Rating: 
Summary: A Monument to Imagination
Review: "Last Call" is a book about loss, death, redemption, tarot cards and the Fisher King. It plays out in a vast and mythical Las Vegas that only marginally resembles the one that sits in the Nevada desert. Scott Crane is a man who loses. As a child, he lost an eye. As a young man, he lost his soul in a card game. As an adult, is wife dies and he loses his will to survive. Until he is drawn to Las Vegas, where the last Fisher King died, and learns his is one of four Jacks vying for the right to assume the King's place. It sounds wacky and ridiculous and I'm sure it would fall flat in any hands but those of Tim Powers. But Powers is a master of Urban Magic, at finding mystery in the oridinary and in drawing conclusions from history that might only be inferred by a madman. But once he has cast his eye on a subject and explained it to us, it all makes sense. We wonder why we never saw it before. In typical fashion, Powers has selected Eliot's "The Waste Land" as a sort of working illustration of the story, writing elements that make you stop and think "Oh, ho! Eliot was in on it, too!". Powers uses the poem to good effect, as he has with the Romantic poets in "The Stress of Her Regard" and other works. I don't get excited about many books or many authors, but this is one of the best. Powers is an amazing talent, always satisfying, always fresh and always jaw-droppingly unique.
Rating:
Summary: A Monument to Imagination
Review: "Last Call" is a book about loss, death, redemption, tarot cards and the Fisher King. It plays out in a vast and mythical Las Vegas that only marginally resembles the one that sits in the Nevada desert. Scott Crane is a man who loses. As a child, he lost an eye. As a young man, he lost his soul in a card game. As an adult, is wife dies and he loses his will to survive. Until he is drawn to Las Vegas, where the last Fisher King died, and learns his is one of four Jacks vying for the right to assume the King's place. It sounds wacky and ridiculous and I'm sure it would fall flat in any hands but those of Tim Powers. But Powers is a master of Urban Magic, at finding mystery in the oridinary and in drawing conclusions from history that might only be inferred by a madman. But once he has cast his eye on a subject and explained it to us, it all makes sense. We wonder why we never saw it before. In typical fashion, Powers has selected Eliot's "The Waste Land" as a sort of working illustration of the story, writing elements that make you stop and think "Oh, ho! Eliot was in on it, too!". Powers uses the poem to good effect, as he has with the Romantic poets in "The Stress of Her Regard" and other works. I don't get excited about many books or many authors, but this is one of the best. Powers is an amazing talent, always satisfying, always fresh and always jaw-droppingly unique.
Rating:
Summary: Another weird and wonderful story.
Review: "Last Call" tells the story of a professional poker player who lost more than usual while playing a game with Tarot cards on Lake Powell. What he lost and how he might get it back are the major questions he must answer before next game is held. "Last Call" is another of Powers wonderful novels which blend interesting bits of history with wonderful fantasy. If you enjoy "Last Call", be sure to read "The Stress of her Regard" and any other Powers' book you can find. I haven't read a bad one yet. BTW: If you like Tim Powers' fiction, you might want to try something by James P. Blaylock. In particular, "The Digging Levithan", "Homunculus", or "The Last Coin", all of which are great stories.
Rating:
Summary: Low Fantasy at it's Best
Review: "I will show you fear in a handful of dust," the poet T.S. Eliot writes in his groundbreaking poem The Wastelands, and Tim Powers has taken that fear and turned it into an archetypal romp throughout Ol' Possum's dreaded land of change.
Taking the symbols of modernism and the archetypes of the Tarot, Powers weaves a tale of wonder and adventure in the Wastelands of Las Vegas. Combining Arthurian/Celtic lore, Bugsy Segal , T.S. Eliot and five card draw, the book doesn't hesitate to drag you into it's magical mystical tour.
Powers continues to prove that low fantasy has a place in the publishing world, and that he is the master
Rating:
Summary: Another weird and wonderful story.
Review: "Last Call" tells the story of a professional poker player who lost more than usual while playing a game with Tarot cards on Lake Powell. What he lost and how he might get it back are the major questions he must answer before next game is held. "Last Call" is another of Powers wonderful novels which blend interesting bits of history with wonderful fantasy.
If you enjoy "Last Call", be sure to read "The Stress of her Regard" and any other Powers' book you can
find. I haven't read a bad one yet. BTW: If you like Tim Powers' fiction, you might want to try something by James P. Blaylock. In particular, "The Digging Levithan", "Homunculus", or "The Last Coin", all of which are great stories.
