I’ve just finished the third of Tim Powers’ triptych set in the universe first introduced in Last Call and continued in Ecpiration Date, and I think my brain is broken.
Not that Earthquake Weather is a bad book. Far from it. There’s just so much detail and information crammed between the covers of these novels, I’m not sure my mind has room for any more thoughts in the immediate future. I’ll definitely need some recovery time.
Earthquake Weather introduces a new protagonist couple, with yet another romance blooming in the ashes of incendiary weirdness and a world turned abruptly unrecognizable to the major players involved. In the first book we had Scott and Diana, in the second, Pete and Angelica. Here we’re introduced to Cochran and Plumtree, both inmates of an insane asylum under the machinations of ghost-eater addict, Dr. Armentrout. Cochran, marked from childhood by the wine god, Dionysis, is struggling to overcome the recent death of his wife and unborn child. Ms. Plumtree, who at any given moment may answer to Janis, Cody, Valorie, or any of a number of names depending on the current occupant of her mind and body, has recently killed the reigning King of the West, and seeks desperately to right the wrong. She wasn’t herself when she stabbed him through the chest with a spear, you see — not any of her selves, that is.
Diana, Plumtree, Cochran, Pete and Angelica and their adopted son (god-in training Kootie), aided by friends and hindered by foes set off on another extremely time-sensitive madcap dash to save our original hero and now dead/strangely undead King, Scott Crane. Since the cycles of the gods are tied to the cycles of the earth, the tides, the natural powers ebbing and flowing in synchronization with the supernatural, these’s no time to rest, no time to slow down. It’s always a race against the clock in this particular Powers ‘verse. The characters hardly get chance to catch their collective breaths. Ditto, the reader.
There’s no way I’m not recommending this trio to anyone who hasn’t read it — these books are simply too unusual and too compelling. And if you’re a huge Powers fan already, the addition of these gorgeous re-released hardcovers from Subterranean with their awesome interior illustrations would be a fantastic addition to any bibliophile’s collection. It’s true that by current standards the writing, particularly in the first book (originally published in 1992), seems somewhat ragged: lots of passive voice, some awkward sentence structure and what feels like a lot of unnecessary word baggage. This lessens by the third book, and certainly doesn’t prove a distraction from the characters, their relentlessly urgent mini-quests within macro-quests, or the richness of the world in which they flounder. These are dense books, densely written and thickly populated with startlingly original ideas. Earthquake Weather is one of those never-ending rabbit hole books, a journey through an eternal Wonderland both unimaginably hostile and incredibly rewarding.
(Subterranean Press 2008)
