldering relics. She's just another trophy whose novelty has worn off. To make matters worse, mister high-and-mighty is ever accompanied by the preposterous Jane baggage, who couldn't make it more obvious that she is in love with him. The girl is insufferable!

Mrs. C. knocks back her umpteenth gin and tonic of the day and wishes her husband was as adventurous in bed as he was in pursuit of "the greatest find since Tutankhamen!" On the rare occasion he can spare her ten seconds, the missionary position is so absolutely beyond passé.

Colbeck has obtained Sir Henry Cooper's seventeenth century manuscript detailing Dutch Egyptologist Van Doorn's discovery of a the tomb of a Queen so thoroughly evil her name was excised from the Book of Death. Under the watchful eye of Anubis the jackal headed God, Van Doorn filled his pockets with gems. Abul, his devious foreman, went one worse and tore the hand from the mummified Queen to steal her rings. Both died horribly. The tomb has long since vanished back beneath the ever shifting sand. Sir Matt is determined to find it!

Three weeks into the dig, the excavation party strike pay dirt! A hieroglyphic above the door warns "Do not approach the Nameless One lest your soul be withered. The Nameless One must not live again" but that's just typical mumbo jumbo to scare away credulous grave-robbers. Sir Matt can hardly contain his excitement. Move over, Howard Carter, your time is up!

Meanwhile Anne Colbeck's mind has so overloaded on violent erotic fantasies that she's lapsed into a coma! Her husband, furious that the inconsiderate harpy should ruin his moment of glory, dumps her at the hospital in Cairo where a perplexed Dr. Kadira announces that the baby is due any moment. Sir Matt can't hang around for such idle women's nonsense and races back to camp to make sure Hamid and his men are keeping guard at the tomb entrance. Even Miss Howell finds his behaviour a little insensitive, but then she is a mere woman and cannot be expected to understand the concept of priorities.

to be continued....

[helrunar]

Glorioski Lord Demonik, this one sounds like a regular riot!  Thanks for adding a smile to my morning.

Is there any specific reason why RCH did not do any further novelisations after this one?  Did he simply have bigger fish to net at this point in his career?  Perhaps it was simply a case of changing market imperatives or simply that eternal mystery of "and so it goes"?

I look forward to the next installment!

cheers, H.

[helrunar]

Also, thanks to your hilarious dish-up of the beginning of this yarn, I ordered a copy of the book this afternoon.  I'll have to struggle once again not to laugh out loud whilst reading it on my commute.

cheers, H.

[dem]

Feb 20, 2017 15:20:16 GMT helrunar said:

Is there any specific reason why RCH did not do any further novelisations after this one?  Did he simply have bigger fish to net at this point in his career?  Perhaps it was simply a case of changing market imperatives or simply that eternal mystery of "and so it goes"?

No idea, Steve. Could be that nobody asked? "Bigger fish to fry?" is strong probability as his work for library favourites William Kimber would surely have taken precedence over anything else. Between 1978-1989 (taking him through to his 70th birthday) Kimber published twelve new RCH collections, two novels, " best of" selection A Quiver Of Ghost and the Doomed To The Night anthology. Nothing to scare an old school speed-pulpster for sure, but still a sizeable body of work.

[ripper]

I remember seeing this in bookshops around the time the film was released, but had not realised it was by RCH. I didn't think too much of the film, despite its decent cast, and much prefer the earlier Blood from the Mummy's Tomb. However, I am intrigued by what RCH brought to the novelisation to make it distinct from Stoker's Jewel of the Seven Stars, so shall follow Dem's description with interest.

[dem]

Feb 21, 2017 3:01:26 GMT helrunar said:

I ordered a copy of the book this afternoon.

With that in mind, will try ease up on the spoilers, though no guarantees on that score. A third of the way through now (p.83 of 224: also includes extremely dull B/W photo-inset) Initial concern was that after such a dynamic opening (a) the pace would flag, (b) the characters would become likeable, (c) Ronald would drag in one of his "hilarious" hybrid monsters, or (d) all three. Still plenty of book to go, but as yet our worse fears have proved unfounded.

Corbeck and Jane raise the lid of the magnificent sarcophagus and gaze upon the husk within. Since last we met, the Queen's hand has been restitched to her wrist and the stolen rings returned to withered fingers. But who is she? On a whim, Jane reaches behind the bandaged head and drags free a cartouche! At moments like these even Sir Matthew is forced to concede that there may even be a point to her existence. Such a pity she's a blasted woman. Might have made a jolly fine chap.

Anyway.

