Pyramid of the Sorcerer/Mystery of Mount Sinai Scholastic novels

Attila the Professor

Moderator
Staff member
Scholastic novels, due May 2009

Somehow there doesn't seem to be any record of these here...but there are covers, now.

indybooks_bg.jpg


http://www.starwars.com/vault/books/news20090210indy.html

Looks like we're finally getting the old Belzig/Gutterbuhg bit.
 
Very cool.

Between this and Staff of Kings, there's reason to be excited in Indiana Jones again. Maybe these will finally wash away the bitter taste of disappointment from last summer.



I'm digging the robo-arm too. It's cool to see that concept being resurrected from the early Raiders concepts.
 

Attila the Professor

Moderator
Staff member
Anyone else think that one on the right is the closest we've come since the Raiders concept paintings to the Jim Steranko rendering of Indy?

Steranko_Raiders1.jpg
 

Perhilion

New member
Didn't Secret of the Sphinx already have the Hall of Records? Either way, these look good. Hope they don't read too junior.
 

BrodyIsDead

New member
UK covers?! What the &%@#?!

I'm pretty outraged, being a UK fan, that we're only going to get photoshopped covers on the releases of these books over here :mad:

I know I can always just order he Amazon.com ones but it's just annoying that the clearly superior covers aren't going to be made readily available everywhere - is it a rights issue for the publishers/artist, I wonder?

On a side note we also didn't get the reissued Indy novels last year in the UK that included photo inserts from the movies as the US did - our versions only had the novels themselves, no photos... (n)
 

DIrishB

New member
BrodyIsDead said:
I'm pretty outraged, being a UK fan, that we're only going to get photoshopped covers on the releases of these books over here :mad:

I know I can always just order he Amazon.com ones but it's just annoying that the clearly superior covers aren't going to be made readily available everywhere - is it a rights issue for the publishers/artist, I wonder?

On a side note we also didn't get the reissued Indy novels last year in the UK that included photo inserts from the movies as the US did - our versions only had the novels themselves, no photos... (n)

I know where you're coming from BrodyIsDead (even though I live over here in the US, there've been more than a few Indy tales unreleased over here AT ALL-all the German/Dutch novels, the French Young Indy novels, etc...thanks for those Mountains of Superstition scans by the way!). If it would be helpful for you, I can pick up a couple extra copies of these and mail them over to you. Let me know. :)
 

walker

New member
now available

According to Amazon.com, both of these books are now available, although they have the second book listed as "Monsters" of Mt. Sinai rather than "Mystery." I just ordered mine.
Walker

1 "Indiana Jones and the Pyramid of the Sorcerer"
Scholastic; Mass Market Paperback; $5.99

Sold by: Amazon.com, LLC
1 "Indiana Jones and the Monsters of Mount Sinai"
Scholastic; Mass Market Paperback; $5.99
 

Morning Bell

New member
walker said:
According to Amazon.com, both of these books are now available, although they have the second book listed as "Monsters" of Mt. Sinai rather than "Mystery." I just ordered mine.
Walker

1 "Indiana Jones and the Pyramid of the Sorcerer"
Scholastic; Mass Market Paperback; $5.99

Sold by: Amazon.com, LLC
1 "Indiana Jones and the Monsters of Mount Sinai"
Scholastic; Mass Market Paperback; $5.99

Those are pretty reasonable prices. Thanks for the heads' up!
 
Got the shipped from Amazon email this morning

I am hoping to get them tomorrow. They should be a quick read, and I'll post my thoughts/review here.
 

DIrishB

New member
punisher5150 said:
I am hoping to get them tomorrow. They should be a quick read, and I'll post my thoughts/review here.

Looking forward to it. Amazon have mine listed as shipping on April 30 (this Thursday), so I probably won't see mine until the first week of May. Can't wait to read them, though!
 

walker

New member
Available everywhere

Went to barnes and noble and borders this weekend and both chains have the books in stock. So if you can't wait for amazon to deliver you can get them at stores as well. The books are numbered one and two. Let's hope they intend to do more if these do well.
 

