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urat_forta's review against another edition
2.0
I just didn’t find this book to be much of anything. It wasn’t thrilling, it wasn’t suspenseful, it wasn’t funny. I didn’t have her become invested in any character, didn’t care about the outcome. It was an interesting concept but executing left a lot to be desired for me.
dantastic's review against another edition
4.0
Gregorio Rivas used to be the best redemptionist in the business but now he's just a pelican gunner in a band in Ellay. At least, he was until the Distiller of the Treasury shows up and sends him on a mission: to rescue his daughter from the Jaybirds. Is Rivas still up to the task and can he keep from becoming one of Norton Jaybush's followers?
Tim Powers' books are always full of crazy ideas but this one takes the taco. Dinner At Deviant's Palace is a post-apocalyptic story with a level of weirdness that only Tim Powers can deliver. Brandy is used as currency. Bloodsucking monsters called hemogoblins are on the loose. The new Messiah is a rotund madman named Norton Jaybush and his crazed followers are the Jaybirds. Jaybush's sacrament is a weird psychic pulse that gradually erodes the mind of the Jaybird who receives it. There's also a street drug called Blood that is mysteriously similar to the sacrament. I said this was weird, right?
Gregorio Rivas goes from being a selfish musician to being something of a hero and has his ass repeatedly handed to him in the process. Powers never seems very sympathetic to his leads and Rivas is no exception.
Part of the fun of Dinner At Deviant's Palace is trying to decode what landmarks and cities in California Powers was referring to. Ellay is obviously Los Angeles, for instance.
I'd recommend this to all Tim Powers fans and also fans of post-apocalyptic fiction. Rivas isn't as tough as Snake Plissken but he gets the job done.
Tim Powers' books are always full of crazy ideas but this one takes the taco. Dinner At Deviant's Palace is a post-apocalyptic story with a level of weirdness that only Tim Powers can deliver. Brandy is used as currency. Bloodsucking monsters called hemogoblins are on the loose. The new Messiah is a rotund madman named Norton Jaybush and his crazed followers are the Jaybirds. Jaybush's sacrament is a weird psychic pulse that gradually erodes the mind of the Jaybird who receives it. There's also a street drug called Blood that is mysteriously similar to the sacrament. I said this was weird, right?
Gregorio Rivas goes from being a selfish musician to being something of a hero and has his ass repeatedly handed to him in the process. Powers never seems very sympathetic to his leads and Rivas is no exception.
Part of the fun of Dinner At Deviant's Palace is trying to decode what landmarks and cities in California Powers was referring to. Ellay is obviously Los Angeles, for instance.
I'd recommend this to all Tim Powers fans and also fans of post-apocalyptic fiction. Rivas isn't as tough as Snake Plissken but he gets the job done.
kilcannon's review against another edition
3.0
I think Tim Powers must have been spending a lot of time with K.W. Jeter when he wrote this.
Nutty dystopian trippy icky nonsense fun with just enough pretentiousness to seem like it's about something.
Nutty dystopian trippy icky nonsense fun with just enough pretentiousness to seem like it's about something.
es42's review against another edition
3.0
The story and the writing are great, but the characters are quite bland. Basically only Rivas, the protagonist is properly fleshed out.
vanncrowe's review against another edition
4.0
Struggled to start, really enjoyed the character towards the end. Best space vampire cult post apocalyptic tale I’ve read. Should know by now to trust Tim Powers.
johnwillson's review against another edition
5.0
All the wonderful weirdness that we expect from Tim Powers. If it had less impact on me than his other works, it is because this one's imaginative post-apocalyptic setting is a bit more removed from real life (I hope!). Still, it was very engaging and I greatly enjoyed reading it.
katmarhan's review
4.0
Post-apocalyptic dystopia from the mid 1980s. Twisted, creative, predictable in some ways and totally unpredictable in others.
verkisto's review against another edition
3.0
So, here's an oddity for you: A Tim Powers novel that takes place in the future. I'm so accustomed to Powers using real history to tell a spooky fantasy tale that I was taken by surprise by this book. I mean, I wasn't worried -- Tim Powers is an excellent author to lead you by the hand through his unique imagination -- but my expectations were different.
The story here is set in Los Angeles a few hundred years after a nuclear war, where a religion has formed around a mysterious character named Jaybush. The main character, Rivas, is an ex-member of the cult, which puts him in a good position to rescue people from it, and he spent time working as a redeemer, who would go in and retrieve people from the Jaybush cult for the right price. Now, he's a gunner who performs music at bars, but when someone comes in and requests his services as a redeemer to rescue his ex-girlfriend, he finds it hard to say no.
