SOURCE: “Undead and Unstoppable,” in New York Times Book Review, June 11, 1989, p. 9.

In the following review, Prial offers qualified praise for The Mummy, though finds fault in Rice's prose. “If you liked her vampires,” Prial concludes, “you'll love her mummies.”

In George Axelrod's Hollywood spoof of a generation back, “Will Success Spoil Rock Hunter?,” a veteran hack explains to a young writer that film lovers can't just meet—“They gotta meet cute.”

“How about this?” the neophyte replies. “He's a shrink, she's a hooker, and they meet at the upholsterer's getting their couches fixed.”

In her latest novel, The Mummy, or Ramses the Damned, Anne Rice gives new meaning to meeting cute. Julie Stratford has soft brown eyes, porcelain cheeks, a guileless mouth and is 20 years old. Ramses II, a k a Ramses the Great and, to close friends, Ramses the Damned, is manly, stalwart and, oh, around...