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Egyptian Motherlode
The Prophet is one of a very few musicians with the ability to warp reality through his music. His dreams bring him to other realms, to places he should not go, into contact with entities with the power to threaten the existence of our world.
Egyptian Motherlode is a wild ride through American popular music of the 20th century, from Jazz to Blues, from Psychedelic Rock to Funk and beyond, following The Prophet's life and transformations—and all the family, friends, bandmates, and enemies he changes along the way—on the strangest musical journey of all.
Egyptian Motherlode is a wild ride through American popular music of the 20th century, from Jazz to Blues, from Psychedelic Rock to Funk and beyond, following The Prophet's life and transformations—and all the family, friends, bandmates, and enemies he changes along the way—on the strangest musical journey of all.
- GenresFantasy
290 pages, Kindle Edition
Published October 29, 2024
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32 people want to read
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Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews
January 12, 2025
I've been reading quite a few mosaic/fix-up novels as of late. This has led to some awesome reads like Andreas Eschbach's *The Hair-Carpet Weavers* and *Central Station* by Lavie Tidhar. *Egyptian Motherlode* is a fix-up in its own right, and while it doesn't reach the heights of either of those two books, it is an ambitious novel; it tells a story about good and evil and multi-dimensional, faintly Egyptian mysticism by exploring different eras of music from different characters' lens over a forty-one-year span and features a cast of supporting characters ranging from Charles Mingus to Jimi Hendrix. It's the kind of work that's usually only coming out through small presses (like Fairwood Press) nowadays, and that that small-press origin is the biggest reason why I purchased it. I want to support the publishers on the fringe, putting out the works that aren't commercially viable enough for major-press owned houses like Tor, even though I don't read their releases as often as I should. I wasn't completely sold by this narrative, by any means - I think it's a bit rocky and isn't as impactful as it could be - but I really enjoy the effort, and hope you'll give it a try if you know anything about the 60s/70s music scene and want to support something done more out love than profit.
*Egyptian Motherlode* is split into six parts. The first, "Egyptian Motherlode," is one of my favorites. It's set in 1993 and focuses on a tour headlined by Crushed Ice, a hip-hop quartet made up of two brothers and two other rappers/dancers smushed together by their label and supported by Egyptian Motherlode, a rehash of a cult classic funk band fronted by a man who calls himself the Prophet. We see the tour from the eyes of the younger brother from Crushed Ice, who I don't think was even out of high school. The tour quickly spirals out of control with Egyptian Motherlode opening for too long and one of their narrators slipping our narrator mysterious scraps of information about the Prophet's Egyptian mysticism while one of Crushed Ice's rappers struggles with steroids and a lack of sleep. The chapter ends with a psychedelic happening on stage, leading us to wonder what this means for our main character going forward. Chapters 2 and 3, "Mingus Fingers" and "Hellhounds," take the book back to 1952 and 1959 respectively, and look at a young Prophet after his father abandons his family through the eyes of his uncle (a jazz trumpeter who plays with Mingus, who realizes that young Kenny - the Prophet - can go into the "underground) and his older brother (who almost loses him to possession from a dead blues guitarist), respectively. These were released as short stories over the last couple years, and I bought them expecting them to be prequels to this story; apparently, I didn't have to, but you find my thoughts on them here (https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/5...) and here (https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/6...).
Chapter 4, "Electric Ladyland," is another high quality one. It's about a young woman who fled to California only to get tied up in a band called the Sun Dreamers, led by the Prophet and managed by his older brother Lamond, who also plays the bass. She becomes romantically involved with him, and when he returns after disappearing for months, she runs right back to him. But weird things start happening - he asks her to , which led to the assembly of the very Egyptian motherlode you hold in your hands>...
I thought that *Egyptian Motherlode* was a pretty up-and-down experience that wasn't entirely cohesive. I really liked some of the stories, like the first and the fourth. They were cool and had engagingly drawn, self-destructive character threads running through them (I suppose I'm a sucker for watching characters spiral into nose-dives of their own making) while giving intriguing glimpses into the mystical world around everything. That couldn't be said of every installment, though; Chapter 5 ("Ball and Chain," the Star Baby one) felt kind of removed from the rest of the book and while a lot of that chapter has already faded from memory, I don't remember feeling that much of consequence happened during it. I had a weird experience with "Mingus Fingers" and "Hellhounds" (I just skimmed them since I'd already read them), but they do prop up the Prophet's stories in interesting ways and give us good perspectives, even though I feel like the whole "Underground" theme that each of them drives at is kind of ignored for the rest of the book. I might be missing things because I don't usually love the psychedelic narratives, but... either way, they're good but lacking something. The final chapter, though - "The Mothership Connection" - doesn't wrap anything up with a bow. I'm not saying that I'll hold that against the story as a whole because it's the author's vision, but the fact that Sandner and Weisman shy away from a big climatic reckoning between and the emptiness I felt as a result proves that either the plotting of this book is too aimless or I read this book too narrowly.
