Reviews

Down and Out in Purgatory: The Collected Stories of Tim Powers by Tim Powers

nigellicus's review

adventurous dark funny mysterious tense

5.0

It turns out a number of these stories were also in Strange Itineries which I read last year, but rereading them was hardly a chore and that was a library book and this one is mine all mine. Powers deploys time loops and ghosts and ghost loops and looping time ghosts over and over again and each time there is something new and original about them. I daresay it'd be facile to credit his Catholicism for his facility at deploying the almost ritualistic logic of dealing with ghosts and time travel, but as a raised Catholic myself, it seems that there's something he just gets right about them, moves them out of the fantasy/horror cliches of robed figures in darkened woods or mud-smeared shaman-types and into the everyday manipulation of ourselves and the things around us in patterns and repetitions or carefully ordered sequences used to create deeper meanings and find the power to shift things that aren't bound by the physical laws we understand. Making magic mundane, like the roads and boulevards of his beloved Los Angeles revealing stranger things underneath to marvel at.

branch_c's review

4.0

I’m not a big fan of short stories, but I am a big fan of Tim Powers, so I had read most of these before; only Appointment on Sunset and Dispensation were new to me, and this second one was particularly cool and unexpected, if extremely short. I also took the opportunity to re-read Nobody’s Home, Parallel Lines, and The Hour of Babel. Of the others, I highly recommend Where They Are Hid, A Soul in a Bottle, A Journey of Only Two Paces, and Salvage and Demolition.

nedhayes's review

5.0

An anthology of stories by a master of the fantastic, writing at the top of his game.

raforall's review

4.0

Review in the November 1, 2017 issue of Booklist and on the blog: http://raforall.blogspot.com/2017/11/what-im-reading-booklist-reviews-raid.html

fredkiesche's review

dark emotional lighthearted medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• Strong character development? It's complicated
• Loveable characters? It's complicated
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

5.0

karwolfkill's review against another edition

2.0

Hmm, I read this just after C.S. Lewis's The Great Divorce, and unfortunately I'm having a hard time not comparing them. There are elements in both books that have not dated well. Power's characters are a little more complex, but Lewis's afterlife is way more compelling. I did not care for the ending in this one.

jameseckman's review

2.0

Most of these shorts have appeared in other collections, and while many are an good read once, I wasn't up to rereading some of them. Being a SoCal native many of the locations are familiar to me, Powers does capture some of the oddities and atmosphere of LA thirty or forty year or so years ago. If you've never read any of Tim Powers' short works, this is a decent selection.

As for longer works, I enjoy the [b:The Anubis Gates|142296|The Anubis Gates|Tim Powers|https://images.gr-assets.com/books/1344409006s/142296.jpg|2193115] the most, his later works are more atmosphere and less action along with being too serious.