I'll give "Dinner at Deviant's Palace," by Tim Powers a "+" with the caveat that I would have given it only a weak "+" if I'd had to rate it before I read the ending.
I bought this book because I had read one of Tim Powers' other books-- "The Anubis Gates"-- and loved it. "Dinner" is not as good, but was at least entertaining.
It's set in the LA of the future (aren't they all?), which is now spelled "Ellay." There has been sort of a societal breakdown, although we aren't told exactly what happened at first. There is a new economic system based on liquor: money consists of chips in denominations of "fifths" and "pints"; a special kind of brandy is called Currency brandy, and it counts as money too; the national treasury has been replaced by the national distillery. Leaders are called "Aces," in a card-game analogy.
You get the picture. It's the typical scenario: society falls apart, and men grab power, setting up an essentially medieval world. Women get to play the usual parts: whore, evil seductress, damsel in distress, or religious acolyte. (Whee).
I admit that I was a little turned off reading the set-up, but then again, the main villain of the book seemed to be a cult-like Christian group that turned its converts into babbling morons. That sounded promising. The hero, Gregorio Rivas, had actually been one of these converts for a couple years, then spent another 7 or 8 working as "redeemer"-- someone who goes into the cult and "rescues" people who have been seduced before they turn into babbling morons.
Redeeming is a dangerous line of work, and only a few can do it for long-- kind of like pro football. So Rivas, at age thrity-one, is retired at the beginning of the book. He's working as a musician in a bar. I found this to be another appealing aspect of the book: Rivas is not some 22-year-old stud in the prime of life. He's a reluctant hero, aware that he's getting a little older, aware that he needs to think about his life plan instead of just where he's going to party next weekend.
This sets Rivas up to ask himself some questions that the heroes of these action books never bother to ask. Things like, "Am I just a self-centered jerk? Was I wrong to bargain for high pay to do this redemption-- after all, how can you put a monetary value on someone's life? Why am I really doing this?"
Rivas eventually agrees to do just one more redemption because it involves the object of his first teenage crush. He hasn't seen her for years, and in fact, he made a complete fool of himself when he was 18 at a party with her, but somehow, he needs to close this chapter in his life.
The plot involves Rivas going into the jaybirds (the cult of Norman Jaybush, the arch-villain) one more time, looking for his "quarry," and then unwittingly discovering the Deep, Dark Secret behind Norman Jaybush and his cult. It's a pretty sinister and cool conspiracy-- something that Tim Powers excels at. (Read "The Anubis Gates" for another example).
Anyway, I won't spoil the ending on this page, so I'll just say that it winds up better than you might have guessed after hearing about the male-fantasy medieval world and the trite Quest to Save the First Love.
And it's mildly amusing to read what Powers has done to LA in this broken world. (The evil fortress is in Irvine, for example, and there is the constant threat of some army marching in from "San Berdoo.")
Overall, a "+".
To read some further comments, which contain spoilers for the ending, click here.
Copyright © Kim Allen 2000