Rating:
Summary: Another Powers "must read"
Review: "Last Call", set in contemporary California and Nevada, is another example of Tim Powers' amazing ability to write a story in which the characters' human frailties and tendency to make mistakes do not prevent them from, in the end, overcoming huge obstacles and finding their goal. Scott Crane, a Poker player, joins a game of "Assumption" against the wishes of his foster father, and, as he was warned, didn't know "what he was selling come the showdown". Although he brought a pile of money home, he sold a lien on his soul to the game's host, and only begins to realize the consequences of his actions years later. Aided by his friend Arky Mavranos, who is searching for randomness in order to cure his cancer, Scott sets off on a mission to rescue his estranged foster sister and regain what he lost; he must fight his alcoholism, which only hinders any slim chance he may have in retaining his soul, and evade the people sent to capture and hide his body before its [seemingly inevitable] eventual possession by the current Fisher King. Although Powers' characters are not perfect shining-armor protagonists, they are far more similar to the rest of us than we would like, sometimes, to believe. Their motivations may not match ours, but their ability to rationalize their errors, to devise reasons to do the wrong thing and believe it's right, and to occasionally exert an almost super-human effort to set things straight makes one wish they existed in our world.
Rating:
Summary: One of my all time favorites
Review: After reading Last Call, I felt I could believe in magic again. After I finished it, I had to recommend it to my friends. My brother gave it to me and I've re-read it 4 times, and lent it out each chance I get. I don't have much more to add to describe it, that hasn't already been said in the reviews. This book explores gambler's lore as if it were the truth. I've never been to Las Vegas, but Tim Powers makes it seem like a magical land. Each time I read it, I get more out of it.
Rating: 
Summary: I don't get it.
Review: After reading the other reviews posted here, I feel like I must have read a different book than the other reviewers. Ridiculous, stereotypical characters; one of the principal "bad guys" eats only raw, recently living food, including, at one point, the carcass of his recently killed doberman. An "ending" composed of the most amazing series of unlikely coincidences that I have ever read. I laughed, I cried (or at least I snickered and groaned), but probably not in the places that the author intended.
Rating: 
Summary: Never Draw On An Inside Straight....
Review: After reading Tim Powers' "Last Call" I found myself wanting to play poker again and go to Las Vegas, but holding on to some magic charm to save me from being absorbed by spirit catching immortals. Like his following book "Expiration Date" Mr. Powers characters are not what one would call "sympathetic" characters, who one could find some spark of identification. They are not easily liked: drunks, gamblers, crazies and evil characters misusing metaphysics to further their neferious ends. But because these characters are not sympathetic I found myself drawn into the story. Never before have I read a story that touches upon so many diverse topics: Jungian schronicity, Tarot cards, poker, alcohol, magic, The Fisher King, TS Eliot, and gangsters. Only an author who has a wide view of the fictive landscape he rules can weave such a tale and make the reader stay up late on a work night to find out what is the next amazing and scary thing that is going to come up. Although some fans of Tim Powers are sad that he strayed from the historical fantasies he wrote before I am glad someone is writing about contemporary things, places and people that are infused with magic. The struggle between good and evil takes place everyday, with people who are less than likable, and this book speaks of one of those struggles. I await for his next book and hope he continues on this comtemporary theme.
Rating:
Summary: Never Draw On An Inside Straight....
Review: After reading Tim Powers' "Last Call" I found myself wanting to play poker again and go to Las Vegas, but holding on to some magic charm to save me from being absorbed by spirit catching immortals. Like his following book "Expiration Date" Mr. Powers characters are not what one would call "sympathetic" characters, who one could find some spark of identification. They are not easily liked: drunks, gamblers, crazies and evil characters misusing metaphysics to further their neferious ends. But because these characters are not sympathetic I found myself drawn into the story. Never before have I read a story that touches upon so many diverse topics: Jungian schronicity, Tarot cards, poker, alcohol, magic, The Fisher King, TS Eliot, and gangsters. Only an author who has a wide view of the fictive landscape he rules can weave such a tale and make the reader stay up late on a work night to find out what is the next amazing and scary thing that is going to come up. Although some fans of Tim Powers are sad that he strayed from the historical fantasies he wrote before I am glad someone is writing about contemporary things, places and people that are infused with magic. The struggle between good and evil takes place everyday, with people who are less than likable, and this book speaks of one of those struggles. I await for his next book and hope he continues on this comtemporary theme.
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