From rec.arts.sf.reviews Wed May 20 13:55:15 1992 Path: herkules.sssab.se!isy!liuida!sunic2!mcsun!uknet!stl!bnrgate!corpgate!news.utdallas.edu!wupost!spool.mu.edu!agate!ames!bionet!raven.alaska.edu!never-reply-to-path-lines From: bp494@cleveland.freenet.edu (Dana Goldblatt) Newsgroups: rec.arts.sf.reviews Subject: Last Call by Tim Powers Message-ID: <1992May19.172450.11435@raven.alaska.edu> Date: 19 May 92 17:24:50 GMT Sender: wisner@raven.alaska.edu (Bill Wisner) Followup-To: rec.arts.sf.written Organization: University of Alaska Computer Network Lines: 82 Approved: wisner@ims.alaska.edu * %A Powers, Tim, 1952- %C New York * %D 1992 * %G ISBN # 0-688-10732-X * %I William Morrow and Company, Inc. %O $23.00 %P 479 pp. * %T Last Call LAST CALL by Tim Powers review by Dana Goldblatt Last Call is a wild, fast-paced novel in a way, but rather than being a rollercoaster type of novel, that straps you in and takes you for a ride, this one is appropriately a poker game type of novel, in which a lot of the action takes place inside your head as opposed to strictly on the pages. What is on the pages is, if you have read much of Powers (I've read all his books except On Stranger Tides), what you would expect of this writer. The main and most obvious theme is one he also used in The Drawing of the Dark: the mystical kingship: "The East Coast gangster lords had seemed to sense the kind of kingship that nobody had yet taken in the United States. Joseph Doto had assumed the name Joe Adonis...." (p. 21) "...his status as the modern avatar of Dionysus and Tammuz and Attis and Osiris and the Fisher King and every other god and king who died in the winter and was reborn in the spring..." (p. 25) But it is in expounding the *differences* between this "kingship" now, and the way it originally was, where the book speaks to a modern audience: " 'He's a--a legend, you know?' ... 'And you say he's green?' .... '*No*. He *used* to be green, and just a *big* man, not fat, but that version stopped applying sometime. ... Now he's not the Green Knight that Gawain met anymore--because the water's sick and the land's barren, like in Second Kings--now he's real fat, and he's generally black or gray or even metallic."(p. 79) (I am taking all my quotes from the start of the book, which is mostly expository anyway, so that I will not give out spoilers.) There is also a "character" who is something like the succubus-like creatures in The Stress of her Regard. The mythology behind the action is mentioned often, but it is never actually quite spelled out, which I think is a benefit in the case of this book. Leaving a few loose ends to make you think is one of the reasons this book is so interesting. In another way, to make another comparison, Last Call is like Dan Simmons's Hyperion story. In a less stylized (or less obviously stylized, anyhow) way, Powers has many characters, each for his or her own reason, each with his or her own story, making a pilgrimage to a fabled place (in this case, Las Vegas) to confront an evil being and a doom that has awaited them (and which most of them were aware of). Again like Simmons, Powers never actually comes out and tells the reader what the story is *about*, although he drops some fairly clear hints. Speaking of those hints, some of them work very well if you are watching out for them, and without spoilers I will point out some spots to watch: the stuff about the nuclear bomb tests in the Nevada desert, and the stuff about the Viet Nam war. Unfortunately, the parts that are supposed to be from the feminine point of view are not done so well, to the extent that I was mostly unable to determine their significance. I will leave that to others, if you care to help enlighten me? They advanced the plot ok, but otherwise seemed to be filler material. I am not saying that the female characters are bad, they are fairly varied and interesting. But they seem to be better drawn from the outside than the inside. Altogether, I liked this book very much and would recommend it. If you liked previous books by Tim Powers, you will probably like this one. Otherwise, you had best judge not just by my description, but by your own tastes. I'd guess that quite a few people will really love this book, although not everyone. A lot of people will find it just too unclear and too much work, and others will no doubt find it just the opposite: somewhat simplifying of complex things. I got a lot out of this book and will probably read it again, maybe tomorrow :-) -dana From rec.arts.sf.written Sun Jul 26 16:58:09 1992 Newsgroups: rec.arts.sf.written Path: herkules.sssab.se!isy!liuida!sunic!mcsun!uunet!decwrl!csus.edu!netcomsv!mork!dani From: dani@netcom.com (Dani Zweig) Subject: Tim Powers: The Last