"Kara, Queen of the Egypts, Monarch of the high and low, loved of Anubis, but cursed by men and gods. Her Ka is confined near this place, may it never find the vessel that has yet to be formed."

So the obvious next step is to seek out Kara's Ka and bring down the curse!

Back on the maternity ward, Anna's baby daughter miraculously utters a loud wailing cry ten long minutes after being pronounced DOA. When Corbeck belatedly checks on his wife's condition, the doctor makes no attempt at concealing her contempt.

"Try to understand. I have made the most important discovery of all time. Only I can catalogue, explain to the nit-wits who will shortly be arriving in droves to paw treasures that were never intended to be exposed to naked sunlight ...."

One week later. The damn paparazzi are swarming over the site and the pressman asking awkward questions about Sir Matt's no show at daughters birth and his relationship with the "pretty assistant." Oh, and what's the story behind the mysterious death's of three minor players connected to the excavation?

Feb 21, 2017 15:47:42 GMT ripper said:

I didn't think too much of the film, despite its decent cast, and much prefer the earlier Blood from the Mummy's Tomb.

Never seen it, but now feel obscenely compelled to put that right, if only to gage extent of the liberties RCH took with the script.

[helrunar]

Thanks Dem for the latest dramatic installment.  

Your brilliant observation:

At moments like these even Sir Matthew is forced to concede that there may even be a point to her existence. Such a pity she's a blasted woman. Might have made a jolly fine chap.


--makes me reflect that there will always be an England.  Thank the gods.

And talking of them, Kara (nee Tera in Stoker's original novel) was said to have been "cursed by the gods" yet beloved of Anubis who IS a god.  Curious thing, that.

My personal favorite version of JEWEL OF THE SEVEN STARS is the ITV Mystery and Imagination play "Curse of the Mummy."  It included Graham Crowden in one of his typical mad scientist (in this case, mad Egyptologist) turns.  This is the only adaptation I know of to retain the late Victorian setting of the novel.  The Hammer film BLOOD FROM THE MUMMY'S TOMB is good fun with a fine cast and Valerie Leon who has extraordinary breasts.  They should have rewritten the screenplay for a scenario in which those possessed magical powers.  

Don't hold off on spoilers on my account.  I've read so much of this sort of thing at this point that I read much more for mood, atmosphere and characterization than plot.

cheers, H.

[dem]

Not even sure I've read The Jewel Of The Seven Stars so that's next on hitlist. Might cheat a little to save a little time as John Richard Stephens' Into The Mummy's Tomb includes a (much) abridged version: "Although I have abbreviated the novel in order to make it available to a wider audience, I guarantee that it still contains all the magic and power of the original." Tera willing, can always give the full blown original a go at a later date.

An early indication that those who thwart Kara's design will be ruthlessly disposed of. Hamid, the Egyptian government's eyes and ears on the project, who is adamant that on no condition should the mummy be removed from the tomb, is flame grilled in a road accident when Kara's Ka crashes his car. Sarcophagus and occupant are duly transferred to the Cairo museum.

Sir Matt belatedly arrives at the conclusion that perhaps it's better Jane isn't a fellow after all. Just look at those legs. Phwoar! What a cracking bit of stuff! When his hand strays to her knee while daydreaming about Kara - which, these days, he tends to do around the clock - Anne isn't the least put out. Corbeck rebukes himself that, at 43 and almost twice her age, he's turned into a dirty old man. Even so, he quietly seethes to learn she's spending the evening with some upstart buffoon of a museum employee.

Anne, the nearest we have to a sympathetic character, has had enough and books herself and infant Margaret on a flight back to London. Sir Matt's token effort to dissuade her only confirms that she's lost him to a mummy. Their divorce terms are amicably settled on the spot. She'll cite desertion, he won't contest. She'll have access to the bank account, he'll have access to his daughter like he'll ever be arsed to see her. The coast now clear, Jane moves in for the kill. Within months she'll be the second Mrs Corbeck.

A live TV interview hosted by obnoxious Charles Beaumont (!) turns ugly when Corbeck is questioned about his love life. Success has taken its toll and, once the exhibition has been launched, all he wants for is to return home to England. The launch party, Sir Matt's last public engagement in Cairo, goes far better than he'd dared dream. Out of sheer gratitude, the government present him with a miniature of Queen Kara, a bronze hand-mirror from her dressing table, and a statue of Wadjet, the cobra goddess.

Sir Matt and bride-to-be say their goodbyes to Egypt and that's the last we see of them for eighteen years ....

