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A review by fredsphere
Last Call by Tim Powers
5.0
I loved this. Many of Powers' familiar obsessions are on display: a drunk loser of a protagonist, a villain chasing immortality by possessing other people's bodies, and a magic system that blends pagan, occult, and Christian elements into a weird hash. Yet, the critic was correct who claimed Powers never writes the same book twice. This particular magic system, involving Vegas-style card games played with antique decks of Tarot cards, is dazzlingly original. One example: a magic poker chip transubstantiates into a communion wafer. That is vintage Tim Powers right there.
Powers puts you in the scenes with his descriptive detail: the sights, sounds, and smells of the Nevada desert, or a casino, or a cheap hotel. The descriptions of strategy in a card game Powers apparently invented are especially impressive. And when a male character, forced to disguise himself as a cross-dresser, notices the feel of his heavy makeup in the creases of his face when he smiles, you begin to wonder if there's anything Powers won't do to research his novels.
My one caveat is that the magic in this novel is so inventive and bizarre, it's hard for the reader to anticipate what will come, or to judge characters' acts of magic. That's okay; one should simply relax and enjoy the show. The ending, despite the unpredictable rules, delivers a good dollop of suspense, and we get a satisfying Gothic ending where the Evil Wizard is destroyed by the very power he has unleashed. My favorite author comes through again.
Powers puts you in the scenes with his descriptive detail: the sights, sounds, and smells of the Nevada desert, or a casino, or a cheap hotel. The descriptions of strategy in a card game Powers apparently invented are especially impressive. And when a male character, forced to disguise himself as a cross-dresser, notices the feel of his heavy makeup in the creases of his face when he smiles, you begin to wonder if there's anything Powers won't do to research his novels.
My one caveat is that the magic in this novel is so inventive and bizarre, it's hard for the reader to anticipate what will come, or to judge characters' acts of magic. That's okay; one should simply relax and enjoy the show. The ending, despite the unpredictable rules, delivers a good dollop of suspense, and we get a satisfying Gothic ending where the Evil Wizard is destroyed by the very power he has unleashed. My favorite author comes through again.