Call Message-ID: <6#km7dg.dani@netcom.com> Date: Sun, 26 Jul 92 00:39:04 GMT Organization: Netcom - Online Communication Services (408 241-9760 guest) Lines: 32 "The Last Call" is a great improvement over the other books Tim Powers has written since "The Anubis Gates". Really, it resembles nothing so much as a more ambitious "Drawing of the Dark." In this case, the book revolves not around beer, but around one of the other foundations of western civilization, poker. At least, poker as a use of cards, cards as a manifestation of the tarot, and the tarot as a set of guide- posts to underlying archetypes. Cutting out the intermediate steps, we are left with a greatly updated version of the Fisher King, who rules Las Vegas, and uses a poker deck to maintain his throne. Two decades earlier, professional poker player Scott Crane made the serious mistake of getting into a game with the King, and now his only hope of survival lies in somehow taking over that throne. As in DotD, the power which this throne represents draws other aspirants the way blood in water draws sharks. Maintaining the playfulness of "The Drawing of the Dark" without sacrificing the added depths which have characterized his more recent works is quite a balancing act, but Powers pulls it off. I enjoyed DotD more, but "The Last Call" is the better book. ----- Dani Zweig dani@netcom.com 'T is with our judgements as our watches, none Go alike, yet each believes his own --Alexander Pope From archive Thu Jul 30 17:06:20 MDT 1992 From: erict@flatline.UUCP (j eric townsend) Subject: _Dinner at Deviant's Palace_: review, no spoilers Date: 18 Dec 88 02:15:38 GMT First, I hate rip-off, plotless, inane, macho fantasies about the world after the ballon goes up. I would have never bought this book had I not see Tim Powers speak at ArmadilloConX. It has the *worst* cover I've seen in a while (that there are no semi-nude women on it is its saving grace :-). Forget what you've been told about the world in the future. It's a product of bad Italian movies, equally bad sf (I use that term loosely) and just plain ole lack of creativity. Powers is quick and on his feet. His writing style is fluid and pleasurable to read. Narration of events is quite nice. I never found myself wondering "Wait, how did that happen?" or "I though Dr. Foo was making a lamp, not a hydrogen bomb." A plot synopsis would spoil the book, I feel. A key part of the book is the slow introduction of facts about the world, and how the characters learn about the facts they aren't aware of. Anyway. What books would I compare it with? Um, can't think of any right off hand. _Hiero's Journey_, is the closest book I can think of. It's equal as far as originality, removedness from the typical junk fiction, etc. I haven't read anything else by Powers, so I can't comment on the consistency of _DaDP_ with his other works. -- J. Eric Townsend -- smail: 511 Parker #2, Houston, Tx, 77007 UUCP: uunet!sugar!flatline!erict ..!bellcore!texbell!/ From rec.arts.sf.written Sat Oct 17 11:15:58 1992 Path: lysator.liu.se!kth.se!sunic!mcsun!uknet!stl!bnrgate!corpgate!news.utdallas.edu!convex!convex!darwin.sura.net!zaphod.mps.ohio-state.edu!sdd.hp.com!elroy.jpl.nasa.gov!news.claremont.edu!iris!al From: al@iris.claremont.edu (Aotearoa) Newsgroups: rec.arts.sf.written Subject: REVIEW: _Last Call_ by Tim Powers Message-ID: Date: 13 Oct 92 23:09:29 GMT Sender: news@muddcs.claremont.edu (The News System) Organization: Harvey Mudd College, Claremont, CA 91711 Lines: 15 I know, there have been reviews of this here in the past, so I will keep this short. _Last Call_ is wicked fun, with the kind of plot that only Powers and a select few others can make work. The characters are interesting and wildly eccentric, and the magic makes sense in the context of the story. Others have said that any Powers is a must read, and I have found this to be true without exception thus far (yes, that includes _The Stress Of Her Regard_). I would have to rate _Last Call_ near the top of Powers' work, and also among the most entertaining books I've read all year. There is a definite horror element at work here, and it reminded me a bit of Clive Barker's recent fantasy binges, which I also find entertaining. -- Michael L. Medlin al@iris.claremont.edu "There's a man on the shoreline with a white parrakeet Trying to make his bird go home" --Peter Jefferies, "On An Unknown Beach" From /tmp/sf.1110 Fri Jul 23 13:53:32 1993 Path: lysator.liu.se!isy!liuida!sunic!pipex!uunet!psinntp!dg-rtp!sheol!dont-reply-to-paths From: wex@media.mit.edu (Alan Wexelblat) Newsgroups: rec.arts.sf.reviews Followup-To: rec.arts.sf.written Subject: Review: LAST CALL Approved: sfr%sheol@concert.net (rec.arts.sf.reviews moderator) Message-ID: <9307020253.AA16007@media.mit.edu> Date: 05 Jul 93 03:37:59 GMT Lines: 49 LAST CALL by Tim Powers Review Copyright (c) 1993 Alan Wexelblat OK! At last, something Alan likes. Loves, to be honest. Tim Powers has never disappointed me, from the moment I first picked up ANUBIS GATES to this. Every one of his books is a delight to read, filled with historical details that make the background come alive. His characters (except for a distressing authorial tendency towards physical mutilation) are all different, realistic people with lives and loves and motivations as complex as yours or mine. And in this case, I have to grant that the physical changes are integral to the story. This time Powers tackles that icon of American mythology, Las Vegas -- the town that gambling (and Bugsy Seigel) built. Add in Tarot and just about every associated superstition, stir with the blood of an old gambler and you've got one corker of a story. Scott Crane is this book's hero, in every sense of the word. He starts as a washed-up poker player haunted by nightmares and alcohol. What he transforms himself into is something that has to be seen to be believed. Along the way he has some important things to say about true friendship and the kind of kinship that should exist between every father and his son. I've talked before about Powers' view on Magic. I always feel when I read his books that magic is something real. That if I just had a drop of the right blood, or knew the right totems, I'd see the magic all around me. His magic is low-down, anyone-can-do-it stuff with strict logic but unpredictable effects. And never doubt the ability of a bullet to punch through any silly "spell." Powers never lets his magic totally overwhelm reality as we understand it. It's just there, it just works, and it just makes the plot function. It has the right "feel." I realize I haven't told you much of anything about LAST CALL. That's deliberate -- part of the delight of this book is seeing it unwind; there are plots within plots here. One hint, though. Before you read this one, read T.S. Elliot's "The Waste Land." Powers has seemingly tired of doing card tricks in the dark and is now laying out his sources for us to see and to learn from. Oh, and for those who doubt me -- note that I (who complains about paying $6 for a paperback book) laid out the bucks for the hardback on this one; there may be a paperback version out there, but I don't want to wait. %A Tim Powers %T Last Call %I Morrow hardcover %G ISBN 0-688-10732-X %O $23.00 %D 1992 From rec.arts.sf.reviews Wed May 8 13:35:00 1996 Path: news.ifm.liu.se!solace!nntp.uio.no!news.cais.net!newsfeed.internetmci.com!in2.uu.net!boulder!ucsub.Colorado.EDU!brock From: brock@ucsub.Colorado.EDU (Steve Brock) Newsgroups: rec.arts.books.reviews,rec.arts.books,alt.books.reviews,rec.arts.sf.written,rec.arts.sf.reviews Subject: Review of Expiration Date by Tim Powers (fiction, sf) Followup-To: rec.arts.sf.written Date: 5 May 1996 01:49:14 GMT Organization: University of Colorado, Boulder Lines: 66 Approved: brock@colorado.edu Message-ID: <4mh1eq$77u@peabody.colorado.edu> NNTP-Posting-Host: ucsub.colorado.edu NNTP-Posting-User: brock Xref: news.ifm.liu.se rec.arts.books.reviews:1601 rec.arts.books:153252 alt.books.reviews:26215 rec.arts.sf.written:149337 rec.arts.sf.reviews:941 EXPIRATION DATE by Tim Powers. Tor Books, 175 Fifth Ave, N.Y., NY 10010, (800) 221-7945, FAX: (212) 420-9314. 381 pp., $23.95 cloth. 0-312-86086-2 Reviewed by Steve Brock "I swallowed him, like the whale swallowed Jonah. (Well, I inhaled him, actually.) But can I throw up the ghost? Cough him out? Or will they really have to cut me open to get to it?" Another dazzling original by an acknowledged master. In Powers' elaborate and spectral alternate reality set in present-day Los Angeles, eleven-year-old Koot Hoomie Paraganas destroys a bust of Dante to which his parents have paid homage since he was a baby. Inside, he finds a glass vial. He opens it and takes a sniff. As a result, "... in his head things clanged and flashed as they hurled incomprehensively past, voices shouted, and his heart thudded with love and terror and triumph and mirth and rage and shame all mixed together so finely they seemed to constitute life itself, the way rainbow colors on a fast-spinning disk all blur into white." A life itself, but no ordinary life. Koot has just snorted up the ghost of Thomas Alva Edison. As soon as Edison is liberated into Koot's body, several people become cognizant of the fact and begin to stalk him. It seems that there is nothing like the high of inhaling the last breath of the dying, and the more famous they are the better the burst of memories. Trailing Koot are Sherman Oaks, a one armed tramp who