[dem]

It's 1979. Sir Matthew Corbeck K.G.B. is sixty, marriage mk. II has just about held together, and he's grown a beard. Then the bombshell. Word reaches him via the London Museum of Antiquities concerning his greatest discovery. The mummy is rotting! Time to return to Cairo.

Before his departure, Matt replies to a letter from his estranged daughter in the States and, at Jane's insistence, mails her Kara's mirror by way of an eighteenth birthday present. Margaret is all grown up now, hanging around with boys, drinking, experimenting with recreational drugs, Americanized. Mother Anne, whose once trim figure has ballooned in keeping with her alcohol intake, has never liked, let alone loved her daughter, and makes an awful job of trying to conceal it. When Margaret casually let's slip that her father has finally requested a meeting, Anne flies into a raging fury.

Margaret gazes into the mirror. The young woman who smiles back, while strikingly similar, is not her!

Sir Matthew's arrival in Cairo coincides with a period of political tension. As Jane informed him at London airport, that morning's Daily Ma*l ran an article on something called the Karaian Movement "Nothing more than a collection of criminals and drop-outs. Their aim is to bring about a state of anarchy ... Apparently they're thinking of putting up candidates for the next general election, running under a freedom of conduct ticket ... do what you like and damn the consequences. Hedonism unlimited."

None of which sits well with Church militants. The situation grows uglier by the hour.

Hardly has Sir Matt booked in at a hotel than he's visited by the Karaian cult's charismatic president, Mark Cornelius, who heralds him as the movement's honorary founder and the man through whom The Queen will be enabled to work her will. Matt thinks he's bats. Events may prove otherwise, and anyway, like a man who holds conversations with a mummy awake and sleeping is in any position to question another man's "sanity."

Next stop the museum to view the full extent of the Queen Kara's deterioration. Sir Matt is introduced to Dr. El Khalid, every sinew his equal in grumpiness, and the occasion takes a turn for the catastrophic when the laboratory inexplicably explodes. There's nothing for it than to fly the mummy for examination by British experts. Dr. Khalid damn near blows a gasket at the suggestion - Kara must not leave Egyptian soil! The Queen evidently rules otherwise. The curse claims another high profile victim.

Fifty pages to go. Another twenty gripping instalments should do it.

[helrunar]

Another excellent installment!  That plot outline bears at most a nodding acquaintance with the Stoker novel.  I don't know if I care enough to actually bother tracking down a copy of the film to see how much was added by RCH's brilliantly fertile imagination.  My copy of his redaction is on its way.

Talking of the original novel, I would say an abridged version is all you'll really want to read, if you can even manage to get through that.  I read an abridged version in the mid 1970s and it was heavy going.  I was just a teenager then--now I might find it more readable.  I did read all of LAIR OF THE WHITE WORM, finally, a few years ago.  I'd need a pen of your brilliance even to begin summing up my thoughts about that one.  I thought Ken Russell's fanciful adaptation was a big improvement, to severely understate.

For what it is worth, the shot of Jane assailed by supernatural forces looks as if THE AWAKENING may have owed not a little to BLOOD FROM THE MUMMY'S TOMB which is corking great fun.  Did I mention Valerie Leon's breasts?  They require exceptional remark.  And I write those words as a lifelong male homosexual.

cheers, H.

[dem]

Margaret, now demoniacally possessed by the evil Queen, delivers a message to her old man. Together they must visit the tomb and return the seven starred plaque he pilfered in 1961. More to-ing and fro-ing to Cairo and back. A young archaeologist is introduced to the plot for cannon fodder purposes, and father and daughter smuggle the canopic jars back to England.

The Karaian movement is now a world-wide concern. A protest outside the British museum sees an angry mob of "half-baked idiots" demanding to see their Queen clash with a counter demonstration by the church who would have the mummy destroyed. The fighting escalates into country wide Kara riots. As the cult leader, Cornelius, cryptically let on at their initial meeting, Sir Matt has been manipulated all along, and it is his own daughter's body will be Kara's vessel once the sacred ritual has been performed. Corbeck's only hope is to destroy the canopic jars before the exchange can be effected and the world overcome by the forces of evil ....

Am not at all sure a proper lit crit would be easily pleased, but I enjoyed The Awakening, certainly way more than expected. Fair to say that after the (I thought) meticulously paced 'Book one: 1961,' RCH has no option but to put a spurt on in 'Book two: 1979' as he now has too much story to cram into too little novel. The atmosphere is sacrificed in the rush. Though it pains me to suggest such a blasphemy, he could have done with another 50 pages to play with.

