The Anubis Gates

• I *really* struggled to get through this book. Granted, it’s 40 years old (published in 1983), but I found the multiple breaks in thought, dialogue, and plot forced upon the reader by the author in his overuse of commas made it very difficult to enjoy or even (at times) follow the tale. This sounds petty, right? But it’s not. Commas, in themselves, are not the issue, although the author is apparently very, VERY fond of them. Methinks he might even hold the period in healthy disregard. But when you have a single sentence that runs on & on with multiple insertions of side issues/ideas/comments, it takes away from the MAIN point the author is (supposed to be) making in that one sentence. Some of these single sentences end up being one long paragraph. Maybe that was the style of writing in 1983, but this book DID NOT AGE well. And oddly enough, where the author SHOULD have commas, he often did not, again making it difficult to read/follow.• Consider this excerpt: “At the parade ground in front of the Citadel the ranks of mainland Mamelukes were joined by the Bahrite Beys, and for fifteen hot minutes—during which Eshvlis sweated into the appallingly expensive borrowed robe and let Ameen’s horse follow Hathi’s, who rode just ahead of him—all but one of the four hundred and eighty Mameluke Beys, the tribe of one-time slaves that had risen to absolute control of the country, and had in recent years fallen only a little from that zenith, paraded in colorful, barbaric splendor under the empty blue sky of Egypt.”UGH! That is one VERY LONG sentence! 96 words in all. That’s too much to swallow at one time. Alas, the editor of this book did the author no favors.• Despite my difficulty in reading & parsing the tale like it was a Wikipedia entry, I did admire the twisting plot and concepts of holes in time through which one or more people can slip. The other main conceit in the book is the body-jumping personality of “Dog-Faced Joe”, which made for an interesting (but at times, very confusing) tale. Another good point about the book is that the author is clearly knowledgeable about London in 1810 and 1684, which I appreciated.• However, his extended references to street names and city areas WITHOUT many accompanying descriptions of these areas were often lost on me and served to only frustrate me more. I’ve been to London a couple of times and spent time down on the Thames from Westminster to Tower Bridge and Soho to Whitehall, but I didn’t recognize ANY of these places because the author failed to describe them adequately enough.• Another frustrating impediment to my enjoyment of the book was the author’s refusal to name his characters (or clearly identify them) until 10-15 paragraphs into a new section/chapter (and in one case, going several pages until the very last line of the section in which the character’s name appeared). And when you are reading a story that involves a villain who swaps minds with his victim (leaving the victim with body-mind mismatch), it becomes even more important to use character names rather than characteristics. Honestly, with a cast of characters edging close to twenty in number, their individual traits start to get jumbled without a name you can hang them on. Was it Benner that had the limp or Doyle? Was it the clown-faced beggar king Horrabin who jumped to 1684 or his master Doctor Romany? Who’s the man who washes up downriver after attempting to drown himself in the Thames after a Dog-Faced-Joe attack? On top of all that, toss in the fact that there are multiple versions of Romany, Doyle, and Lord Byron and—ouch!—it’s getting pretty complicated and full in my head. I guess I should have written out a Dramatis Personae for the book so I could follow all the characters and their quirks, but that’s too much work! Like I said, I really REALLY struggled to get through this book.• I liked the ending of this confusing, twisting tale, though. It was a wild ride in the end, with many things happening all at the same time—a mark of a great ending. The final resolution was well done and brought to a satisfying conclusion.

Like declare, stress of her regard, and other titles of his, Powers does nice job of dovetailing historical events and writing into a compelling supernatural thrill ride.

I liked this book by Tim Powers. It dealt with time travel, which is the genre I write in, and it dealt with Magic, which is fantasy and one of my favorite genres to read.It has a reasonably complex plot, but nothing that confuses the reader.It's great to read a time travel story where the story validates history. By that, I mean that history isn't changed by the protagonist's actions. Rather, the protagonist, while working toward his own self-interest, actually brings recorded history to fruition. Mr. Powers is better at this than I am.I probably review books a little harsher than most because I'm also an author, and very picky (my wife says). My only gripe with this story has to do with the use of pronouns. There are several times in the book where the pronoun "he" was used and I never figured out which character the author was referring to. Those events took me out of the story momentarily, which is something you never want to do. But don't let that put you off the book. These events didn't get in the way of a great story idea, which I think this is. I wish I had thought of it.Other than that one thing, I very much enjoyed the story and look forward to reading more of Mr. Powers' work. Thank you, sir, for some wonderful hours of entertainment.

Ok, now why did I write that? Because The Anubis Gates was on several lists of all-time best science fiction and steampunk novels. This novel is many things... time travel, science fiction, horror, fantasy, paranormal... but steampunk it ain't 'folks! Nope, not one whiff of steam powered anything. If you're looking for steampunk, look elsewhere.That being said, this story was a pretty wild ride if you like crazy Egyptian wizards with spring-soled shoes that go boing! And werewolf body snatchers and crazy clowns that live in the London sewers. I can tell it was written some years ago, because it seems to be created in the era before novels of this type were planned trilogies. Honestly, the novel could have actually benefitted from being broken up a bit, because sometimes the action and 'chase' scenes go on so hot and heavy for pages and pages pages without stop. While thrilling, this can make for some exhausting reading and it would be better to just PAUSE the action for a bit in key spots. Some of the secondary characters would have also been much the better for a bit more development if that had been the case. Because honestly, this story has a lot to process.I see why Anubis Gates makes the classic list, and I guess I can see why it's a bit of an undiscovered gem, but I've read some that are better constructed from this era (seems to be 1980s). Huge points for sheer creativity though.