Powers uses modern technology in a wasted future to great success. You can see on the cover of the book that one of the characters drives a car led by horses, and at one point in the story, he notes that people still let their vehicles stand, boarded and ready, for a minute or two on cold mornings before flicking the horses' reins to get going. "Toothtalkers" also appear in the novel, as metal-toothed prophets who receive messages from the spirits in their teeth. Our main character, however, tells us that it's been at least ten years since he heard a convincing toothtalker, and even then only on the tops of mountains. He also notes that the amount of metal on modern toothtalkers' teeth is only for show, as the real toothtalkers he remembers only had trace amounts of metal in their teeth. It's a neat riff on what Arthur C. Clarke said: "Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic." These kinds of co-opted technologies set a tone for the novel, where you expect the supernatural elements to somehow tie in to older technologies. As the story progresses, though, it's harder to make that connection, as the pseudo-religious aspects of it defy explanation.
Powers' usual straightforward style and characterization is present here, and will be familiar to those who enjoy his books. The plot, though, is a bit substandard. It doesn't feel as tight as his other books I've read, and it seems that Powers relies too much on coincidence to keep the story moving forward. When Rivas finds himself stranded in a big city, he remembers someone he once knew there, and is able to get help from her. She's not mentioned previously in the story, and once she provides assistance, she disappears from the story. This kind of thing happens more than once as the plot gets further and further along, and it didn't sit well with me.
The book is a little disappointing, partly because the conclusion seemed a little too ridiculous, and partly because Powers has written some damn fine novels. When Powers releases a mediocre book like this one (especially after the brilliant The Anubis Gates), it becomes one of those "This would have been a great first novel for someone else, but isn't up to the standard Powers has set with his other books" book. On the other hand, I found myself better able to follow what was going on here, which is more than I can say for his well-received The Stress of Her Regard. I can see people wanting to read it, because it's Tim Powers, but I'd save it for last; it's simply not among his best efforts.
The story here is set in Los Angeles a few hundred years after a nuclear war, where a religion has formed around a mysterious character named Jaybush. The main character, Rivas, is an ex-member of the cult, which puts him in a good position to rescue people from it, and he spent time working as a redeemer, who would go in and retrieve people from the Jaybush cult for the right price. Now, he's a gunner who performs music at bars, but when someone comes in and requests his services as a redeemer to rescue his ex-girlfriend, he finds it hard to say no.
Powers uses modern technology in a wasted future to great success. You can see on the cover of the book that one of the characters drives a car led by horses, and at one point in the story, he notes that people still let their vehicles stand, boarded and ready, for a minute or two on cold mornings before flicking the horses' reins to get going. "Toothtalkers" also appear in the novel, as metal-toothed prophets who receive messages from the spirits in their teeth. Our main character, however, tells us that it's been at least ten years since he heard a convincing toothtalker, and even then only on the tops of mountains. He also notes that the amount of metal on modern toothtalkers' teeth is only for show, as the real toothtalkers he remembers only had trace amounts of metal in their teeth. It's a neat riff on what Arthur C. Clarke said: "Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic." These kinds of co-opted technologies set a tone for the novel, where you expect the supernatural elements to somehow tie in to older technologies. As the story progresses, though, it's harder to make that connection, as the pseudo-religious aspects of it defy explanation.
Powers' usual straightforward style and characterization is present here, and will be familiar to those who enjoy his books. The plot, though, is a bit substandard. It doesn't feel as tight as his other books I've read, and it seems that Powers relies too much on coincidence to keep the story moving forward. When Rivas finds himself stranded in a big city, he remembers someone he once knew there, and is able to get help from her. She's not mentioned previously in the story, and once she provides assistance, she disappears from the story. This kind of thing happens more than once as the plot gets further and further along, and it didn't sit well with me.
The book is a little disappointing, partly because the conclusion seemed a little too ridiculous, and partly because Powers has written some damn fine novels. When Powers releases a mediocre book like this one (especially after the brilliant The Anubis Gates), it becomes one of those "This would have been a great first novel for someone else, but isn't up to the standard Powers has set with his other books" book. On the other hand, I found myself better able to follow what was going on here, which is more than I can say for his well-received The Stress of Her Regard. I can see people wanting to read it, because it's Tim Powers, but I'd save it for last; it's simply not among his best efforts.
nwhyte's review against another edition
One of Powers' most sustainedly bizarre novels; tremendously engaging.