|
 Last Call by Tim Powers
reviewed by XXXXX
Original appearance: Albedo one issue ??, date?
I have said, here and elsewhere, on may occasions that the fact a book has won awards does not necessarily guarantee a good read. But LAST CALL by TIM POWERS has been awarded this year's World Fantasy Award and deserves every vote it got. And more. It is superb. In fact there are simply too few superlatives in the English language to cope with a novel this good, unless one resorts to spiffing, wizard and the like.
Powers creates an atmosphere of mystery and magic right from page one and manages to sustain it through to a stunning climax over six hundred pages later. The premise of the book revolves around the Tarot deck, the influence chance can have upon our lives and the existence of the Fisher King who can influence and control chance and chaos through the cards. Scott Crane, the central character, is the natural son of the King and therefore a player in the King's cosmic game of great power as he is a natural successor to his father - who has no intention of stepping down, or dying, ever.
The King attains immortality through using bodies he wins (buys actually) in a complex poker game called Assumption. And the bodies he covets most are those of his natural children. He already owns, and has assumed, the body of Scott's brother. Soon it will be Scott's turn. It is time for the King to be re-elected and so all the players begin to gather in Los Vegas where a final game of Assumption Poker will be played. To the finish.
Never less than imaginative, Tim Powers has, with this novel, matured into one of the finest storytellers working in Science Fiction and Fantasy. I can only wonder if there is any room left for him to improve. And if there is, how good can a writer get?
 Expiration Date by Tim Powers
reviewed by XXXXX
Original appearance: Albedo one issue ??, date?
If my Fairy Godmother were to suddenly appear and offer me the ability to wrote with the skill and imagination of any currently working writer I would be hard pressed to think of anyone I would wish to emulate other than Tim Powers. The Stress of Her Regard his second last novel was about the most interesting take on Vampires I have ever read and his last offering, Last Call, which used the power of the Tarot Deck as its central theme, was simply stunning.
Now, he's given us EXPIRATION DATE, a thoroughly original slant on ghosts and more proof, if it was necessary, that Powers is in the first rank of science fiction and fantasy authors.
The ghost of Thomas Edison has been held in a glass bottle since his death and hidden in a bust of Dante which masked its psychic signature. The son of the couple who own the bust, and the ghost, senses that Dante is not merely an ornament. As a gesture of defiance, he breaks the bust, loosing the ghost and setting in motion a sequence of events that will climax on Halloween.
In Powers' vision of modern LA, ghosts are highly prized for the psychic rush of experience they give when ingested. Not everyone is sensitive to them but those who are feed on their essence and, like junkies, must continually return for more. Ghosts too, in Powers' LA, have power. Some have the power to animate matter and mould it into the semblance of a human form, able to wear clothes and shuffle around the streets. Others have the power to hold their own bodies together past death, maintaining some sort of quasi-human existence long past their expiration date.
At the centre of the tale stand two ghosts - Thomas Edison and a fictional Hollywood producer by the name of Apie Sullivan. These are powerful presences felt by every ghost-sensitive in LA, and whose essences are desired by the ghost eaters. Edison has found himself attached to the youngster who freed him from the bust of Dante; attached but unconsumed as the child has yet to reach puberty. Apie Sullivan has returned from the sea off Venice Beach where he was drowned and desires reconciliation with his son.
Around the ghosts revolve a constellation of sharply etched characters, all with their own angle to add to the story, each with a problem or need which leads them inexorably towards a Halloween confrontation aboard the dry docked liner, The Queen Mary.
 Earthquake Weather by Tim Powers
reviewed by Underview
Original appearance: Albedo one issue 14, Autumn 1997
It's a difficult choice to make, but if pressed I would have to say that my favourite writer of contemporary fantasy is Tim Powers. This judgement is based upon his second last novel, Last Call, an absolute tour-de-force which conjured a world of supernatural kings, Tarot decks with the power to change reality and the game of assumption poker where the only currency is your soul. And it's our world. And the time is now.
