Dinner at Deviant's Palace

Rating:
Summary: Character development is not a weak spot.
Review: I have to disagree with the previous reviewer regarding Gregorio Rivas as a weak spot in the book. While on this "quest" for his long lost love, Rivas actually changes and grows as a character. Here we have someone who is affected by his enounters instead of just a fellow meeting external obstacles. Rivas doesn't have mood swings. He confronts himself as he revisits people and places from his past. He gradually goes from being a rather arrogant egotistical jerk to an empathatic decent human being trying to do the right thing instead of a one dimensional idiot bent on just earning his "brandy." Here Powers has created a man capable of learning some things as the story progresses. How many contemporary authors of any genre can pull that off without making readers snicker and say, "Yeah, right."

Rating:
Summary: Cleverness and little else...
Review: I like Tim Powers' books. I don't like this one too much though. Powers love of the grotesque is in full force here, but what you've really got here is two stories that don't need each other. Post holocaust LA and the mysterious evil thing don't need to be in the same story, and one basically distracts from the other. Also, what's Powers' deal with mutilation? Why ask here? Might as well here as anywhere.

Rating:
Summary: Fantasy set against a post-apocalyptic landscape
Review: This is the first Tim Powers book I've read, and though I can't compare it to the rest of his work, it seems that he is more inclined to writing fantasy than science fiction. Yes, the setting is L.A. after some (unmentioned) armaggedon, and, without revealing too much, there are alien beings here, but the treatment is closer to a sword-and-sorcery tale... with swords exchanged for slingshots and guns, and religious mysticism for sorcery. And then, there are Powers' grotesques, like the hemogoblins and those weird trash men within the Holy City, that don't seem scifi at all.

So: the tale IS about a man, Greg Rivas, bent on rescuing an old flame from the clutches of a religious cult, and the subsequent confrontation with the entity behind it. It IS NOT about this post-apocalyptic world the action is set in.

In my opinion, the one weak point of the novel is character development: Greg goes through several mood swings that don't mesh together well. But the plotting is strong, giving an envolving tale.

To those willing to taste this fanciful dinner, enjoy.

Rating:
Summary: Character development is not a weak spot.
Review: Very few books deserve a ten. This is one. It amazes me that this book is not a classic of modern science fiction/fantasy. Dark, mysterious, almost pre-cyberpunk. Powers does an amazing job of setting up a post-nuclear war devastated L.A., populating it with well thought out characters. Drop in drugs, violence, religious fanatics, and psychic beings and you have an amazing read. Anyone who has played the classic computer role playing game "Wasteland" will feel right at home.