Why has ancient Egypt become the setting for a near-Nilotic inundation of fiction? The peculiarities of the country have fascinated observers ever since Herodotus noted that its inhabitants worshiped cats and Egyptian women urinated standing up; but our millennial age of psychobabble seems to have found a natural spiritual home in the Nile valley. Perhaps it's partly because much of what we know from ancient Egypt derives from tombs, so it comes across as a …showed first 75 words of 861 total…

…showed last 75 words of 861 total…bad writing, but is it explicable (indeed, justifiable) as a clever author playing parodic games, showing us the diverse literary uses of the sand-blown scenario? It won't do. Holland cannot have it both ways. If he intends an ironic commentary on pharaonic fantasies, he should save it for the lit crit class. If he wants to write convincing entertainment, he must burrow beneath the thin topsoil of his story and make it believable. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ **Bibliography**