The Jewel of Seven Stars (Bram Stoker)

The Jewel of Seven Stars
Bram Stoker
Blackstone Audio
Fiction, Fantasy/Horror
*** (Okay)

DESCRIPTION: Young barrister Malcolm Ross only met the lady Margaret Trelawny briefly; though he was enchanted by her beauty, he never thought she'd take him up on his offer to help if ever she needed assistance. The summons in the dead of night, therefore, startles him. Margaret's father, Dr. Abel Trelawny, a noted Egyptologist whose home has more artifacts than anywhere outside the British Museum, has been attacked, and now lies as if in a coma. Stranger still, they discover no sign of an attacker entering or leaving the premises, and there's a note in Abel's desk addressed to her that seems to indicate he expected just this very thing to happen. With an inspector, a doctor, and one of Dr. Trelawny's associates, one Eugene Corbet, Malcolm finds himself drawn into a tale of hidden tombs, lost histories, a blood-red jewel like no other on Earth, and a curse - or possibly prophecy - that has already claimed numerous lives.

REVIEW: This Gothic tale hits all the notes one might expect of a classic horror centered around ancient Egypt (and the Europeans who felt no qualms about tomb raiding in the name of science and cultural superiority, even as the notion of repercussions for said tomb raiding left them uneasy). As was the style of the day, Malcolm is more observer than active participant or driver of the plot, drawn in by his love for Margaret - who, also typical of the era, is presented as being almost of an alien species as a female, something inherently unknowable and weaker and more emotional than a real person (read: man). There's an unsubtle vibe here about what all women evidently truly value above even power and autonomy, not to mention England being the pinnacle of all possible civilizations to which all others should aspire... but Stoker was a writer of his time, with an audience of his time. That aside, he paints some decently vivid settings and occasionally creepy goings-on, though (also typical for the time) nothing that could be said in a single sentence is presented in anything less than a paragraph or more. At some point, the story becomes less about unraveling the secrets and the threat of the curse and more about sitting around twiddling thumbs until something happens. The ending feels like a pulled punch and a total waste of all the painstaking setup (I understand it's a revised version, the 1912 ending, though even the original 1903 ending sounds a little like a long stroll into a short tomb), costing it the half-star the descriptions (and consideration for its age) nearly earned it.

You Might Also Enjoy:
The Halloween Tree (Ray Bradbury) - My Review
The Amulet of Doom (Bruce Coville) - My Review
Dracula (Bram Stoker) - My Review