I think it's more-so that the book just feel a bit unfinished. Technically speaking, at least, there are quite a few typos for any publisher to release, especially towards the end of the book. I understand that Fairwood Press doesn't have the resources of a Big Four publisher, but... there were a lot of little errors that slipped through the cracks. I tried not to let it bother me, but there is the fact that the storyline also feels like it came out of the womb a little early. Maybe it's intentional that there are loose threads hanging out of this book, such as the Prophet's 1993 musician Eric Dolphy (at the end of Chapter 2, it says that after , leading you to believe that there's a whole wing of story yet to be told despite the weird thing that happens at the end of Chapter 1). Maybe this unfinished look of reality is what Weisman and Sandner were going for, but I find that hard to engage with. Maybe this book is intended to be part of a series or there are other short stories set in this sequence out there, or these feelings I'm having were just a natural side-effect of having two authors divvying up the writing duties?
Still, some of my gripes can be waved away as my preferences. For example, some of this book is about the breakdown of reality. That's a trope/sequences I've only really enjoyed in fiction once, in *Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?*. Everywhere else, I've found it to be some degree of disengaging and unenjoyable. So my disliking of how things break down in Chapters 5 and 6 is more about me than how Weisman and Sandner actually wrote it, because these guys aren't bad writers; sure, the copy editing may be a bit lackluster, but they do have a certain way with words that shines, and there are a couple passages - like this one anecdote comparing a narrator's situation when next to The Prophet and Janis Joplin to Mary Shelly's situation when writing *Frankenstein*, a memorable and clever anecdote - which really impressed me. I wasn't wowed throughout the whole book, but the writing is pretty competent, and it never struck me like I was reading self-published or small-press prose; it seemed professional throughout, and I have no complaints on that front. I enjoyed it. I do wish that this book would've dug a bit deeper into music itself than it did as I'm a musician who really enjoys the more technical aspect to things, but there's not much for music lingo or technicalities in sight... that disappointed me, but since the book focuses more on the emotional/*feeling* side of things, I think it evens itself out. But I've also never taken a psychedelic drug in my life, which probably doesn't help my enjoyment of this particular book - it's just... not exactly what I was going for.
Still, I think all these stories balance out to about a 7/10, and while I'd say that in this case the sum is less than its parts, when taking all my subjective allowances into account, I think this rating checks out. I do implore you to check it out if you like the subject matter we've talked about because I want to see small presses do well, but I also can't recommend this to everyone from the bottom of my heart; it'll take an acquired taste, and that's why it's showing up in Fairwood. There are a couple of titles Fairwood is releasing next year that I'll want to pick up, so you haven't heard the last about these guys from me - thanks for reading, and here's hoping that the next time you're listening to or playing along with the legends, you can feel a healthy amount of what the members of Egyptian Motherlode did...
*Egyptian Motherlode* is split into six parts. The first, "Egyptian Motherlode," is one of my favorites. It's set in 1993 and focuses on a tour headlined by Crushed Ice, a hip-hop quartet made up of two brothers and two other rappers/dancers smushed together by their label and supported by Egyptian Motherlode, a rehash of a cult classic funk band fronted by a man who calls himself the Prophet. We see the tour from the eyes of the younger brother from Crushed Ice, who I don't think was even out of high school. The tour quickly spirals out of control with Egyptian Motherlode opening for too long and one of their narrators slipping our narrator mysterious scraps of information about the Prophet's Egyptian mysticism while one of Crushed Ice's rappers struggles with steroids and a lack of sleep. The chapter ends with a psychedelic happening on stage, leading us to wonder what this means for our main character going forward. Chapters 2 and 3, "Mingus Fingers" and "Hellhounds," take the book back to 1952 and 1959 respectively, and look at a young Prophet after his father abandons his family through the eyes of his uncle (a jazz trumpeter who plays with Mingus, who realizes that young Kenny - the Prophet - can go into the "underground) and his older brother (who almost loses him to possession from a dead blues guitarist), respectively. These were released as short stories over the last couple years, and I bought them expecting them to be prequels to this story; apparently, I didn't have to, but you find my thoughts on them here (https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/5...) and here (https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/6...).
