So I'm writing this post while listening to Eric Carmen's "Hungry Eyes." The song is befitting my mood–seeing as I'm trying to decide if I want to read the final Amelia Peabody mystery, Tomb of the Golden Bird. Because once this book is read, this will be the end of my journey reading Elizabeth Peters’ famous Victoria-era Egyptologist series. It’s been nine years since I cracked open the first book, The Crocodile on the Sandbank; 20 books later, my adventures with Peabody and crew are ending.
It's more complicated than not, but Peters took many liberties in adjusting the timeframe in the series. The final two publication releases, A River in the Sky and The Paint Queen, officially close the series out at twenty books. However, per the precise timeline, the final book is Tomb of the Golden Bird. I corrected the order from books sixteen forward. Now I've landed at the series' end and in proper sequence.
The problem is that, while I’ve decided to finally finish this series THIS year (I want to move on to reading Peters’ Vicky Bliss series next), I’m feeling some type of way about taking on the final book as it lies here in my hands.
So before we get into that, let me be the first to say that while I thought the series peaked in the ninth book (Seeing a Large Cat), the series hardly suffered moving forward. Mainly my difficulty came where, in the proceeding books, Peters leaned heavily on several formulaic methods to tell her stories. It was just that some books read like recycled stories. Especially surrounding Amelia Peabody's son, Ramses, and his antics. Often times I would close a book and, despite enjoying the ride, not really gather the purpose of the book. Or I would ask myself what happened and why. Book after book tended to bleed together.
However, there are three books after book nine that I found stellar and memorable. One was the infamous “Nefret" book, The Falcon at the Portal. The second was the "children" book Children of the Storm (the action came back alive in this one and the villain was great!). Lastly, I can say a few days later, The Serpent on the Crown was an entertaining and pleasant addition to this list.
Call it where I am in life or not, but I found myself spending a day in bed reading 150 pages of Serpent because I couldn’t quite let it go. Not even Ramese's portion of the storytelling got on my nerves. However, it was just as convoluted and contrived as many of the books after book nine. Yes, it touched on many recycled plot points and elements featured continuously in the series. Yes, the villain, as in most cases, was hardly a force of nature. Regardless of all that, Serpent was soooooo much fun, though! And it reminded me how the books are suppose to be fun, even as aggravating I sometimes find the storytelling bits. Oh, let me not forget to mention how I will say one glowing point was that Sethos (Amelia's brother-in-law and Master of Disguise) was an absolutely JOY when he is not playing against the cast AS the Master of Disguise. His role in the series always (and I emphasis "always") got on my nerves, until he finally came out and became a part of the main cast.
Nevertheless, I only have one more adventure yet. Should I read it while I’m hot? Let it cool and come back to my final Amelia Peabody adventure later this year?
Ah, I’m going to miss the series regardless.
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