464 pages, paperback.
1984.
In 1811, a sect of Egyptian sorcerors set out to open the gates to the Ancient Egyptian realm of the dead in order to call back the old gods, vanquish Christianity, and resurrect magic. They failed, horribly, yet something happened that night.
1983: An American college teacher and literary scholar, who has specialised on the early 19th century, is asked by an eccentric billionaire to act as a guide to a group of time travellers. The billionaire, you see, both being a genious and having several of this specimen in his employment, has discovered that time is a river. A frozen river, where you have no choice but to float along with the current. However, some time, some where, some how, the ice has been breached. And with the right equipment, it is possible to travel between these gates, provided they are open. Which they’re only for a limited period at a time.
The college teacher accepts the ridiculous amounts of money he’s offered to go along with what it clearly the delusion of a madman, only to discover that the lunatic is telling the truth. However, he’s not able to savour the irony of this for very long, because obviously, something goes to Hell.
The word that immediately springs to mind when I want to describe The Anubis Gates, is “fun”. The characters are quirky, the plot threads and the story intertwined and serpentine, the age’s accurately portrayed, and the concept’s eccentric and well-executed enough for it to really stand out in the crowd. I mean, a novel with time travel, Egyptian sorcerors and gods, beggar kings and gangs, great British Romantic poets, melancholy, vengeance, insane plans, werewolves, and a London so filthy you could use Ankh-Morpork to clean it up with — how else to describe it, than fun?
Granted, the plot was a bit transparent, but that’s only (and I repeat: ONLY) because Powers obviously wants it to be. He drops a lot of hints to the reader along the way, so that you’ll be able to see what’s coming long before it hits the proverbial fan and gets the characters all messed up. This is done in such a way that rather than feel cheated and annoyed, I was left with a big stupid grin on my face for most of the time it took me to read this novel.
In the very least a strong 8.0/10.
Posts
Sounds fun!
(I’m enjoying Bonehunters these days, by the way - after a reading-break of almost ten months…)
10. April 2008 @ 21:37 ( Permalink )
And it really was fun!
Next to Pratchett’s The Fifth Elephant and Guy Gavriel Kay’s A Song for Arbonne, it’s the best novel I’ve read so far this year.
10. April 2008 @ 21:51 ( Permalink )
Also, congrats on the Bonehunters! I can understand why it has taken you so long (kinda), even though I read it in a day or two, myself.
10. April 2008 @ 21:53 ( Permalink )
As soon as I got to the battle of Y’Ghatan it got very exciting. It’s just that Icarium and Mappo’s (as well as Apsalar and her new dreadfully boring “familiars”) never managed to hold my interest, and everytime they get a chapter, I put it away for a couple of days. Or weeks. And sometimes those weeks turn into months.
10. April 2008 @ 21:55 ( Permalink )
This is a classic Powers novel and it’s certainly on my own writing ledger (if I had one, that is). I’ve personally gone to the point of buying one of Powers’ latest offerings, ‘Three Days To Never’ in hardcover (mostly because I saw it compared to ‘American Gods’ in a review). Here’s the plot synopsis:
When Frank Marrity’s grandmother dies unexpectedly during 1987’s New Age Harmonic Convergence, his 12-year-old daughter, Daphne, steals a videotape from the old woman’s Pasadena house that turns out to be a Chaplin film long believed lost. Before Daphne can finish watching the film, its powerful symbolism awakens a latent pyrokinetic ability in her that burns the tape. Frank later discovers letters that prove his grandmother was Albert Einstein’s illegitimate daughter. This comes to the attention of a special branch of the Mossad specializing in the Kabbalah as well as a shadowy Gnostic sect interested in a potential weapon discovered by Einstein that he didn’t offer to FDR during WWII—a weapon more terrible in its way than the atomic bomb.
Sounds interesting, yah? If I like it, I’m totally reading ‘Anubis Gates’, ‘Last Call’ and ‘On Stranger Tides’. Maybe also ‘The Stress of Her Regard’, but that’s because I love the title
11. April 2008 @ 00:06 ( Permalink )
You know, I believe that to be one of the most bizarre plot synopses I’ve ever read. Are you sure you didn’t just make it up? Oh, of course you didn’t; if you had, there’d be more gay German spacemen.
Also, “The Stress of Her regard”? Brilliant title, indeed.
12. April 2008 @ 01:10 ( Permalink )
“Oh, of course you didn’t; if you had, there’d be more gay German spacemen.”
Never has anyone been so thoroughly burned. I applaud your biting wit, good sir.
12. April 2008 @ 02:34 ( Permalink )
I say, while I believe you are employing the hyperbole a tad too liberally, I am quite humbled by your compliment, kind gentleman.
12. April 2008 @ 02:48 ( Permalink )
Hyperboles are in their very nature a very liberal treatment of the concept we so cavalierly refer to as “truth”, dear chap, and as such, I find liberal employment of them to be very much in theme.
12. April 2008 @ 02:58 ( Permalink )
“Oh, of course you didn’t; if you had, there’d be more gay German spacemen. :P”
If that was the case then I’d be reading ‘Three Days to Never’ right this instant. Also, you guys don’t know it yet, but gayness in sff is supposedly all the rage right now, so if there HAD been gay German spacemen in this book, it’d be way ahead of its time (which I suppose you can say about all sf-books…)
12. April 2008 @ 09:19 ( Permalink )
Gods, I loathe fashions. Of any kind.
12. April 2008 @ 12:16 ( Permalink )
Oh, yeah, that whole Docotor Who/Torchwood thing. I forgot I read about that in the last issue of SFX. Interesting what people choose to obsess about.
13. April 2008 @ 21:02 ( Permalink )