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vailynst's review against another edition
5.0
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This book made me want to re-read the whole trilogy again! There are so many details that are woven together and come to a different light/connection/etc in this book. I actually listened to this one about 2x in order to make sure I had the events/details down pat.
Powers is one of the best authors of taking old fables/myths/weird and making them a part of today.
This book made me want to re-read the whole trilogy again! There are so many details that are woven together and come to a different light/connection/etc in this book. I actually listened to this one about 2x in order to make sure I had the events/details down pat.
Powers is one of the best authors of taking old fables/myths/weird and making them a part of today.
moonbroth's review against another edition
3.0
Review by David Langford: http://www.ansible.co.uk/writing/earthquk.html
otterno11's review against another edition
2.0
I read the first book of the Faultline trilogy, [b: Last Call: Fault Lines #1|209690|Last Call (Fault Lines, #1)|Tim Powers|https://d.gr-assets.com/books/1348846326s/209690.jpg|2720323], some years ago and recall having quite enjoyed its novel take on fusing mythology and magic with mundane history, intertwining the legends of the Arthurian Fisher King and the archetypes of the Tarot cards with the history of Las Vegas and its gambling. The cast of characters was weird, the history was arcane, the action was packed and I was loving it. The second, [b: Expiration Date: Fault Lines #2|209691|Expiration Date (Fault Lines, #2)|Tim Powers|https://d.gr-assets.com/books/1430786189s/209691.jpg|589090], introduced the secret world of ghosts and those who “smoke” them on the mean streets of LA and began to be a little bogged down with all of the cool details. Finally, I just read the last of the series, Earthquake Weather, which brought together the themes and characters from the first two and all their cool ideas, and just became a bit too unwieldy in the culmination.
Here, Scott Crane, the hapless everyman of Last Call who found himself set up for the role of the King of the West, has been murdered in Southern California, his kingship up for grabs. Formerly ghost-possessed teen Koot Hoomie Parganas and his adoptive parents from Expiration Date may be set up to take up the mantle, but do they want it? Finally, Plumtree, the woman who houses the disembodied spirit who killed Crane, and “Scant” Corcoran, another hapless everyman, having escaped from a murderous, ghost-haunted psychiatrist, find that they might need the aid of the god Dionysus himself and his fabled wine to put to right Crane’s death and save themselves. Trying to tie together the battle for the archetypical “kingship of the West,” all of Expiration Date’s ghost lore, and the wine based mythology of Dionysus might have been a bit too much, especially when they have to fill in some characters on existence of all this supernatural stuff.
That’s not to say there’s nothing to enjoy- as in the previous books, much interesting tidbits and weird coincidences of historical figures are explained in a magical light- from Bugsy Siegel to Thomas Edison to Mary Ellen Pleasant, from the Queen Mary to the Winchester Mystery House, and it can be difficult to separate out the real from the extrapolated. However, here, I felt that there was just too much packed in, just too many threads and elements that bogged down the action and pace this time around. There was quite a bit of egregious info dumping, sometimes not even masked under long, detailed conversations among the large stable of characters. Occasionally, paragraphs were set aside for simply filling us in in the long backstory of various minor characters and how all the threads fit together, which, however interesting they were, dragged the pace of the story to a crawl. Also, I was less enamored of the role of destiny and fate this time around, which made the proceedings feel a bit preordained.
In the end, Earthquake Weather does an okay job at pulling all of the threads from the previous two novels into a tangled but complete ending in which most, if not all, come to a complete resolution. The feeling of the unavoidable destiny and the pages of exposition, though, really tangled up the reader here, I felt, and I would not recommend this one unless you really loved both previous books and really need to know what happens, or are super into Greek and Arthurian mythology in the modern world.
Here, Scott Crane, the hapless everyman of Last Call who found himself set up for the role of the King of the West, has been murdered in Southern California, his kingship up for grabs. Formerly ghost-possessed teen Koot Hoomie Parganas and his adoptive parents from Expiration Date may be set up to take up the mantle, but do they want it? Finally, Plumtree, the woman who houses the disembodied spirit who killed Crane, and “Scant” Corcoran, another hapless everyman, having escaped from a murderous, ghost-haunted psychiatrist, find that they might need the aid of the god Dionysus himself and his fabled wine to put to right Crane’s death and save themselves. Trying to tie together the battle for the archetypical “kingship of the West,” all of Expiration Date’s ghost lore, and the wine based mythology of Dionysus might have been a bit too much, especially when they have to fill in some characters on existence of all this supernatural stuff.
That’s not to say there’s nothing to enjoy- as in the previous books, much interesting tidbits and weird coincidences of historical figures are explained in a magical light- from Bugsy Siegel to Thomas Edison to Mary Ellen Pleasant, from the Queen Mary to the Winchester Mystery House, and it can be difficult to separate out the real from the extrapolated. However, here, I felt that there was just too much packed in, just too many threads and elements that bogged down the action and pace this time around. There was quite a bit of egregious info dumping, sometimes not even masked under long, detailed conversations among the large stable of characters. Occasionally, paragraphs were set aside for simply filling us in in the long backstory of various minor characters and how all the threads fit together, which, however interesting they were, dragged the pace of the story to a crawl. Also, I was less enamored of the role of destiny and fate this time around, which made the proceedings feel a bit preordained.
In the end, Earthquake Weather does an okay job at pulling all of the threads from the previous two novels into a tangled but complete ending in which most, if not all, come to a complete resolution. The feeling of the unavoidable destiny and the pages of exposition, though, really tangled up the reader here, I felt, and I would not recommend this one unless you really loved both previous books and really need to know what happens, or are super into Greek and Arthurian mythology in the modern world.
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