[dem]

Feb 23, 2017 18:08:58 GMT helrunar said:

That plot outline bears at most a nodding acquaintance with the Stoker novel.  I don't know if I care enough to actually bother tracking down a copy of the film to see how much was added by RCH's brilliantly fertile imagination.  My copy of his redaction is on its way.

Talking of the original novel, I would say an abridged version is all you'll really want to read, if you can even manage to get through that.  I read an abridged version in the mid 1970s and it was heavy going.  I was just a teenager then--now I might find it more readable.  I did read all of LAIR OF THE WHITE WORM, finally, a few years ago.  I'd need a pen of your brilliance even to begin summing up my thoughts about that one.  I thought Ken Russell's fanciful adaptation was a big improvement, to severely understate.

cheers, H.

Thanks Mr. H. In that case, think I'll work backwards, take in John Burke's 90 page novelisation of Blood From The Mummy's Tomb before attempting the seriously truncated version of The Jewel of the Seven Stars.

John Burke - The Hammer Horror Film Omnibus (Pan, 1966)

The Gorgon: What is the terrible secret of the village of Vandorf, where a murderer's victims turn to stone?
The Curse Of Frankenstein: Baron Victor Frankenstein creates a grotesque monster - and is himself condemned to death for the creature's brutal killings ...
The Revenge Of Frankenstein: Escaping the guillotine, Baron Frankenstein repays the dwarf who aids him - giving him a new body! But his creation is a killer; worse - a cannibal ...
The Curse Of The Mummy's Tomb: From the Egypt of 3000 B.C. to the London of 1912 comes the monster that would not die!

[ripper]

Feb 25, 2017 9:29:55 GMT dem said:

Margaret, now demoniacally possessed by the evil Queen, delivers a message to her old man. Together they must visit the tomb and return the seven starred plaque he pilfered in 1961. More to-ing and fro-ing to Cairo and back. A young archaeologist is introduced to the plot for cannon fodder purposes and father and daughter smuggle the canopic jars back to England.

The Karaian movement is now a world-wide concern. A protest outside the British museum sees an angry mob of "half-baked idiots" demanding to see their Queen clash with a counter demonstration by the church who would have the mummy destroyed. The fighting escalates into country wide Kara riots. As the cult leader, Cornelius, cryptically let on at their initial meeting, Sir Matt has been manipulated all along, and it is his own daughter's body will be Kara's vessel once the sacred ritual has been performed. Corbeck's only hope is to destroy the canopic jars before the exchange can be effected and the world is overcome by the forces of evil ....


Am not at all sure a proper lit crit would be easily pleased, but I enjoyed The Awakening, certainly way more than expected. Fair to say that after the (I thought) meticulously paced 'Book one: 1961,' RCH has no option but to put a spurt on in 'Book two: 1979' as he now has too much story to cram into too little novel. The atmosphere is sacrificed in the rush. Though it pains me to suggest such a blasphemy, he could have done with another 50 pages to play with.

Cracking stuff, Dem. I am a bit puzzled, though, why they went to the trouble of commissioning a novelisation by RCH, instead of just producing a tie-in to the film of Stoker's book. Considerable plot differences don't seem to be a barrier to that sort of thing, a prime example being the "novelisation" of Hammer's Hands of the Ripper. Still, a nice little earner for RCH by the sound of it.

[dem]

Feb 25, 2017 10:28:55 GMT ripper said:

I am a bit puzzled, though, why they went to the trouble of commissioning a novelisation by RCH, instead of just producing a tie-in to the film of Stoker's book. Considerable plot differences don't seem to be a barrier to that sort of thing, a prime example being the "novelisation" of Hammer's Hands of the Ripper. Still, a nice little earner for RCH by the sound of it.

Hands Of The Ripper is an odd one as I believe - might be wrong - it was adapted from Edward Spencer Shew's (then) unpublished novel? Guy Adams recent update for Hammer Books is great fun.

In the case of The Awakening, Arrow owned the rights to Jewel Of The Seven Stars and reissued it in movie tie-in edition.

[pulphack]

Quite possible 'Hands Of the Ripper' was unpublished as a novel before the film version - 'Witchfinder General' was optioned by Tigon from galley proofs handed to them by either Ronald Bassett's agent or his publisher, and Tony Tenser snapped it up. It seemed to be a common practise then (and certainly is now for name writers' agents) Turgid novel, and obliquely similar to the film (ie the historical bits, roughly) - must admit, didn't like the book though if I'd read it before seeing the film that may have been different - I was not expecting what I got! On pulpier ground, Jeff Rice's first Kolchak book was optioned before publication as well, wasn't it?