Oh, this is dark - much darker than most other things I have read for The Mummy - but very, very well written and strangely addicting. Your style is very smooth and refined - possibly a little purple in some areas - but it is a very enjoyable read. Thanks for writing this. I notice you haven't updated since 2007. Do you plan to continue? I hope you do, but even if you don't, what you have here is hauntingly beautiful enough. I would very much like to know what will happen. I don't think I've ever read Ardeth so dark before; very intriguing, very different.


Cheers,
~ Estora ~

UPDATE!

Thia is the first story I've read with a dark Ardeth. But I'm enjoying it.
Keep it up and please update soon

Mm... dark and dirty. Me likes! The atmosphere you have set up is angsty and sinful, and I commend you for this departure from the usual fluffy Ardeth fics I've encountered so far. In my opinion Ardeth's a dark character who belongs in a world like the one you've created. Unlike the previous reviewer I enjoy the slow, dense pacing. I think it really contributes to the atmosphere, and in any case, you're very poetic, so your prose is not a chore to read.

Once again, cheers to you for probing in the deep, dark, scary corners of your imagination for this. I can see why people may be wary of reading this... but as they say: "If I wasn't such a bad woman on the page, I couldn't be such a good woman in life."

Update, yo!

Its strange that no one has reviewed this yet. I saw this story on aff a while ago but I didnt read it because it looked too long, lol. Youre setting up an intriguing story, but for the word count I would have expected much more to have happened by now. I think the pace needs to be speeded up a little, because your writing style is very densely worded and a little slow.

I think the problem is that you over-describe things. You might want to convey the scene exactly as it is in your head, but you can never control the way a reader imagines it, and any attempt to force them is actually counter productive. Overloading the reader with information and therefore restricting their scope for personal interpretation of the scene will disengage them from the narrative. Long strings of adjectives describing the same object, and overly precise explanations of simple actions, are slow to read and can be very frustrating. Sometimes I lose the thread of whats happening because i have to pick out the key phrases from all the superfluous description.

Maybe that sounds a bit harsh to you, and you will defend yourself by coming out in support of accurate expression and the beauty of the language. Yes there is a place for poetic literary expression, but confined to certain passages. Put a scene setting paragraph at the beginning, or whenever it becomes important in the narrative, but vary the density of your narrative so we're not bombarded with information in every sentence.