Oh my goodness, I just realized that I spent a full eight months putting this together: Indiana Jones and the Labyrinth of Horus I'm pretty happy with the result, though. It might be the first complete English translation of a Hohlbein novel . . . ? And the story's not half bad, either. I...
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Review by translator Icybro:
And the story's not half bad, either. I don't want to spoil anything before giving you guys a chance to read it for yourselves, but I'll post my thoughts on the story in more detail later.
It's neat to see characters like Grisswald make appearances in both books.
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As far as I'm concerned,
punisher5150's review is right on the mark. Hohlbein understands what makes a good Indy story, better than Steve Perry (whose
Army of the Dead spent more time following the various villains than it did following Indy) and better than Martin Caidin (whose
Sky Pirates was more
Mission: Impossible than Indiana Jones).
Hohlbein doesn't stray too far from the formula established in the movies. The MacGuffin (the titular labyrinth) is mysterious but appropriately rooted in history. Indy has personal reasons for pursuing it beyond professional ambition. The action set pieces appear about twice a chapter, almost like clockwork, and a handful of unexpected twists keep the story interesting. Indy even finds a use for his whip and at one point temporarily loses his hat.
Which is not to say everything is how it should be. There are no snakes or creepy crawlies of any kind. And there are precious few specific ties to elements from the movies. No familiar characters besides Indy. You'd think he might look up Sallah while he was in Cairo, but no, and he never mentions Marcus. His school is strangely referred to only as "the university in Washington," which means it can't be Marshall or Barnett.
But my biggest gripe is the creepy attitude Indy has toward Elizabeth Smith. She's not a love interest -- as mentioned, she's meant to be more of an obnoxious, reluctant sidekick -- but she's the only major female character, and Indy almost comes across as a sexual predator. He looks down her blouse, he paws at her chest, and when she complains, he slaps her across the face and later threatens to spank her. It's mostly played for laughs, but it's icky, especially when she's supposed to be just barely an adult, and Indy's 42. Indy shouldn't be a dirty old man, dang it!
One more thing I thought was a bit off (though I guess it's understandable, considering): Indy doesn't exactly hate Nazis in this story. For starters, they're almost always referred to as "Germans" instead of "Nazis." They are villains, but secondary villains at most, and when Indy has to confront them, he expresses a grudging admiration toward them. (In regards to the glider technology: "It could only come from German engineers.") He even quotes Nietzsche. Hard to square with the "Nazis: I hate these guys" Indy from
Last Crusade.
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I agree the tone is slightly off in places, but I'm willing to chalk that up to my translation, for the most part. If you're only 45 pages in, I will say that the story gets better, and ultimately turns into something I at least found worthwhile.
Review by punisher5150:
Great story so far. Indy is hired by a fellow archaeologist's son and daughter to find the missing scientist. Indy owes the man a debt since sometime in the past he had saved Indy's life. The scientist, Basil SMith, went missing while searching for a legendary labyrinth that accompanies the burial chamber of Horus, an Egyptian deity.
I don't want to spoil the story for anyone, so I'll try to continue spoiler-free. The action takes place mostly in Crete and Egypt. There are some cool chase scenes, one involving a large German transport glider similar to
. Also the sidekicks are okay, although a little annoying.
If you haven't read it, grab a copy of Icybro's excellent translation and get cracking!
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I finished Labyrinth of Horus today. ***Possible Spoilers***
This was definitely an adventure "worthy" of Indiana Jones. The opening "teaser", just like the movies, drops you right into the middle of the action with a truck vs horse chase through Istanbul markets. It had just the right balance of humor vs. action. The introduction of Grisswald was good as well. Definitely a character that will get under Indy's skin in the later books, I am sure.
The crux of the adventure takes place in Egypt, with Indy on the trail of a fellow archaeologist who saved his life several years in the past, Basil Smith. Indy owes the man a debt and he gets a mysterious note calling on him to pay it. Turns out the note was actually from the missing scientist's two children, a brother-sister team named Raymond and Elizabeth. The sister is definitely the stronger character of the two. Her constant criticisms annoyed me as much as the bumbling of the brother, but I believe that was Holbein's intent with the two.
Smith had disappeared along with a small group of British soldiers in the Sahara looking for a legendary labyrinth which supposedly holds the tomb of Horus, the Egyptian god. There are a few twists and turns, a cool aerial chase with Indy and his sidekicks in a German transport glider, and some altercations with a mysterious group of monks trying to ensure that Horus's tomb is never opened.
