The Mummy of Monte Cristo
As in the original Count of Monte Cristo, sailor Edmund Dantès is falsely imprisoned in the notorious Chateau d’If in 1815 and languishes until a cellmate shows him the way to escape. Years later, as the Count of Monte Cristo, he wreaks havoc on the men who put him there. In Robinson’s version, Monte Cristo’s world is filled with kraken, mechanical forged men, dwarf-like lutins, human/jackal-like kishi, animate gargoyles, and vampires, and the count himself dies and comes back as a mummy.
Robinson is the author of the young adult novel The Good Fight as well as A Canadian Christmas Carol, an adaptation of the Dickens classic. His latest, The Mummy of Monte Cristo, is an award-winner. It was a semi-finalist in the 10th Annual KBR Best of Indie Awards and received the Firebird Award from Speak Up Talk Radio.
The story follows Alexandre Dumas’ storyline of revenge in post-Napoleonic Paris, inserting twists along the way, such as the Dead Plague of 1787, which transformed a victim into a zombie with a single bite and Napoleon’s mysterious discovery in Eastern Europe that ended the plague and destroyed every zombie on the continent.
While pleasurable to revisit the classic tale, The Mummy of Monte Cristo becomes tangled in subplots. Instead of building narratives that move steadily toward conclusions, explanations appear suddenly, like afterthoughts. Characters’ identities are confusing, leaving the reader to wonder, who is that again? Nevertheless, the drama is compelling, leading the reader to want to know what happens next. A seat belt here. It’s a bumpy ride.
