Subject: Review: Earthquake Weather, by Tim Powers.

From: [email-masked] (Edward McArdle)
Date: 22 Aug 1999 19:06:56 -0400

Earthquake Weather, Tim Powers
	Review Copyright 1999 Edward McArdle

I went to a kaffeeklatch (yes, I did have to look up how to spell it) with
Tim Powers at the Worldcon in San Antonio. He said, if memory serves
correctly, that he had managed to include references to his two previous
books, Last Call and Expiration Date, in Earthquake weather. This is an
understatement on the level of "Yes, Lazarus is feeling a bit better now."
This book is a direct continuation of both books, with about three new
characters introduced. Scott Crane, the protagonist of Last Call, has been
killed just before the book opens, and the main question of the plot is
whether this is permanent. There is one passing reference, I have been
told, to another earlier book, a pub which appears in more than one
location.

If you are a fan already of Powers, and have read the two earlier books,
go straight to this one. If not, I suggest you read them first.  Even more
I suggest you read The Anubis Gates, which has nothing to do with any of
this, but is a very good book!

As a comic reader, there are some comics I read as much for the art as the
story, and there are some writers I read as much for their prose as the
story. Joseph Conrad, for instance. I like to read every word, instead of
skimming through. As you may guess, Earthquake Weather is such a book, so
it took me longer than usual to read.

I believe that just about all the lore about vampires was made up by Bram
Stoker in Dracula. In similar fashion, Powers simply makes up all the lore
of his world. But the detail is piled on so much that it all hangs
together. In his world, every superstition, of every religion, is true.
People can steal parts of your soul by shuffling tarot cards in front of
you. The ghosts of the dead hang around by fashioning bodies from the
litter lying in the streets. They are attracted by palindromes. You can
make yourself psychically invisible by designing your house in a certain
way. Card games are magic, even. Shakespeare's plays are full of the
secrets of magic.

The story is wound, in some way, in with Troilus and Cressida, and with
Dickens' Tale of Two Cities. Chapters begin with quotes, which in at least
some cases I suspect Powers made up himself (a noble tradition begun by
Sir Walter Scott).

One trouble with this sort of world is that you can't solve things for
yourself, as in a murder mystery, or guess outcomes. You simply read, and
see what the author puts in front of you. Another is that the story may
have no characters who are closely related to our reality enough that you
can feel an interest in them. In this book we do have a fairly
'real-world' based hero, Sid 'Scant' Cochran. But he quickly accepts the
weirdness of his world.  The third new character is the villain, Dr
Armentrout. I felt he had a big introduction, then faded away into a
peripheral role.

The eventual tension pivots around the god Dionysius. All through the
story the main characters seem to be drinking vast amounts of alcohol.
Interestingly, the female lead, who has multiple personalities, can be
rotten drunk in one persona, but sober when another personality takes
over.  If Scott Crane is returned to life, will someone else have to
sacrifice his or her body? Will someone else have to sacrifice their soul?
Powers' books tend to be sold as science fiction, but they are something
different now. The Anubis Gates was about time travel, and was squarely in
the field, but later books are hard to classify.

%A Powers, Tim
%T Earthquake Weather.
%O Hardback, US$24.95
%D Oct 1997
%C New York
%G ISBN 0-312-86163-X
%P 414 pp

Edward McArdle.
http://www.ozemail.com.au/~mcardle
-me, my tennis club, golf, verses, novel, a crostic puzzle, random photos...

and
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