My biggest gripe is that there were a couple of characters introduced that I thought would play a larger role in the story, such as Yassar Al-Kassah, a greedy black-marketer who has an antiquities shop in Egypt. He gives Indy a vial of black lotus, and it was delivered like it would play an important part in the story, but it only gets mentioned one more time when the British army is inventorying his goods after they briefly detain Indy as a possible German spy because he was in the German transport glider. Al-Kassah never reappears in the story. I mentioned Grisswald earlier, who appears briefly in the teaser. I know he has a somewhat central role in the future Holbein books only because I am slowly translating the
Gold of El Dorado with JuniorJones. My best guess is that Al-Kassah will show up in a later book as well, possibly as a minor or major villain, or at least playing some kind of nuisance to Indy.
The climax of
Labyrinth was typical Indy: a great power is unleashed but with some sleight-of-hand Indy tricks the antagonist whose greed for Horus's power backfires on him. It kind of reminded me of the ending of
Crystal Skull with Spalko, although this book was written several years before that movie came out.
I am definitely liking Holbein's Indy interpretation so far, and I rank it up there with Max McCoy and Rob MacGregor. Can't wait to read more of them! They are well-written and I am surprised they haven't been officially translated.
A shout out to Icybro for keeping Indiana Jones alive!
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I'm glad you mentioned the relationship between Elizabeth and Indy. There was a general creepiness to it. It was one scene out of the entire book but it definitely caused me to go "huh?" when I first read it. Then I remembered the novelization of raiders, and the relationship Indy had with Marion finished when she was 16?!? years old, which caused Indy's fallout with Abner. From my approximation, Indy was at LEAST 25 years old when he ended the relationship, based on his official birthdate of July 1, 1899. Raiders takes place in 1936, and it had been 10 years since the "falling out".
Another factor to consider - in the 1930s-1950s it was more common for a woman to marry when she was 16 or 17. The median age, however (even going back to medieval times) was for woman to marry in their early 20s, and men in their mid 20s.
The other scene I thought was a little weird occurred after they landed in Cairo and it appears that Elizabeth gets killed by gunfire. Indy almost has a general non-chalant 'that sucks, but let's move on' attitude about the situation. He didn't even go check on her after she was shot and after it was obvious the danger was over. Both of these scenes were in very close proximity to each other in the book. It's a small section, and forgivable given the rest of the story is very good.
As for Hohlbein's characterization of nazis, I know there is a general taboo for talking about the nazis in Germany, so maybe Hohlbein was simply following the culture there. I am curious to see if the nazis play any roles in the other Hohlbein books.
Review by IndyBr:
I'm im the "Luxor" chapter right now, and so far am loving it. The opening of the novel is one of greatest I've read in an Indiana Jones book, really exciting and funny, it sets the stage for what we can expect for the rest of the novel.
And Icybro, great job with the translation.
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I've finished reading it a long time ago but I didn't came back to leave feedback, so here it goes:
This is easily one of the best Indy novels I've read so far, it blows Army of the Dead, the Caidin novels and those two young adult books out of the water. The opening of the novel shows us what we can expect from it: it's funny, there's a lot of well written action and we have the old Indy that we know and love.
The plot is also pretty interesting, a little more fantastical (not as much as Interior World of course, more like Indy encountering mytical characters like Merlin and Noah, but outside a dream or vision sequence) than the original movies but it's on par with the other novels and comics.
But I didn't like how the book isn't structured in chapters, but rather in locations... And sometimes those sections can be really long, and when you're tired that really harms your enjoyement of the novel. Specially if you're reading it in a computer (my case, I didn't print it or anything).
But still, very enjoyable and highly recomended, 4 stars.
Review by gioA:
finished reading this - it's really good and the translation is superb.
thanks!
Review by whipwarrior:
After my initial enthusiasm, I just can't get into the story. I don't know if it's the author's writing style or something lost in the translation process, but it feels like a hollow imitation of an Indy adventure. At risk of sounding nationalistic, I think that writing the character of Indiana Jones requires a uniquely American mindset (and even that's no guarantee considering the Martin Caidin books or Steve Perry's utter abomination). There are definitely some very Indy moments in the story especially during the action sequences, but Indy's dialogue and thought processes don't quite ring true for me. Also, at 45 pages in, I've noted several historical anachronisms that could have been remedied by some careful fact-checking. Hohlbein gets an A for effort, but I just can't commit to this one.
