Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP
Posting-Version: version B 2.10.1 6/24/83; site decwrl.UUCP
Path: utzoo!watmath!clyde!burl!ulysses!mhuxr!mhuxt!houxm!whuxl!whuxlm!harpo!decvax!ucbvax!decwrl!dec-rhea!dec-miles!chabot
From: chabot@miles.DEC (Bits is Bits)
Newsgroups: net.sf-lovers
Subject: DINNER AT THE DEVIANT'S PALACE; Powers; Blaylock; Ashbless
Message-ID: <1777@decwrl.UUCP>
Date: Tue, 23-Apr-85 11:14:09 EST
Article-I.D.: decwrl.1777
Posted: Tue Apr 23 11:14:09 1985
Date-Received: Thu, 25-Apr-85 03:37:26 EST
Sender: daemon@decwrl.UUCP
Organization: DEC Engineering Network
Lines: 46

Evelyn C. Leeper
>      I realize all this sounds very negative.  The book is not that bad, but
> it's not that good either.  Read his first novel instead, and hope for a
> better one for his third.

Nah.  Probably not.  The first two *published* were Laser books; I read one of
them--it was sort of fun but predictable (and sexist--two women, both stupid
and bad: one old icky, crazy one without teeth, and one fair young thing that
everyone laughs at when she tries poetry and who abandons anyone for anyone-else
who looks to have a bigger purse) in the one-hero-with-good-reflexes-saves-
the-planet (but doesn't get the fair young female! who wants her! women! bah!)
...I read a lot of these, and this one is probably excellent by Laser books
standards.  However.

So unless we start in negative numbers (say, -2), we've already seen Tim Powers'
3rd book.

For those who enjoyed _The_Anubis_Gates_, I recommend _Digging_Leviathan_ by
Blaylock.  You will meet your old friend, that inimitable poet, William 
Ashbless, exploring the ocean deeps off Palos Verdes and the vast underground 
sea beneath LA.  And searching for the marine entrance to the center of the
earth, where all those mermen must have come from.  In about the 1950s.

Blaylock's elf&dwarf books are very gentle, and probably quite suitable to read
to any offspring you might have.  If they're big enough to not have nightmares
full of evil animated skeletons and zombies with murder in their eye-sockets.
They're also humorous, but a good deal of the humor is visual rather than 
verbal, so I had to take pauses sometimes to conjure up a picture of a funny
scene.  The descriptions of these scenes are why the books are so thick.
However, these are more books with invisible women: although one character
does occasionally mention his mother, the only females that take part in the
action are wicked witches.

By the way, every Powers (4 of the 5 I know of) and Blaylock (3 of 3 I know of)
book I've read contains at least a mention of William Ashbless.  Yes, this 
includes Blaylock's two gentle fantasies, _The_Elfin_Ship_ and 
_The_Disappearing_Dwarf_ (Del Rey), which take place in a completely imaginary 
land populated by dwarfs and elves and wizards and are quite unlike Powers' 
books or _Digging_Leviathan_.  Can anyone out there dig up the Laser book I 
didn't read, and see if it too mentions Ashbless?

"Only the mockingbird sings at the edge of the woods."
L S Chabot
...decwrl!dec-rhea!dec-amber!chabot
chabot%amber.DEC@decwrl.ARPA
DEC, LMO4/H4, 150 Locke Drive, Marlborough, MA  01752