Review of Dinner at Deviant's Palace

DINNER AT DEVIANT'S PALACE

Greg Rivas, violinist and former tough guy in a bombed-out Los Angeles, comes head to head with a psychic vampire whose intended victim is Earth itself

Author: Tim Powers (1952- )

Subgenre: Science Fiction--post-holocaust

Type of work: Novel

Time of plot: More than 100 years after the holocaust; about 2100

Location: Los Angeles and environs

First published: 1985

The Plot: It is more than a century after a global thermonuclear war, and Gregorio Rivas makes his living in post-apocalypse Los Angeles as a violinist with a regular nightclub act. In his youth, Rivas had been seduced by the cult of Norton Jaybush, whose worshipers are called Jaybirds. Later, he became a redeemer, rescuing cult members for a price. He is now living on his fading reputation, and looking forward with growing fear to an impoverished middle age. Fate pulls him back into the dangerous life of a redeemer when Irwin Barrows, father of Rivas' one-time sweetheart Urania, asks Rivas to rescue Urania from the Jaybush cult. Rivas takes the job, even though it requires he pretend to join the cult himself.

Norton Jaybush is a mysterious figure whose cult members practice a devastating sacrament that literally destroys the mind if taken too many times. Jaybirds disappear into the Holy City (Irvine) and are never seen again.

Deviant's Palace is an improbable and deadly nightclub in Venice, home to many of the dregs of post-holocaust Californian society, including an astounding variety of mutants. The stories told about Deviant's Palace are too bizarre to be believed, but Rivas, who spent much of his reckless youth in Venice, has taken care to never go near the place. However, Rivas' attempt to free Urania from the Jaybush cult leads him to the Holy City, back to Venice, and, as the title indicates, to Deviant's Palace. In

the process, Rivas discovers what Norton Jaybush is, and he becomes custodian of the most deadly secret in the world.

Analysis: Dinner at Deviant's Palace is both more of the same and a significant departure for Powers. This book is more of the same, because the plot formula is very similar to that of nearly all of his other novels. The protagonist encounters a problem, struggles against it, gives himself up to drugs and denial when the going gets tough, but pulls himself together for one last try in the nick of time. The formula is acted out slightly differently in this book, because the stuporous period is over long before the book begins. Even this is reminiscent of The Drawing of the Dark; both books begin with the protagonist unwillingly revisiting his past for the sake of a woman he lost.

Despite the familiar plot, Powers breaks new ground in Dinner at Deviant's Palace. In contrast to The Drawing of the Dark (1979), The Anubis Gates (1983), On Stranger Tides (1987), and The Stress of Her Regard (1989), the adversary in this book is not supernatural. Yes, there are vampiric ghosts, zombies, monsters, and beings with superhuman powers, but all of these are explained without resort to magic. Also, the ending of Dinner at Deviant's Palace leaves important business unconsummated, whereas the other four books all end with the adventure finished, even if the protagonist does not get to live happily ever after. Powers may have felt that it was safer to end a science fiction novel on an ambiguous note because science fiction is inherently more familiar than fantasy, depending as it does on laws of nature that we all understand, and being based on an extrapolation of our own society.

The main plot device of Dinner at Deviant's Palace, the invasion of Earth by a lone being who is powerful enough to pose a serious threat to humanity, is a bit unusual but not unique (Larry Niven did it in World of Ptavvs (1986)). What makes Dinner at Deviant's Palace successful is Powers' intense prose style, and especially the careful attention to detail and consistency that characterize all of Powers' writing. Powers' writing may owe some of its intense precision to his background as a poet, for poetry is a medium that cannot afford to waste words.

Despite its science-fictional theme, Dinner at Deviant's Palace feels like Powers' fantasy novels. It has nothing in common with his earlier science fiction novel Forsake the Sky (1986). In Dinner at Deviant's

Palace Powers creates fantastic and horrible scenes that are so shockingly vivid it almost hurts to read about them. The descriptive style and underlying world view are similar to those exemplified by Roger Zelazny's Roadmarks (1979), which does not involve magic, and Larry Niven's The Magic Goes Away (1978), Zelazny's Nine Princes in Amber (1970) and sequels, Barry Hughart's Bridge of Birds (1984), and Fred Saberhagen's Empire of the East, which do involve magic. These authors share the ability to make magical, or at least fantastic, events seem inevitable within the context of the story. Only the reader (and in some cases the protagonist) is surprised when events turn bizarre.

