The Anubis Gates in The Alternative Worlds

Oct 17, 2008 Brad rated it liked it

Shelves: speculative, sci-fi, sci-fantasy

More time travel than steampunk, although it has been categorized as the latter, Tim Powers' The Anubis Gates is fun, but it leaves one feeling a little short changed.

The problem is that Powers' story has the narrative scope of Neal Stephenson's Baroque Cycle, but it is packed into a mere 380-ish pages. Beggar's guilds, Egyptian wizards, Romantic poets, business magnates, and prize fighters mix with cross dressing vengeance seekers, mad clowns, body snatchers, fire elementals and gypsies. Time s More time travel than steampunk, although it has been categorized as the latter, Tim Powers' The Anubis Gates is fun, but it leaves one feeling a little short changed.

The problem is that Powers' story has the narrative scope of Neal Stephenson's Baroque Cycle, but it is packed into a mere 380-ish pages. Beggar's guilds, Egyptian wizards, Romantic poets, business magnates, and prize fighters mix with cross dressing vengeance seekers, mad clowns, body snatchers, fire elementals and gypsies. Time slips from 1983 to 1810 to 1660-something and back to 1811, seemingly following a linear path of cause and effect, then spilling paradoxically into a strange whirlpool motion where effect can be cause before effect.

And all of this is tremendously effective.

It generates curiosity, makes one read at high speed, fills the imagination with wonder and provides great entertainment, but it is not enough.

There are huge gaps in the tale, like Brendan Doyle's/William Ashbless' time in Egypt, where the story jumps too quickly, leaving the promise of more adventure -- sweeping adventure, epic adventure -- unfulfilled.

Powers creates characters so compelling, even his supporting characters, that one finds oneself wanting more, but the more never comes. We spend a tantalizing amount of time with Horrabin, the puppeteer-clown-beggar master, but it is never enough. We barely get to know Powers' versions of Lord Byron and Samuel Taylor Coleridge, and then they are gone. There is simply never enough of these characters, and it leaves one feeling cheated.

So in case you haven't already guessed, the great failing of The Anubis Gates is that it leaves the reader wanting more -- too much more. Occasionally that feeling can be healthy, but in this case it is mostly frustrating. Had Powers reduced the scale of The Anubis Gates, or increased the size of his story to match the scale, it could very well have been his masterpiece. But without serious alterations, The Anubis Gates is little more than an entertaining sci-fantasy confection that is difficult to recommend.

But recommend it I shall, to anyone who likes time travel or creepy clowns or good, old fashioned chases. No matter how frustrating The Anubis Gates is, it is never boring nor a waste of time. ...more

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Oct 29, 2008 Sandi rated it really liked it

Shelves: 2008, fantasy

"The Anubis Gates" is a terrific time travel fantasy. I never quite knew where the story was going or what was going to happen next. Tim Powers is one of those writers who packs meaning and significance into every scene. I found myself having to backtrack several times to see if I had missed something. In the last third of the book, there's so much body switching and name changing that I had trouble telling who was who. I really liked the challenge though, it kept me on my toes and it was unlike ...more

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Nov 27, 2007 Sarah rated it it was amazing

Shelves: speculative-fiction, reread, time-travel

I re-read The Anubis Gates for the first time in ages this weekend, prompted by the fact that I've been put on a Readercon panel about the book's handling of time travel. It was one of my favorite novels in high school, and I'm always afraid to reread those, in case they don't hold up. I'm happy to say this one did. Powers' magic-meets-SF time travel theory makes internal sense. I love the way characters appear and reappear, and the arcs they travel over the course of the plot.

...more

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Oct 20, 2008 This Is Not The Michael You're Looking For rated it liked it

Shelves: fiction, fantasy, time-travel

I have mixed thoughts about this book. Some of it is brilliant, some of it is amusing, some of it is irritating. It's a fairly convoluted tale of time travel and magic, complete with body swapping and cameos by famous historical figures, such as Samuel Taylor Coleridge and Lord Byron. The beginning dragged a bit, starts to pick up pace, but occasionally goes off the rails as Powers moved the characters in unexpected directions. Some of these work, some do not, but it made the ebb and flow of the ...more

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Sep 27, 2008 Ubik rated it liked it

Ummm...hmmmm....I definitely have to say that this novel was very memorable and Im glad for finally having read it, BUT -- and maybe this is just due to the "so-overhyped-that-when-one-finally-experiences-it-its-a-letdown phenomenon" -- I dont see what all the hype is about. It seemed that for YEARS EVERY.SINGLE.TIME I mentioned liking time travel to someone they would in turn recommend this novel. In fact they would recommend it SO much that they would come just short of getting on their hands Ummm...hmmmm....I definitely have to say that this novel was very memorable and Im glad for finally having read it, BUT -- and maybe this is just due to the "so-overhyped-that-when-one-finally-experiences-it-its-a-letdown phenomenon" -- I dont see what all the hype is about. It seemed that for YEARS EVERY.SINGLE.TIME I mentioned liking time travel to someone they would in turn recommend this novel. In fact they would recommend it SO much that they would come just short of getting on their hands and knees and begging me to read it. When this happens, it tends to have the opposite effect on me. I tend to avoid it, perhaps just out of stubbornness I dont know. But Ive been wrong before -- most notably with Ender's Game. I finally read that and realized just how amazingly fantastic it is (or is it fantastically amazing? I cant remember)...anyway...

Im not going to say that I didnt like it, but I do feel that just WAY too much was going on for one novel. I also found way too many parts just too unbelievable for my tastes. Ill probably get disputed on that point and thats OK, but let it be known that I come from the science fiction end of the spectrum and I feel that there was too much fantasy in here for my liking. Of course thats probably WHY so many people like it. To each his own I suppose.

I also felt like the story didnt flow all that well. It felt disconnected to me. I loved the beginning and the way they transported to the past (much the same way I loved Jack Finney's Time and Again). I wanted more of that, but then we were just...stuck. I also found myself confused as to who was where and doing what and why in a lot of places. I did love the creepy imagery of the villains, but their characterization seemed WAY over the top to me.

Overall I did like it. I was entertained much like a popcorn movie affects me, but I wouldnt hold it in such high regard as so many other people seem to do. If perhaps Powers had made this a series (or at least just two books) I could have understood it better and felt more in touch with the world that we were plunged in, but even for its almost 400 pages it just didnt seem to flesh things out enough, and yet in some areas it seemed to drag.

I gotta say that I really enjoyed Last Call A LOT moreso than I did this novel. ...more

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Feb 03, 2011 Simon rated it liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: fantasy, fantasy-masterworks

This is a high octane story of a historian who travels back in time and becomes intimately aquainted with the very people and times that he was studying, and in ways which he did not quite expect.

I was gripped by this story from the beginning; you don't have to wait around for much preamble. The action begins almost straight away and the story develops at a break neck pace. At times it even felt rushed. So many events occur, so many characters are introduced that the author barely has time to do ...more

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