14 December, 2001
The Anubis Gates
Tim Powers
1983
387 pp (TPB)
This review was posted to the Usenet newsgroup rec.arts.sf.written. You can read the discussion here.
In the hands of a lesser writer, this book could have come off as exceedingly goofy. It's got time travel (paradox included), body-swapping, secret societies, sorcery, Lord Byron, cross-dressing, dopplegangers, and all manner of alarums and excursions. Fortunately, Tim Powers is a very good writer, and all those wild elements get mixed together into a rather enjoyable adventure.
Brief summary: Brendan Doyle, English professor, travels back in time to 1811 (the heyday of the Romantic poets), and gets stuck there. He runs afoul of some exceedingly nasty characters (including an insane clown begger lord and a ruthless gypsy sorcerer). For a while, poor Doyle is tossed from one unpleasant situation to the next, but he eventually gains his footing and...
Well, I don't want to spoil the book. It's got so many plot twists, it's nigh-impossible to discuss it without big, honkin' spoilers, so before the spoiler warning, I'll just say that while it's not as good as Last Call, it is good fun, and recommended to anybody who doesn't demand too much, er, realism or plausability from their time-travel fantasy novels.
BIG SPOILERS FOR THE ANUBIS GATES !!!!!
So, in the 20th century, Doyle is studying the (fictional) Romantic poet William Ashbless, and knows a good deal about Ashbless' history. When he travels back to the past, it becomes apparent to the reader that he must BE William Ashbless, in spite of the fact that he doesn't look anything like Ashbless. After a body-swap, he realizes it, too. Now, this is an interesting position for a reader AND a character to be in: knowing significant bits of the story to come, before those bits actually happen. It would have been very easy to remove all suspense from the story this way, but Powers manages to keep it interesting: Okay, Ashbless/Doyle is mortally wounded, he's on death's door, having been tortured by a couple of very nasty characters, yet he's supposed to live for another 35 years! How does he get out of this one?!
One of the reasons I liked this book so much is that it features a couple of my favorite character types: the nerdy protagonist and the woman who makes her own way in a man's world. Doyle is a refreshing change from the usual time-travelling 20th Century Guy who uses his Superior Knowledge to kick ass in the past. (That guy-- Darrow-- also shows up in the book, but he's one of the villains.) When Doyle is stranded in 1811, he's completely out of his depth: he has no money, no useful skills, and very little in the way of useful knowledge-- kind of like how I'd be if I suddenly found myself in the early 19th century.
In fact, Doyle is so helpless that I almost began to lose interest, near the end of the first section, fearing that the novel would continue in that vein: Doyle continuing to lose body parts, morale, money, and his mind as the tale wore on. That sort of thing appeals to some people, but I just find it dull (that's why I was unable to get interested in Martin's A Game of Thrones). Fortunately, just when things are looking utterly grim, a miracle happens: a fortuitous body-switch improves Doyle's situation immensely, and sets him on an entirely new path. Once he takes over the body of Brenner, and becomes Ashbless, he becomes more confident and willing to take risks (knowing your destiny could certainly do that to one's personality).
Actually, that sort of improbable occurence occurs rather frequently in The Anubis Gates, where the author's hand intrudes so far into the narrative that I just sat there reading along, and thinking, "Oh, COME ON! As if!" But, those bits only bothered me in passing, since the plot generally moved along so quickly that I was distracted from the improbable coincidence by the next bit of action. Perhaps it would have bothered me more if I thought Powers meant it to be taken at all seriously.
One thing which really impressed me is the way Powers managed to stich together so many time loops, leaving only one major paradox: nobody actually wrote Ashbless' poetry.
In any case, it's a swell novel. Powers is two for two in my book; I'll have to read more of his stuff. His latest, Declare, sounds interesting, too bad I am so poor I can't afford to buy it...