This book has been suggested as being a Steam Punk classic, although really its more a story about time-travel with a few quirky characters and odd situations thrown in – along the lines of HG Wells The Time Machine meets Terry Prattchett.So its imaginative and interesting and much of the story is about the main character being transported back in time and becoming stuck in London in 1810.However being both interested in history and originally from London myself I found parts of the book very frustrating where there are cultural and historical blunders that completely spoil the moment.For example, the dialogue of beggars from pre-Victorian London is very Americanised, they call each other ‘Pal’ or ‘Man’ instead of ‘mate’, they refer to ‘garbage’ instead of ‘rubbish’, they have ‘pants’ and not ‘trousers’, etc. Theres no cockney slang here!!Historical characters have modern names like Colin and Bob, instead of olde traditional English names like George, Alfred, Thomas, Charles, William, etc.The London beggars in the book drink wine and brandy at every occasion – but wine was the tipple of the snooty upper classes, brandy would be considered ‘very French’ and the recent wars with France made this unpopular. Gin was the favourite tipple of the average Londoner around this time and is still popular with many Londoners today.The author doesn’t seem to have researched old English currency either, which admittedly is very confusing compared to decimal – ie guineas , crowns, shillings, farthings, threepenny bits, halfpennys, pennies, etc . In the book a lot of payments for things like food are made with gold sovereigns – but these were not invented until 1817 so wouldn’t have existed yet. And pub grub with beer in the early 1800s would cost just a couple of pennies tops – certainly not sovereigns!These things aside though… If you enjoy time-travel fantasy stories and can forget what you might know about history or be put off by Americanised dialogue, this is something I’d still recommend.

Bought this on the recommendation of a work colleague, while we were discussing the genre of time travel, one I have always enjoyed.I'd not come across Tim Powers before, so came to the book with an open mind, but a reasonable expectation of a good read.I found the book to be an engaging romp across mainly three eras, which give the author the opportunity to paint the picture of three different time settings. Some of the descriptions baulk a little and feel more like a caricature of other people's writing rather than the product of first-hand research, but overall I felt it was easy enough to suspend disbelief and get into the occasionally confusing storyline.There are a fair number of characters to track and to keep everything straight in your mind when there are time leaps happening proved to be a bit of a challenge, but not so much that it interfered too badly with enjoying the story. The magical/sorcerous elements of how time travel is achieved also felt a bit flimsy and leaky, but, again, not too much to stop the plot - it felt sometimes as though I had to go 'lalalalalalala don't know, don't care' in order to sustain the suspension. If I had been tempted to start to analyse the devices in more depth, I rather suspect they may not have entirely held up.I did enjoy the creation of the world of the beggars in early 19th century London and the rival gangs were fun. Also, the dénouement and final reveal was worth the wait.Overall, then, I would recommend this as worth reading for any time travel/fantasy fan and, indeed, I have gone on to buy a collection of short stories by Tim Powers that I am currently reading, so that is recommendation enough, really.

Enjoyable read.I thought the pace was uneven, seeming to run into the mud a few times, and the denouement was hurried, but the story in general kept me gripped.Bits I would improve - more explanation of the gates, how the body-switcher became established, the life of the kas...I read a review that suggested this could have turned into a multi-volume work, and I tend to agree - there are so many ideas that are barely introduced, never mind explained. We might have benefited from a work of greater length.So there's a lot in it, and it might tick the boxes for those who like a bit of magic, time travel, thriller and historical detail.

This took me a fair while to get into it, I put it down after a few chapters and couldn't bring myself to pick it up. When I did eventually pick it up I persevered and I started to get into it, not sure whether it's me not being a great fan of fantasy albeit I like Game Of Thrones, or the first few chapters were hard going. All that said the story-line was good and was pretty gripping, i'm glad I did persevere because in the end it was an enjoyable read but somewhat weird to my normal reading taste, and when I say normal, I mean normal to me!It's a story about time travel but so much more than that, science, horror, historical, magic, sorcery and the list goes on and on. It's set in pretty much three time periods, two briefly with one main one. It's also very different from the Tim Powers book I had previously read - I mean totally different! Anyway if you like to read this type of book i'm sure you will enjoy this, me? Yes i'm glad I read it.

No Spoilers below!...This purchase is my third or fourth copy of this book And I think it’s an amazing story. I cannot recommend it enough or speak more highly of it. It won the Phillip K Dick award; personally, I'm surprised that the awards stopped there.It’s almost impossible to put down (everyone has to sleep?!!) . The plausible time travel adventure of Brendan Doyle is a roller coaster ride, which, over the last twenty years I've ridden again and again and have never got bored. With every re-read of The Anubis Gates I find something new in it - or something that I'd forgotten since last time.Everyone I've ever lent it to has also thoroughly enjoyed it and if I knew I was going to a desert island this is one of the books I would take with me.For a few years I pleaded with my husband to read it - knowing how much he would enjoy it too. He finally gave in and read it about twenty years ago. Now he loves it as much as me.I adore reading, and it would be safe to say that our house is built from books, but this one is by far my favourite. An enduring friendship which has now moved on from much loved, beaten up, read to death copies into digital format, ready for me to pick up whenever I want without dog eared corners - which is quite a shame, actually!Read it - and ride the literary roller coaster.