Egyptian Mythology

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While I finish the Enchantress, the last book (I expect), of Nicholas Flamel's saga, and as it is full of mythology, I let you a little information about the Egyptian Mythology which is interesting, at least for me.

I hope you like it! Meanwhile I'll keep reading.

The first men's Gods were the forces of nature. The Ancients Egyptians deified those features of nature they feared or got disconcerted with. Their Gods had animal and human forms and also its qualities; they got angry, fought with each other, had kids and even fell in love.

The Egyptians divided the world in 3 parts:

1.- Heaven (Nun): God's dwelling. Nut, its heavenly Goddess, the Elder who gave birth all the Gods, was symbolise with her back bended covering the Earth.

2.- Earth: Human's dwelling, the house of Geb the Inventor, who is symbolise as a man laying under Nut.

3.- The Beyond (Duat): The kingdom of the Deads, where Horus and afterwards Osiris ruled. Ra went through it every night in his solar rowboat  and it was a place where the spirits of the dead walked avoiding dangers.

Egyptian mythology exists since the pre-dynastic era until the imposition of Christianity, when its practice was forbidden by Justiniano I in the year 535. In this long period of time the Gods and Goddess combined and mixed between them and became new deities. Because of the Helenic influence upon Egypt, the Gods who remained were Osiris, Isis, Horus and their enemy Seth.

Life after Death

The initial belief of the immortality of Gods and Pharaohs, was after extended to the rest of the Egyptians. That's why they practised the embalm and mummification with the idea of preserve the body integrity in its future life.

The Ancients Egyptians considered that human spirit was defined by 3 forces:

1.- Ba: The living force of every dead person, the spiritual personality.

2.- Ka: The vital force, a bite of the universal and immortal principle of life.

3.- Aj: The supernatural spiritual force.

According to their beliefs, the spirits of the Deads were carried by Anubis to the hall where the Trial took place, "The Room of the Two Truths". The heart of the Dead (symbol of its morality), was weight in a scale against a feather which represented Maat (Truth, Justice and Cosmic Harmony). If the income was favourable, the Dead was taken before Osiris in Aaru; but, Ammut (the Heart Eater), symbolised as a mixture of crocodile, lyon and hippopotamus, destroyed those hearts whose sentence turned out negative, blocking its immortality.

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The Warlock

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Title: The Warlock - The Secrets of the Immortal Nicholas Flamel

Author: Michael Scott

First Edition: 2011

Category: Fantasy, Thriller, Mythology

Pages: 376 (English Edition, 2011)

Synopsis (Spoiler alert!)

Alcatraz: Although their ally Dr. John Dee has been declared utlaga, Machiavelli and Billy the Kid will follow the plans the Elders have laid before them: they will loose the monsters of Alcatraz on the city of San Francisco, thereby triggering the end of the humani race.

San Francisco: The end is finally near. Josh Newman has chosen a side, and he will not stand with his sister, Sophie, or with the Alchemyst, Nicholas Flamel. He will fight alongside Dee and the mysterious Virginia Dare. Unless Sophie can find her twin before the battle begins, all is lost - forever. Nicholas and Perenelle Flamel only have one day of life left, and they have to protect San Francisco from de monsters coming from Alcatraz.

Danu Talis: The Shadowrealm that Scatty and Joan of Arc have entered is far more dangerous than they could ever have imagined. And they haven't landed here by chance -the warriors were called for a reason. So were Saint-Germain, Palamedes and Shakespeare- The groups was summoned because they must travel back in time to Danu Talis and destroy it. For the island of Danu Talis, known in humani myth as the lost city of Atlantis, must fall if the modern world is to exist.

My Opinion:

This review will be a bit shorter than my previous ones, because I think I have written all and I don't want to repeat what was already said. This is the fifth book of the Alchemyst, Nicholas Flamel's Saga, and for my stupor it was very fun for me to read it. But don't read me wrong; I'm still have no interest in knowing how is going to end this story (each time more and more elaborate, intricate and with unexpected interrelations between its characters). If there is one, important, thing that I haven't done with this novel is that I haven't felt identified with any of the characters, or even like them. That feeling, when you read a book, of starting to know the characters and getting involved with them. That feeling of wanting that things work out for them, that everything goes right. In this saga, I wouldn't mind if all die; it will be even better because it will last less (satisfaction that the author denied us since he had the great idea of making all his characters immortals).

In this volume doesn't appear a lot of new actors, but we realized that loads of them were related, and others who we used to think were normal people, turn out to be -surprise- immortals (I'm starting to believe that Michael Scott would like that everyone in the world was immortal, can you imagine the overpopulation?).

Not being this enough for Scott, (to use every famous, historical and mythological person or creature in his book), in this volume they travel back in time, to the past, to avoid the destruction of the world.

Sincerely, I can't imagine what to expect from the next book; spaceship travels, alien life, future travel or maybe to the Middle Earth to ask an Immortal Hobbit for help. 

I think Michael Scott forget the meaning of the sentence "less is more".   

My mark: 2 out of 5 (I raise the mark because it wasa book fun to read)

(Forgive me if there are grammatical mistakes in the text. If you want to correct me something I'll thank you)

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