[EN World Book Club] The Anubis Gates [April 2004 Selection]
- Thread starter Cthulhu's Librarian
- Start date
beverson
First Post
I'm not sure how one gets invited into this book club, and I hope I'm not overstepping any boundaries, but I had to chime in when I saw the discussion. Tim Powers happens to be my favorite author, and I believe that I have read all of his works, with few exceptions. For any of you who truly enjoyed The Anubis Gates, and are looking to find another Powers fix, you have much, much more to enjoy. I highly recommend On Stranger Tides (my personal favorite), and his most recent - Declare. Those two rank at the top of my list, but I believe that you will enjoy the rest of his works just as well.
I now return you to your regularly scheduled conversation....
I now return you to your regularly scheduled conversation....
Cthulhu's Librarian
First Post
Well, by virtue of posting in this thread, you are now a member of the club!beverson said:
Welcome to the group, and feel free to join in on this or any other book group discussion. So, what are your feelings about The Anubis Gates?
Alaric_Prympax
First Post
Sorry for the delayed post but I was at the Scarborough Faire in Waxahachie, TX and am still recovering from the trip and adjusting to my varied work schedule plus my girlfriend is still in town during her sping break... anyway here goes.
I found the first half of the book slow and I just didn't like it. Maybe because the book is from the early Eighties and might have influenced other things I may have read I found that I was predicting quite a few plot points. But by the middle part of the last chapter of the first half it got quite a bit better though. I did enjoy the second half of the book though I saw the ending quite early on. Would I recommend this to someone else... probably not unless they were very experienced in reading SciFi/Fantasy.
IDHTBIFOM so please forgive any misspellings but I couldn't stand Horrabin and the stiltz were a dead giveaway for staying away from the earth. The Master seemed very ineffective throughout the book. I liked Romany after he was shot and how he showed Brendan 'his' skull though once the fire started I knew what was going on. I did enjoy how Darrow and Dog-Face Joe died. I didn't have a problem with the body switching nor a problem with who was whom throughout the novel. Lastly the Antaeus League was a nice touch for protection though I thought Doyle's message to himself could have been something better. Well that's MO.
I found the first half of the book slow and I just didn't like it. Maybe because the book is from the early Eighties and might have influenced other things I may have read I found that I was predicting quite a few plot points. But by the middle part of the last chapter of the first half it got quite a bit better though. I did enjoy the second half of the book though I saw the ending quite early on. Would I recommend this to someone else... probably not unless they were very experienced in reading SciFi/Fantasy.
IDHTBIFOM so please forgive any misspellings but I couldn't stand Horrabin and the stiltz were a dead giveaway for staying away from the earth. The Master seemed very ineffective throughout the book. I liked Romany after he was shot and how he showed Brendan 'his' skull though once the fire started I knew what was going on. I did enjoy how Darrow and Dog-Face Joe died. I didn't have a problem with the body switching nor a problem with who was whom throughout the novel. Lastly the Antaeus League was a nice touch for protection though I thought Doyle's message to himself could have been something better. Well that's MO.
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drnuncheon
Explorer
Random ramblings...
Spoilers are marked out for other works that I was reminded of:
David Gerrold's The Man Who Folded Himself
Walter Jon Williams' Voice of the Whirlwind
Robert A. Heinlein's "All You Zombies"
This is perhaps the tightest time-travel story I have ever read (the other primary contender being Gerrold's The Man Who Folded Himself), and after I finished it I had to go back and re-read it with foreknowledge to really appreciate it. (If anybody hasn't done this, I highly recommend it.)
Like a lot of other time-travel stories (including the Terminator films!), there's an underlying theme of determinism vs. free will. Doyle had to be in the right place at the right time for all of Ashbless' appearances. Ashbless had to die when he was historically known to do so - which means that at the end of the book, Doyle/Ashbless is no longer guided by 'destiny', but is instead a free man. This is similar to the main character in Voice of the Whirlwind,
There's also the 'closed cycle' (which shows up in Gerrold's book as well): Doyle knows Ashbless' poetry because he studied the man...but it turns out that he never wrote it, just copying it from memory...so where did the poems come from? In TMWFH,
And in Heinlen's short story,
J
Spoilers are marked out for other works that I was reminded of:
David Gerrold's The Man Who Folded Himself
Walter Jon Williams' Voice of the Whirlwind
Robert A. Heinlein's "All You Zombies"
This is perhaps the tightest time-travel story I have ever read (the other primary contender being Gerrold's The Man Who Folded Himself), and after I finished it I had to go back and re-read it with foreknowledge to really appreciate it. (If anybody hasn't done this, I highly recommend it.)
Like a lot of other time-travel stories (including the Terminator films!), there's an underlying theme of determinism vs. free will. Doyle had to be in the right place at the right time for all of Ashbless' appearances. Ashbless had to die when he was historically known to do so - which means that at the end of the book, Doyle/Ashbless is no longer guided by 'destiny', but is instead a free man. This is similar to the main character in Voice of the Whirlwind,
who, on his second cloning, is finally 'free' of the debt that the first clone felt. In VotW the freedom is from self-imposed restrictions rather than ones backed by the weight of history, but the similarities are definitely present.
There's also the 'closed cycle' (which shows up in Gerrold's book as well): Doyle knows Ashbless' poetry because he studied the man...but it turns out that he never wrote it, just copying it from memory...so where did the poems come from? In TMWFH,
the origin of the time-belt has a similar loop - the main character gave it to himself, so where did it come from?
the main character himself is the closed loop - he is his own father, his own mother, and the person who brought his parents together to enable his own birth. His perspective is a unique twist, though: "I know where I came from - where did all you zombies come from?"
J
beverson
First Post
First, let me say that I've never been one to look at my reading material from a literary standpoint - I've always stuck to an entertainment value perspective. I am also a huge fan of time travel.Cthulhu's Librarian said:Well, by virtue of posting in this thread, you are now a member of the club!
So, what are your feelings about The Anubis Gates?
That being said, I thoroughly enjoyed this book. It has been quite some time since I read it last, but I don't recall finding any portion of it slow, or hard to follow, and while not my favorite of Powers' works, I found it to be a very good read. I would have to go back and read it again to comment in any more detail. It never ceases to amaze me how Powers can take an historical setting and/or event, and weave it together so well with his fiction.
Anubis Gates is one of my favorite books by far.
Aside from the time travel angle (which I thought was very well done - and what's wrong with being clever, I wonder?), it's a great story of a normal man thrust into very unusual circumstances, and his following transformation, which is a theme I always liked a great deal.
I also enjoyed the way Powers weaves magic and the supernatural into a historical, real-world setting, and make it seem plausible. I've actually been thinking of running an RPG based on it ever since I've read it.
Aside from the time travel angle (which I thought was very well done - and what's wrong with being clever, I wonder?), it's a great story of a normal man thrust into very unusual circumstances, and his following transformation, which is a theme I always liked a great deal.
I also enjoyed the way Powers weaves magic and the supernatural into a historical, real-world setting, and make it seem plausible. I've actually been thinking of running an RPG based on it ever since I've read it.
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drnuncheon
Explorer
mmu1 said:
Absolutely nothing - especially in a time travel story, where you need to be clever.
One of my favorite moments in that book was the 'Oh!' upon finally realizing who the crazy guy with the skull was, and how it had been set up so many chapters earlier. It was kind of like Memento, seeing things in reverse order - one of my favorite things about time travel stories.
J
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