One of the curious things about Powers' writing is that he does not seem to have grown as a writer between publication of The Drawing of the Dark in 1979, and of The Stress of Her Regard ten years later. Dinner at Deviant's Palace falls into the middle of this body of work both in years and in novels. Forsake the Sky was not published until 1986, but the writing is immature and the description uninspired. The book must have been written well before any of the others. One gets the feeling that the other five books could have been written in any order; in fact, that they are permutations of the same basic story. It is particularly surprising to see this failure to progress in a writer of such great technical skill. Also, even though Powers uses the same plot kernel in each of these five novels, he does not lack for invention. All of these books are stuffed with innovative ideas. Dinner at Deviant's Palace won the Philip K. Dick Memorial Award.

Review of The Anubis Gates

                                THE ANUBIS GATES
        
        

        Brendan Doyle, a poet and historian, joins a jaunt back to the 

        eighteenth century that turns deadly...and permanent

        

        Author:  Tim Powers (1952-    )

        

        Subgenre:  Fantasy--historical

        

        Type of work:  Novel

        

        Time of plot:  1802, 1983, 1810-1846, and 1684

        

        Location:  Primarily London, also Cairo

        

        First published:  1983

        

        

        The Plot:  Professor Brendan Doyle is offered a remarkable sum to 

        give a lecture on Samuel Taylor Coleridge...and then to attend an 1810 

        lecture Coleridge gave in London!  The title refers to a set of holes 

        in spacetime, created in 1802 (though Doyle and his employer, J. 

        Cochran Darrow, don't know it) by some worshippers of Anubis; Doyle 

        and his party use one of these holes in 1983 to travel back to 1810.  

             Things start to go wrong as soon as they get to the Crown and 

        Anchor Tavern where Coleridge is supposed to speak:  they have the 

        wrong week!  Fortunately, Coleridge also had the wrong week, and so 

        he gives the lecture anyway.  As they are about to leave, Doyle is 






        kidnapped by a sinister figure.  This is Dr. Romany, head of a band of 

        gypsies, and one of two sorcerors who inadvertently created the 

        Gates in a failed attempt to return the Gods of ancient Egypt, and 

        magic itself, to their former glory.  Romany wants to know why Doyle 

        and his associates are using the Gates, and he takes Doyle to his 

        gypsy camp for torture.  Doyle escapes into the river, and ends up 

        back in London the next morning, having been rescued by onion sellers.  

             Broke and hungry, Doyle is still confident that he'll find work as 

        a writer, but he quickly finds that begging is the only employment he's 

        fit for.  Doyle doesn't know that Romany has enlisted the unsavory 

        beggar and thief guilds let by Horrabin the Clown to look for him.  

        Fortunately, the beggars he's fallen in with don't trust Romany, and 

        help Doyle hide.  Unfortunately, Romany finds him and Doyle is forced 

        to flee, barely escaping with the assistance of a young beggar named 

        Jacky and a gypsy named Damnable Richard.  Doyle is hoping to meet 

        William Ashbless, an American poet Doyle studied back in the 20th 

        century, and get some assistance, financial and otherwise.  Ashbless 

        never shows up where his biography claimed he wrote one of his 

        poems, so Doyle angrily writes the poem from memory.  On his way back 

        to his job of shoveling horse manure he hears someone whistling 

        "Yesterday," by Lennon and McCartney.  Someone else from the 20th 

        century is here in 1810!  

             Romany and Horrabin have discovered that Jacky helped Doyle 

        escape, and Horrabin catches Jacky.  They lock Jacky in an oubliette 

        in the fourth sub-basement, and eerie place that frightens even 

        Horrabin.  Jacky soon discovers why:  it is occupied by horrible 

        creatures, some of which may once have been human.  Horrabin's 

        dwarfed servant Dungy frees Jacky in exchange for a promise to help 






        him kill Horrabin, but she is attacked by some of the denizens of that 

        dark place.  She flees into a magical cave, part of the underground 

        river channel that carries Ra's Boat through the twelve hours of the 

        night.  