Chapter 4, "Electric Ladyland," is another high quality one. It's about a young woman who fled to California only to get tied up in a band called the Sun Dreamers, led by the Prophet and managed by his older brother Lamond, who also plays the bass. She becomes romantically involved with him, and when he returns after disappearing for months, she runs right back to him. But weird things start happening - he asks her to , which led to the assembly of the very Egyptian motherlode you hold in your hands>...
I thought that *Egyptian Motherlode* was a pretty up-and-down experience that wasn't entirely cohesive. I really liked some of the stories, like the first and the fourth. They were cool and had engagingly drawn, self-destructive character threads running through them (I suppose I'm a sucker for watching characters spiral into nose-dives of their own making) while giving intriguing glimpses into the mystical world around everything. That couldn't be said of every installment, though; Chapter 5 ("Ball and Chain," the Star Baby one) felt kind of removed from the rest of the book and while a lot of that chapter has already faded from memory, I don't remember feeling that much of consequence happened during it. I had a weird experience with "Mingus Fingers" and "Hellhounds" (I just skimmed them since I'd already read them), but they do prop up the Prophet's stories in interesting ways and give us good perspectives, even though I feel like the whole "Underground" theme that each of them drives at is kind of ignored for the rest of the book. I might be missing things because I don't usually love the psychedelic narratives, but... either way, they're good but lacking something. The final chapter, though - "The Mothership Connection" - doesn't wrap anything up with a bow. I'm not saying that I'll hold that against the story as a whole because it's the author's vision, but the fact that Sandner and Weisman shy away from a big climatic reckoning between and the emptiness I felt as a result proves that either the plotting of this book is too aimless or I read this book too narrowly.
I think it's more-so that the book just feel a bit unfinished. Technically speaking, at least, there are quite a few typos for any publisher to release, especially towards the end of the book. I understand that Fairwood Press doesn't have the resources of a Big Four publisher, but... there were a lot of little errors that slipped through the cracks. I tried not to let it bother me, but there is the fact that the storyline also feels like it came out of the womb a little early. Maybe it's intentional that there are loose threads hanging out of this book, such as the Prophet's 1993 musician Eric Dolphy (at the end of Chapter 2, it says that after , leading you to believe that there's a whole wing of story yet to be told despite the weird thing that happens at the end of Chapter 1). Maybe this unfinished look of reality is what Weisman and Sandner were going for, but I find that hard to engage with. Maybe this book is intended to be part of a series or there are other short stories set in this sequence out there, or these feelings I'm having were just a natural side-effect of having two authors divvying up the writing duties?
Still, some of my gripes can be waved away as my preferences. For example, some of this book is about the breakdown of reality. That's a trope/sequences I've only really enjoyed in fiction once, in *Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?*. Everywhere else, I've found it to be some degree of disengaging and unenjoyable. So my disliking of how things break down in Chapters 5 and 6 is more about me than how Weisman and Sandner actually wrote it, because these guys aren't bad writers; sure, the copy editing may be a bit lackluster, but they do have a certain way with words that shines, and there are a couple passages - like this one anecdote comparing a narrator's situation when next to The Prophet and Janis Joplin to Mary Shelly's situation when writing *Frankenstein*, a memorable and clever anecdote - which really impressed me. I wasn't wowed throughout the whole book, but the writing is pretty competent, and it never struck me like I was reading self-published or small-press prose; it seemed professional throughout, and I have no complaints on that front. I enjoyed it. I do wish that this book would've dug a bit deeper into music itself than it did as I'm a musician who really enjoys the more technical aspect to things, but there's not much for music lingo or technicalities in sight... that disappointed me, but since the book focuses more on the emotional/*feeling* side of things, I think it evens itself out. But I've also never taken a psychedelic drug in my life, which probably doesn't help my enjoyment of this particular book - it's just... not exactly what I was going for.
Still, I think all these stories balance out to about a 7/10, and while I'd say that in this case the sum is less than its parts, when taking all my subjective allowances into account, I think this rating checks out. I do implore you to check it out if you like the subject matter we've talked about because I want to see small presses do well, but I also can't recommend this to everyone from the bottom of my heart; it'll take an acquired taste, and that's why it's showing up in Fairwood. There are a couple of titles Fairwood is releasing next year that I'll want to pick up, so you haven't heard the last about these guys from me - thanks for reading, and here's hoping that the next time you're listening to or playing along with the legends, you can feel a healthy amount of what the members of Egyptian Motherlode did...
August 12, 2024
Egyptian Motherlode is beautiful and loud. Psychedelic and surreal. It flows through the landscape of twentieth century music like the river of the dead, summoning ancient gods and chasing down lost volumes of occult knowledge, until every note is perfect, and we’re all singing along at full volume. This book has soul.
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