tracks ghosts with his phantom limb; Pete Sullivan, who drives to L.A. seeking the spirit of his dead father (dad's ghost comes ashore in the body of a monstrous fish); and the Cruella DeVille of apparition-eaters: Loretta DeLarava, a film-maker who lives on the Queen Mary. As Koot runs for his lives, Edison intermittently wakes up and takes over the child's body, leading to several comic sequences, such as Edison's craving for a cigar or whiskey. Replete with chase scenes that involve metaphysical juxtapositioning and a culminating battle on the deck of the Queen Mary, "Expiration Date" packs a virtual wallop that will have readers holding their breaths, lest their souls be consumed by its characters. Grade: A-. Also by Powers: "Last Call" (1992), "The Stress of Her Regard" (1989), "On Stranger Tides" (1987), "Forsake the Sky" (1986), "Dinner at Deviant's Palace" (1985), "The Anubis Gates" (1983), "The Drawing of the Dark" (1979), "Epitaph in Rust" (1976), and "The Skies Discrowned" (1976). %A Powers, Tim %T Expiration Date %I Tor %C New York %D 1996 %G ISBN 0-312-86086-2 %P 381 pp. %O cloth, US$23.95 ------------------------------------------------------------------ Steve Brock Copyright c1996 Book Reviews on the Internet 2323 Mapleton Reviews are Boulder, CO 80304 available for (303) 786-7375 syndication brock@ucsub.colorado.edu http://ucsub.colorado.edu/~brock E-mail for Member: National Book Critic's Circle more info. ------------------------------------------------------------------ From rec.arts.sf.reviews Tue Aug 24 16:01:15 1999 Path: news.ifm.liu.se!news.ida.liu.se!newsfeed.sunet.se!news01.sunet.se!news99.sunet.se!news-peer-europe.sprintlink.net!news.sprintlink.net!netnews.com!news.maxwell.syr.edu!sunqbc.risq.qc.ca!gatech!sipb-server-1.mit.edu!senator-bedfellow.mit.edu!usenet From: mcardle@ozemail.com.au (Edward McArdle) Newsgroups: rec.arts.sf.reviews Subject: Review: Earthquake Weather, by Tim Powers. Followup-To: rec.arts.sf.written Date: 22 Aug 1999 19:06:56 -0400 Organization: none Lines: 78 Sender: wex@tinbergen.media.mit.edu Approved: wex@media.mit.edu Message-ID: NNTP-Posting-Host: tinbergen.media.mit.edu X-Newsreader: Gnus v5.3/Emacs 19.34 Xref: news.ifm.liu.se rec.arts.sf.reviews:2434 Earthquake Weather, Tim Powers Review Copyright 1999 Edward McArdle I went to a kaffeeklatch (yes, I did have to look up how to spell it) with Tim Powers at the Worldcon in San Antonio. He said, if memory serves correctly, that he had managed to include references to his two previous books, Last Call and Expiration Date, in Earthquake weather. This is an understatement on the level of "Yes, Lazarus is feeling a bit better now." This book is a direct continuation of both books, with about three new characters introduced. Scott Crane, the protagonist of Last Call, has been killed just before the book opens, and the main question of the plot is whether this is permanent. There is one passing reference, I have been told, to another earlier book, a pub which appears in more than one location. If you are a fan already of Powers, and have read the two earlier books, go straight to this one. If not, I suggest you read them first. Even more I suggest you read The Anubis Gates, which has nothing to do with any of this, but is a very good book! As a comic reader, there are some comics I read as much for the art as the story, and there are some writers I read as much for their prose as the story. Joseph Conrad, for instance. I like to read every word, instead of skimming through. As you may guess, Earthquake Weather is such a book, so it took me longer than usual to read. I believe that just about all the lore about vampires was made up by Bram Stoker in Dracula. In similar fashion, Powers simply makes up all the lore of his world. But the detail is piled on so much that it all hangs together. In his world, every superstition, of every religion, is true. People can steal parts of your soul by shuffling tarot cards in front of you. The ghosts of the dead hang around by fashioning bodies from the litter lying in the streets. They are attracted by palindromes. You can make yourself psychically invisible by designing your house in a certain way. Card games are magic, even. Shakespeare's plays are full of the secrets of magic. The story is wound, in some way, in with Troilus and Cressida, and with Dickens' Tale of Two Cities. Chapters begin with quotes, which in at least some cases I suspect Powers made up himself (a noble tradition begun by Sir Walter Scott). One trouble with this sort of world is that you can't solve things for yourself, as in a murder mystery, or guess outcomes. You simply read, and see what the author puts in front of you. Another is that the story may have no characters