             Doyle finds a way, he thinks, to get back to 1983, which he is 

        still determined to do.  He meets an acquaintance from the 20th 

        century, who shoots what appears to be an ape right in front of 

        Doyle.  Actually, the creature is a cast-off body that had been 

        inhabited by Dog-Faced Joe, who is none other than Romany's former 

        partner, possessed by the demented ghost of Anubis and cursed by 

        Anubis with ever-growing fur.  Joe uses magic to trade bodies when 

        the fur gets ahead of the razor, and poisons the bodies he leaves 

        behind so they can't tell tales.  Joe tries the trick on Doyle, but the 

        latter is more sophisticated than Joe's usual victims, and he eats 

        charcoal, which is the antidote for the strychnine Joe ate before 

        trading bodies.  

             

        

        Analysis:  This is, in my opinion, Powers' finest novel to date.  Its 

        fast pacing, one of Powers' hallmarks, never lets up from beginning to 

        end, and marvel is piled on plot twist right up to the last page.  

        Some highlights are further insights into the nature of magic that 

        was first outlined in The Drawing of the Dark, a truly enchanting form 

        of limited time travel, and one of the most bizarre underworlds ever 

        penned.  Powers' theory of magic includes some very engaging twists 

        on old myths.  For instance, the power of a mage's real name 

        presumably derives from its reflection of his inner being.  Thus, when 

        a sorceror undergoes a major personality change, his true name 






        changes as well.  A common theme in Powers' fantasies, as in many 

        fantasies (e.g., Niven's The Magic Goes Away) is the gradual fading of 

        magic.  In Powers' schema, magic fades before the bright light of 

        Christianity.  As the last strongholds of magic-working religions are 

        overwhelmed during the 19th century, magic gradually vanishes.  As 

        part of this process, the universe is actually transformed from a 

        magical world to a scientific one.  For instance, up until 1810, the 

        sun was actually carried by Ra underground in a fabulous boat.  

        However, by the end of the story, the underground channel has 

        hardened into rock, and the sun has become the giant ball of burning 

        gas that it is today.  This is a delightful way to work the paradigm 

        shift, and it is most clearly expressed in this book, although the 

        same basic magical explanation is used in The Drawing of the Dark and 

        On Stranger Tides.  A similar theory underlies the magic in The Stress 

        of her Regard, but in Powers' sixth novel, Last Call, he uses a 

        different paradigm involving the tarot and non-fading magic.  

        

             Interestingly, the name assumed by Doyle, William Ashbless, is 

        that of a poet invented by Powers some years before he wrote The 

        Anubis Gates.  Because the book is about Powers' imaginary poet, it is 

        tempting to suppose that more effort went into writing this one.  

        Certainly Powers brought the grotesque simile, another of his 

        trademarks, to fantastic heights in this book.  "...his blank smile 

        returning to his face like something dead floating to the surface of a 

        pond."  

        

             The plot formula of The Anubis Gates is very similar to that of 

        nearly all of his other novels.  The protagonist encounters a problem, 






        struggles against it, gives himself up to drugs and denial when the 

        going gets tough, but pulls himself together for one last try in the 

        nick of time.  As in all of Powers' novels the protagonist has a lost 

        love; in this book, as in Last Call, the lost love is a dead wife.  

        

             One of the interesting facets of this book is the treatment of 

        immortality.  The Master of Romanelli and Fikee is more than 4,300 

        years old -- and senile.  His two servants, millennia old themselves, 

        continue trudging through the same ruts they seemed to have occupied 

        since they reached adulthood.  Extended life does not bring enhanced 

        wisdom, and one is compelled to pity the doomed sorcerors even while 

        loathing them.  J. Cochran Darrow, the wealthy sponsor of the time 

        trip, has personal immortality as his ultimate goal.  This obsession 

        destroys him in the end, and we are able to pity him too.  

        

             A sinking-ship metaphor appears several times early in the book; 

        in connection with the Egyptian sorcerors and with Darrow; a 

        foreshadowing of their eventual failure to achieve their aims.  This 

        is linked to William Ashbless by a "quote" from his poetry at the 

        beginning of the book, and to the higher workings of magic by Ra's 

        Boat of Millions of Years.