ecl@ahutb.UUCP (e.c.leeper) (04/15/85)
DINNER AT DEVIANT'S PALACE by Tim Powers
Ace, 1985, $2.95.
A book review by Evelyn C. Leeper
Powers's first book (THE ANUBIS GATES) was so remarkable that this
novel was almost certainly doomed to suffer by comparison. Perhaps it's
unfair to expect the complexity that one found in THE ANUBIS GATES in
everything Powers writes, but this does disappoint the reader somewhat in
that regard. This is not to say that this is a bad book--it isn't--but it
many ways, it's an ordinary book.
Set in post-holocaust Los Angeles and environs, the story is a strange
combination of religious cults and drug dealers, slavery and strange
perversions (no, don't run right out and buy it--he's not that graphic about
them!). Greg Rivas is a musician who rescues people from Norton Jaybush's
religious cult, or rather, who did until he decided it was too dangerous.
Now he's hired to rescue one more person--his old girlfriend.
The plot is fairly straight-forward, the typical de-programming story
that has become popular of late (usually with the Moonies as the cult). The
post-holocaust culture seems poorly realized, and that may be the main
problem. In THE ANUBIS GATES, Powers drew the England of the 1800's very
well--he knew his history, he got the ambiance right, he had lots of
interesting characters. He laid a lot of other cultures on top--Egyptian,
Gypsie, and others--and he did well with those also. But here he has a sort
of spaced-out musical culture, a spaced-out religious cult culture, and not
much else to hold it together. How people live and work and survive in Los
Angeles is not made clear. And where the resolution of THE ANUBIS GATES was
very well tied together, the resolution of DINNER AT DEVIANT'S PALACE seems
very pasted on. In THE ANUBIS GATES, he neatly drops the last piece of the
massive jigsaw into place; in DINNER AT DEVIANT'S PALACE, he takes a piece,
hacks at it to fit, and whacks it in with a sledge-hammer.
I realize all this sounds very negative. The book is not that bad, but
it's not that good either. Read his first novel instead, and hope for a
better one for his third.
Evelyn C. Leeper
For now, I am ...ihnp4!ahutb!ecl
But, on May 1, I become ...ihnp4!mtgzz!eclbrust@hyper.UUCP (Steven Brust) (04/26/85)
> > DINNER AT DEVIANT'S PALACE by Tim Powers > Ace, 1985, $2.95. > A book review by Evelyn C. Leeper > > Powers's first book (THE ANUBIS GATES) was so remarkable that this > novel was almost certainly doomed to suffer by comparison. Perhaps it's > unfair to expect the complexity that one found in THE ANUBIS GATES in > everything Powers writes, but this does disappoint the reader somewhat in > that regard. This is not to say that this is a bad book--it isn't--but it > many ways, it's an ordinary book. > > > Evelyn C. Leeper > For now, I am ...ihnp4!ahutb!ecl > But, on May 1, I become ...ihnp4!mtgzz!ecl Interesting. I found DADP to be superior to THE ANUBIS GATES. Not that his first novel was bad, but I never had the feeling that his plot was out of control in DINNER, and I also think his characters were deeper, and he was playing with deeper themes. Furthermore, it just read better--I always knew what was going on, and the tension was real emerged from the characters and situations. Again, I don't think ANUBIS GATES failed at these, but to me it didn't succeed as well. -- SKZB
dean@hyper.UUCP (Dean Gahlon) (04/27/85)
> I realize all this sounds very negative. The book is not that bad, but > it's not that good either. Read his first novel instead, and hope for a > better one for his third. Actually, _Dinner_At_Deviant's_Palace_ is more like his fourth or possibly even fifth book. The titles I know of are _Epitaph_In_Rust_ (a Laser book (remember them?) set in a future Los Angeles similar to, but with significant differences from, the one in DaDP), _The_Drawing_Of_The_Dark_ (similar to and close in quality to _The_Anubis_Gates_), and then of course _The_Anubis_Gates_ and DaDP. There may be one other Laser book; I can't now recall.