who are closely related to our reality enough that you can feel an interest in them. In this book we do have a fairly 'real-world' based hero, Sid 'Scant' Cochran. But he quickly accepts the weirdness of his world. The third new character is the villain, Dr Armentrout. I felt he had a big introduction, then faded away into a peripheral role. The eventual tension pivots around the god Dionysius. All through the story the main characters seem to be drinking vast amounts of alcohol. Interestingly, the female lead, who has multiple personalities, can be rotten drunk in one persona, but sober when another personality takes over. If Scott Crane is returned to life, will someone else have to sacrifice his or her body? Will someone else have to sacrifice their soul? Powers' books tend to be sold as science fiction, but they are something different now. The Anubis Gates was about time travel, and was squarely in the field, but later books are hard to classify. %A Powers, Tim %T Earthquake Weather. %O Hardback, US$24.95 %D Oct 1997 %C New York %G ISBN 0-312-86163-X %P 414 pp Edward McArdle. http://www.ozemail.com.au/~mcardle -me, my tennis club, golf, verses, novel, a crostic puzzle, random photos... and http://www.geocities.com/TheTropics/Paradise/3479/ where you may learn of my Alaskan Cruise with the Stars (and get a glimpse of Vancouver). From rec.arts.sf.reviews Thu Mar 8 13:21:19 2001 Path: news.ifm.liu.se!news.lth.se!feed2.news.luth.se!luth.se!newspump.monmouth.com!newspeer.monmouth.com!howland.erols.net!bloom-beacon.mit.edu!senator-bedfellow.mit.edu!dreaderd!not-for-mail Sender: wex@deepspace.media.mit.edu Approved: wex@media.mit.edu Organization: none From: mcardle@ozemail.com.au (Edward McArdle) Subject: Review, Declare, by Tim Powers. Newsgroups: rec.arts.sf.reviews Followup-To: rec.arts.sf.written Date: 06 Mar 2001 15:03:27 -0500 Message-ID: X-Newsreader: Gnus v5.7/Emacs 20.4 Lines: 61 NNTP-Posting-Host: deepspace.media.mit.edu X-Trace: 983909008 senator-bedfellow.mit.edu 8790 18.85.23.65 Xref: news.ifm.liu.se rec.arts.sf.reviews:2832 Declare, Tim Powers Review Copyright 2001 Edward McArdle At a kaffeeklatch in San Antonio Worldcon some years ago, Tim Powers mentioned he had had a great idea for a book, based on the story of Kim Philby. This is the book. It is about 500 pages, and as I enjoy his prose, I have read it slowly. For a Tim Powers book it takes its time becoming weird. There is a two-page introduction in which something terrible happened on Mount Ararat, then the book seems to become a conventional spy thriller. The only odd thing is that the hero carries an ankh. The action oscillates between 1941 and 1963. Kim Philby is the figure readers would be expected to recognise, and he begins to appear peripherally about a third of the way into the book. The book is written about its hero, Andrew Hale, except for two chapters which are written from the point of view of two other main characters. The book has an authentic ring as it details what went on in the secret services during the war, and afterwards, but as strange things begin to occur we find that the world's secret services had a deep interest in the supernatural. The further the book goes, the weirder it gets, with throwbacks into normality from time to time. The title is the name of a project undertaken by the British SIS, or some deep subset. It also comes to have something to do with card-playing, giving the title, at least, some thematic association with Last Call and one other of his novels based on cards. However, this novel stands alone. I was surprised when The Stress of her Regard revealed that Shelley, Keats and co. were tied up with vampires and the like, but they lived long ago, so nobody who knew them was likely to be offended. In this case, however, Kim Philby died only a few years ago, and had five children. The statement in the front that this book has nothing to do with any person dead or alive clashes somewhat with the afterword in which Tim Powers describes how he built his story around all the known facts of Philby's and others' lives. Obviously the story is pure fantasy, but it features a lot of real people, some of whom may be still around! This might be a good starting point for those new to Powers' writing, as it is not as strange as some of his work. I wavered and bought the hardback, but the paperback is due out in November. %A Powers, Tim %C New York %D 2001 %G ISBN 0-380-97652-8 %I Harper Collins %P 510 pp. Edward McArdle. http://www.ozemail.com.au/~mcardle -me, my tennis club, golf, verses, novel, a crostic puzzle, random photos... and http://www.geocities.com/TheTropics/Paradise/3479/ where you may learn of my Alaskan Cruise with the Stars (and get a glimpse of Vancouver).