Three Days to Never

Last Saturday, I discovered that Tim Powers had a new book out in paperback, Three Days to Never. Interestingly, it looks like I may have missed some of his books between this one and Earthquake Weather.

I was slightly disappointed in this book, primarily because it seems to be a sort of synthesis between Anubis Gates and Expiration Date. But, the thing is, Tim Powers at his worst is better than many authors at their best, so it's still a very good read. It's only because I expect to be completely blown away with new ideas in Tim Powers' books that I was somewhat disappointed.

Tim Powers is particularly good at integrating outrageously mystical ideas/devices/things with everyday, ordinary life, without making it seem that the world itself has to change in order for these things to occur. He's also quite adept at integrating historical figures into his plotlines in...semi-plausible ways. That is, my inclination is not to dismiss the integrations out of hand as completely ridiculous, even if at the back of my mind I may be scoffing. In this case, the primary historical figure is Albert Einstein. He's not a direct character, except at the seance, but his fictional descendants are, as is a device that he supposedly constructed.

It's hard to make a plot summary of this book without dropping major spoilers... But I'll try. We've got two groups after Einstein's device. One group at least tries to be the good guys, though doesn't always succeed. The other is perfectly happy to sacrifice random strangers to jump onto a spiritual, fifth-dimensional highway. Then there are the people who actually have the device, without knowing that they have it, and they're not having much fun at all... particularly after the daughter accidentally watches the last surviving copy of A Woman of the Sea by mistake and a "dybbuk" tries to take over her mind. What's a dybbuk? Well, that's not explained until sometime in the last 100 pages, so I'll leave it at that. But here's a nice summary from the Publisher's Weekly review at Amazon: "In typical Powers fashion, his characters' spiritual need to undo past sins or mistakes propels the ingenious plot, which manages to be intricate without becoming convoluted, to its highly satisfying conclusion."

To sum up: Possibly not as good as some of Tim Powers' other books, but still very well-written and highly enjoyable.