He followed this up with Expiration Date, a novel which features the ghosts of Harry Houdini and Thomas Edison, a harlequin cast of ghost-eaters and a spirit-charged modern Los Angeles where we are introduced to the wonderful concept of 'bar time'. Not as successful, because it was plainly not as good a novel, but interestng all the same and well worth reading.
Now he brings us Earthquake Weather, in which we discover that the world of Last Call and Expiration Date are one in the same. Suddenly we've got a trilogy (albeit loosely linked). But I've got to say, my first reaction to this discovery was Uh Oh! The characters from Last Call, who never featured in Expiration Date, turn up on the doorstep of our heroes from the latter novel. And we have ghosts inhabiting the bodies of living mortals - from E Date - and the search for a King in the west - from Last Call. We also have a couple of new central characters, Sid Cochran and Janis Cordelia Plumtree. I give Plumtree her full name because, well... because it isn't all her names. You see Janis is host to multiple personalities who flit in and out of her consciousness depending on which character traits are best for handling the current situation. Although it is not always the most convenient personality for those around her. Like Sid. Who happens to like the Janis personality very much, but hates the other dominant personality, Cody - the tough and dependable one who handles all the trouble. And there's plenty of it.
Apparently the ancient god Dionysus has an interest in the King in the west. The King keeps America fruitful, particularly the god's beloved grape crop. When the King is murdered, the god has a big interest in his replacement. If there is to be one. Because the King's earthly remains show no signs of corrupting and his ghost is still hanging about. If both can be brought back together, maybe there will be no need for a new king. And Sid Cochran has a connection to the god also. His hand bears Dionysus's mark, from a semi-supernatural incident in his childhood. Sid's recently deceased wife also had a connection; she may even have been killed by the god so she could be with him instead of Sid. And then there's Janis. Or Cody. Or Valorie. Or whoever the hell she is at any given moment. Confused? I can just about make sense out of the convolutions of plot and character in Earthquake Weather, and I read the previous two volumes both of which are referred to not too infrequently.
Unfortunately, Earthquake Weather is more nearly a sequel to Expiration Date and it is the characters from that novel who feature in the foreground with our new heroes, Janis and Sid. It is closer to the feeling of that novel and is about on a par with it. Pity. It's not a bad book but by Powers' high standards it is something of a disappointment. Read it if you really liked the two previous novels. If you're new to Powers start with The Anubis Gates. Or Last Call. You won't be disappointed.
 The Anubis Gates by Tim Powers
reviewed by Underview
Original appearance: Albedo one issue 14, Autumn 1997
Speaking of The Anubis Gates, it has been reprinted in a Legend paperback. It is a book which has been recommended to me by every Tim Powers fan I ever met as his best. Maybe it is because, unlike most Powers' readers, I read The Anubis Gates after Last Call but the fact is I prefer the latter (later) novel. Not that Anubis Gates suffers in comparison, it is merely a slight, personal preference.
The novel opens in the present (it was written in the early eighties) when Brendan Doyle, a minor expert on Samuel Taylor Coleridge, is invited to take part in a time travel venture in which a group of wealthy men are taken back to nineteenth century London to hear a lecture by the poet. After the lecture Doyle is kidnapped by a gypsy sorceror and trapped in the past. Which is where his problems really begin.
After escaping his kidnapper, as if being trapped in the nineteenth century wasn't bad enough, Doyle soon discovers that somebody wants him dead. Somebody who whistles the tune to the Beatles song,Yesterday. So he is not alone in the past. But why would his contemporary want him dead? And what does the gypsy want with him?
At the start the novel appears straightforward. Doyle wants to get home. How can he do it?. But then you throw into the mix a plot to dominate the modern (future) world, an Egyptian plot to overthrow the British Empire and a hairy guy who appears to have a secret to eternal life and what do you get? I can only describe it as a multi-layered, time-travelling, shape-changing fantasy adventure, featuring a superb cast of characters and an unusual take on magic as well as a sort-of love-story-time-paradox-mystery-thing.
For sheer exuberance, narrative beauty and breathless adventure The Anubis Gates is hard to beat. This is a novel by an author at the height of his creative powers and in which he allowed his imagination to run riot. In years to come, when future fans look back on our present era, this novel will be viewed as one of the classics. Maybe it is being already.
|