DIrishB

New member
walker said:
Went to barnes and noble and borders this weekend and both chains have the books in stock. So if you can't wait for amazon to deliver you can get them at stores as well. The books are numbered one and two. Let's hope they intend to do more if these do well.

Cool. Thanks for the heads up! Glad they're numbered, also (it bodes well for us to see a lot more of these). I'm sure we'll see more, and the idea of a regularly released Indy series of novels really appeals to me. I also kind of prefer the smaller, young adult format for Indy stories, only because it should help avoid any unnecessary "padding" or exposition, and can focus directly on the action and characters (hopefully without being too "dumbed down" for the young adult market). I've really been looking forward to these novels since I'd heard they were coming out (near a year ago), mainly because of them taking place during WWII.




By the way, Walker, can you give me a bit of timeline info. I know the first book's summary listed it as occuring in mid-August, 1941. Is there a date for when the second book occurs?
 
Mystery of Mt. Sinai timeline

This book occurs immediately after the first book, which began late July 1941.

**Edit** Sorry, Walker, I just realized the question was directed toward you. Hope I didn't step on any toes.
 
Pyramid of the Sorcerer review

Okay, I finished Pyramid of the Sorcerer a few minutes ago. First things first: The cover: I really like the covers to both of these young reader books. Greg Knight did an awesome job. For some reason, they remind me of the Jim Steranko production sketches of Indy for Raiders. I hope this series continues and he does more covers.

I'll try to remain Spoiler-Free, but read ahead at your own risk:



On to the book itself. The writing was fast-paced. I was a bit surprised at the amount of fighting in the book, especially since it is a young reader book, but at the same time very happy. I was worried that Indy would be diluted for this series, but he's pretty much the same Indy from the movies. He gets in numerous fist fights. Assassins try to kill him a couple of times. There are even a few deaths in the story, which really surprised me. I've never read any of the Scholastic books before, like the Star Wars series, because I didn't want G-rated entertainment for Star Wars and Indy. I wanted at least PG, and that's about what these books are.

The story was about the Hall of Records, which Indy has already explored in another book (Secret of the Sphinx, Max McCoy). There is no reference to the other book, and this Hall is very different from the other one. It still holds secrets of the past, present, and future, but there is no Omega Book, and it is not in a stationary location beneath the sphinx. It has a sci-fi dimension-hopping capability and moves from place to place on the earth when it is in this dimension. The Hall is populated with tiny marble-like spheres that are storehouses for different events throughout history as well as future events, and the Nazis are after it so they can manipulate the future to their cause. It is set in 1941, and shows us the beginnings of Indy's involvement with Army Intelligence. There are also some familiar faces as well. Col Musgrove from Raiders is a main character in the story, and Indy's adventures from Fate of Atlantis are referenced early on in the set-up of the story, as well as a paragraph or two about Sophia Hapgood from FoA.

All-in-all: I enjoyed this book. It took me about 2 1/2 hours to get through it, if that much. I have the second book and am really looking forward to that one (the Nazi with the mechanical arm on the cover has definitely peeked my interest.) I really wish we had more of the adult novels, as I like a little more detail in my stories (definitely not Caiden-like overload, but McCoy had a good descriptive writing style that maintained a good pace), but if you like Indiana Jones, you'll like Pyramid of the Sorcerer. I really think any younger readers will enjoy the book as well. I gave a copy to my two boys, one who is 13 and the other 14, hoping it will spur more interest into Indy mythos. My only question is how this will fit into continuity, since another Indy novel already explored the Hall of Records.
 

DIrishB

New member
punisher5150 said:
This book occurs immediately after the first book, which began late July 1941.

**Edit** Sorry, Walker, I just realized the question was directed toward you. Hope I didn't step on any toes.

Not sure about Walker, but I asked, and I'm glad for the answer. So the first book begins late July, 1941, and the second book begins in August, 1941?


My only question is how this will fit into continuity, since another Indy novel already explored the Hall of Records.

Indy's continuity is a bit wobbly in terms of him going after the same artifacts in different adventures (this being one of them). Different writers in different mediums at different time periods...and with no continuity oversight like with Star Wars, its bound to happen.
 
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