Ride Metro: I have to say this is the first Tim Powers book I have ever read. I bought it because the plot outline made so little sense that I figured the author must have done a hell of a job to get his story straight. He did. I especially enjoyed the mixture of the fantastic and surreal ghost-ridden society smoothly blended with present day Los Angeles. I have to say, I rode the LA public buses for a year, so that may explain part of my fascination for the novel. Using an accurate description of LA as a sober backdrop of this fantasy story works wonders in my opinion. It made me believe and go along with all of the novel's twists and turns. Young boy swallows the ghost of Edison which used to be kept on the mantlepiece? Sure!

http://nhw.livejournal.com/1097516.ht...

I enjoyed it. Set in California at Halloween 1992, it features the ghost of Thomas Alva Edison being pursued by various unsavoury people and entities. Powers conveys a real sense of the place and time - lots of references to the Clinton / Bush election campaign, and gritty portrayals of the people and localities of the greater LA area. Great fun. ( )

http://www.amazon.com/review/RJJKP3Q9... ( )

i dunno why i find Tim Powers difficult to read, in spite of his excellent powers of invention. but somehow i always have to plow through them doggedly, which sorta takes the fun out. in spite of, here, the most marvelous conceit, of ghosts more real than the living world, prized by collectors, pursued by ghost junkies who want to swallow them, taste the vintage. should be a romp, and he takes the whole concept to every possible conclusion. but i still like his books more in retrospect than when i'm reading. aside: boy, Thomas edison's really a popular guy these days; seems like he turns up everywhere. ( )

(Alistair) Well, the first comment I have is essentially the same comment I expect to have on all the Tim Powers books I end up booklogging about; namely, it's full of intricate worldbuilding, and detailed well-drawn characters - almost too many, in fact - and intricately intertwined plot threads which make you take a while to figure out their intertwining, and frankly, it's so chock-full of all of those things that it takes you half the book to get a basic handle on what's going on, if you haven't simply bounced off it in despair by that point.

The thing is, it should be a very good book. It has all those good points I described above, and a very involved plot concerning ghosts, and ghost-eaters (people who eat those ghosts for pleasure and or power), the exceptionally potent ghost of Thomas Edison, and all kinds of complexities regarding people's pasts and their connections. And indeed, I did enjoy reading it, so by that standard I don't think it can be a bad book.

But it just left me feeling rather... unsatisfied.

( http://weblog.siliconcerebrate.com/ce... ) ( )