http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Literature/TheInstituteForSingularAntiquities
The Institute for Singular Antiquities is a duology of novels written by S.A. Sidor. The first book,
Fury from the Tomb, was first published on May 12, 2018, and the second book,
The Beast of Nightfall Lodge, is from February 5, 2019. The series falls under
new pulp and combines
horror with
Two-Fisted Tales-style adventure.
The Institute for Singular Antiquities provides examples of the following tropes:
- Chinese Vampire: In Fury from the Tomb, Yong Wu's parents had been railroad workers until a jiangshi killed them in their tent one night. Though blind, mute, and ghastly to behold, they retain enough of their human emotions to look out for their son's welfare, following Yong Wu and his companions on their journey through the desert, feeding on coyotes and other wildlife when they're not discreetly helping out against ghoul banditos and a stolen mummy's curse.
- Cruel and Unusual Death: In Fury from the Tomb, the evil mummy sorcerer Amun Odji-Kek gets his second and final death when the heroes open the Ka door to unleash the judges of Dust, land of the dead, on him. First they bind him in bandages then yank out a flint sacrificial knife that had been impaled into his heart. From that hole they draw out a scarab beetle that houses Kek's soul. They cut out his tongue and insert metal rods inside his ears before pouring a boiling liquid in there. Finally they take his scarab and feed it to Ammut, the mythical Devourer of the Dead.
- Friendly Neighborhood Vampire: In Fury from the Tomb:
- Yong Wu's parents have become jiangshi but because of their paternal love for their young son, they avoid hunting people they have no beef with and either hunt animals outside or await meals of blood collected from a train kitchen that Yong Wu works at. Mr. and Mrs. Wu stay out of trouble by staying inside the bottom of a coal cart when they need to sleep.
- Rojo is a necrofagos, a Mexican ghoul, who defected from his bandit band when his legs were burnt off by their boss. He becomes rather friendly with the protagonists due to being a rather personable ghoul with some decent traits and a grudge against the mummy sorcerer Amun Odji-Kek.
- Great White Hunter: In The Beast of Nightfall Lodge, Oscar Adderly is an extremely wealthy adventurer who owns most of the land in Raton, New Mexico. He's an avid hunter and collector who has many relics and stuffed trophies of what he's killed, but he lacks and craves international recognition. He has little consideration of others, including his own children - one who was kicked and another mutilated in a hunt for a wendigo preying on local workers. And of that wendigo, he actually made his wife, a potent medium, conjure up an powerful malignant alien spirit in order to create a wendigo menace for him to hunt and kill...so he can be internationally famous for catching and displaying a live supernatural being.
- Healing Potion: In The Beast of Nightfall Lodge, Dr. "Pops" Spooner sells a green elixir that works miracles, including reviving Billy the Kid shortly after he was killed. When injected, the elixir plugs holes with new flesh and seals up cuts, though it doesn't work very well on mangled bone. The secret is that Pops once found a crashed alien pilot and sadistic curiosity made him decapitate the unconscious creature so he could take the head. This triggered the alien's incredible regenerative ability through a green slime that the head started excreting. Pops collected the slime and soon learned it gives a person a psychic link to the alien head, sharing in their memories and regeneration. So those injected temporarily gain regeneration but at the risk of losing themselves in alien memories.
- Horned Humanoid: In The Beast of Nightfall Lodge, the purported wendigo is a skeletal-thin, predatory, semi-demonic humanoid with claws, hooves, and a huge rack of sharp antlers.
- Jawbreaker: In The Beast of Nightfall Lodge, the family patriarch gets his jaw broken. He lives, albeit as a disfigured recluse with a wooden prosthesis for a mandible.
- Monster Mash: Fury from the Tomb features mummies, ghouls, vaguely-Lovecraftian shape-changing worms, jiangshi, weird monastic death cultists, a portal to the afterlife, and a voodoo witch. The Beast of Nightfall Lodge adds jaguar shape-changers, a ghost-summoning spirit medium, a decapitated alien head in a keg of booze, the chemically-revived corpse of Billy the Kid, a talking mastiff, and a nigh-unstoppable wendigo to the roster of weird.
- Nigh-Invulnerability: In Fury from the Tomb, the natural form of El Gusano is a giant slimy annelid the size of a locomotive so one assumes it's difficult to hurt. The opposite is true and this is especially surprising to El Gusano's ghoul henchmen when they jump on El Gusano's massive back and ride him in pursuit of the protagonists. The heroes take cover using the worm's bulk while the ghouls open fire. Each bullet easily punctures El Gusano and then a knife is thrown as well as a warhammer. The knife sinks up to the hilt while the hammer tears a rent in him. Rom then swings at El Gusano with his walking stick and it impales him. Even Rex inflicts a good hurting simply by digging into him with boot spurs. Finally, El Gusano is finished off with a revolver shot to the brain.
- Our Ghouls Are Creepier: In Fury from the Tomb, one of the recurring antagonists to the heroes are a violent gang of Mexican ghouls. These guys are foul undead banditos that can regenerate new body parts if they get to eat. The protagonists capture one of the ghouls and to keep him captive, they occasionally hack new growth off of him and keep watch to ensure he doesn't eat any beetles or earthworms.
- Ragtag Bunch of Misfits: The eponymous archeological society has its origins with a talented but unheralded Egyptologist, Romulus Hardy. The other members are Evangeline Waterston, a former librarian who's an amateur occultist and wealthy heiress that's funding the project; Rex McTroy a bounty hunter infamous in California and Yong Wu, a 10 year old boy who's working as a porter assistant on a train but brings the aid of his parents, a pair of jiangshi to the table.
- Squishy Wizard: Inverted in Fury from the Tomb. Amun Odji-Kek was the mightiest sorcerer in Egypt before getting mummified. As a superhumanly strong mummy he once tackled a pair of jiangshi and overpowered them with his bare hands. He even takes a ghoul and tears it into pieces.
- Tiny Guy, Huge Girl: In The Beast of Nightfall Lodge, Vivienne Adderly is a tall woman, although this isn't obvious because her legs aren't that well and she depends on crutches to stand. When she stands, she is a fair bit taller than her husband Oscar. Either size doesn't matter to Vivienne or she has a thing for short guys, because for his ruthless ambition, she leaves him for their coachman Hodgson with whom she had been having an affair anyway. Hodgson has dwarfism.
- Touched by Vorlons: Romulus Hardy is a rookie Egyptologist who uncovers the crypt of the great sorcerer mummy Amun Odji-Kek. Kek would then form a psychic bond with Hardy to see through the man's eyes. Even after Kek's destruction, Hardy still retains some psychic ability and sometimes randomly picks up stray thoughts around him. Meanwhile his comrade, Rex McTroy, an infamous bounty hunter, got hit by a sarcophagus thrown by Kek. To save his life, the jiangshi Mrs. Wu pours some of her own blood into the dying man's mouth, which instantly heals him. Rex did not get any regeneration or other powers as it takes a jiangshi biting a person to transform them, however Rex senses become supernaturally enhanced.
- Weird West: The books all take place, at least in part, in the West of the Early 20th Century. A promising young Egyptologist, an orphan Chinese boy, a wealthy occultist heiress and a famed bounty hunter cowboy have an adventure involving mummies brought over from Egypt, ancient worms, jiangshi parents and Mexican ghouls in the first novel. The second covers a wendigo hunt in New Mexico.
- Wendigo: In The Beast of Nightfall Lodge, the protagonists spend the night amongst a dwindling party of other guests who appear to be targeted by a Wendigo. In truth, the culprit is a monstrous spirit from the depths of outer space that loves the role of a cannibalistic serial killer.
