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Toby's Reviews > The Anubis Gates
The Anubis Gates
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by
A time travel novel featuring sorcery, evil clowns, Ancient Egyptian Gods, body switching, a condensed version of Dante, literary scholars, cross dressing, fencing champions, dog-faced men and Romantic poets.
That opening sentence lost it's short, pithy, catchphrase-like nature somewhere along the way. Mirroring the novel in that way infact.
An American Coleridge expert gets invited on a time travel adventure to hear said poet speak only to find himself trapped in the early 19th century London, adventure and skulduggery ensue. There's so much plot that even Powers doesn't know what to do with it half of the time and after the first two thirds he was either forced to drastically cut whole swathes of storyline or he really liked the idea of a nonstop series of action sequences which repeatedly puts the protagonist in peril with very little linkage between each one.
Prior to this point it was an exciting adventure story, peopled by intriguing characters and entertaining passages of action, if not quite fully evoking the time and place at least giving enough detail to make certain that you're not in 1980s America, the time travel element is dealt with very well and isn't foregrounded to the extent that you're always aware of it and puzzling over it but really this should have been multiple books or at the very least a 900 page novel.
I found myself sucked in to the story by Powers way with words, more reminiscent of the golden period of science fiction than contemporary fantasy novelists and what starts as a pretty typical time travel idea becomes so much more so quickly that you barely have time to draw breath. It's constructed so cleverly and entertains to thoroughly that the switch two thirds of the way through isn't the disaster it might have been in a lesser novel, yes in essence you're dragged over the finish line in a river of blood but he got you there and he entertained you en route. At no point did I even consider giving up early and going home.
All in all a great read that I wouldn't hesitate to recommend to anyone open to a time travel fantasy.
That opening sentence lost it's short, pithy, catchphrase-like nature somewhere along the way. Mirroring the novel in that way infact.
An American Coleridge expert gets invited on a time travel adventure to hear said poet speak only to find himself trapped in the early 19th century London, adventure and skulduggery ensue. There's so much plot that even Powers doesn't know what to do with it half of the time and after the first two thirds he was either forced to drastically cut whole swathes of storyline or he really liked the idea of a nonstop series of action sequences which repeatedly puts the protagonist in peril with very little linkage between each one.
Prior to this point it was an exciting adventure story, peopled by intriguing characters and entertaining passages of action, if not quite fully evoking the time and place at least giving enough detail to make certain that you're not in 1980s America, the time travel element is dealt with very well and isn't foregrounded to the extent that you're always aware of it and puzzling over it but really this should have been multiple books or at the very least a 900 page novel.
I found myself sucked in to the story by Powers way with words, more reminiscent of the golden period of science fiction than contemporary fantasy novelists and what starts as a pretty typical time travel idea becomes so much more so quickly that you barely have time to draw breath. It's constructed so cleverly and entertains to thoroughly that the switch two thirds of the way through isn't the disaster it might have been in a lesser novel, yes in essence you're dragged over the finish line in a river of blood but he got you there and he entertained you en route. At no point did I even consider giving up early and going home.
All in all a great read that I wouldn't hesitate to recommend to anyone open to a time travel fantasy.
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Quotes Toby Liked
“The Spoonsize Boys steal the dollhouse toys while the cat by the fire is curled. Then away they floats in their eggshell boats, down the drains to their underground world.”
― The Anubis Gates
― The Anubis Gates
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Well at boarding school its generally same sex right? So thats Dante sorted.
I must of gone to the wrong school.
I recommend Three Days to Never. I liked this one, but I liked that one better.
Thanks. I have another Powers on the shelf, Last Call, he doesn't strike me as particularly exciting but instead as a good solid writer of entertainments.
I read Last Call too, but now I don't remember if I liked it or not. It's not on my read shelf.
Sounds like what I always imagined boarding school to be like.