Dinner at Deviant's Palace by Tim Powers

First published in 1985; published digitally by Open Road Media on July 30, 2013

"Deprogramming" -- kidnapping someone who has supposedly been brainwashed by a religious cult and coercing their abandonment of the cult's belief system -- was in the public mind during the 1970s. Tim Powers (one of the most underrated writers of speculative fiction) grabbed hold of the concept in his 1985 classic Dinner at Deviant's Palace, incorporating it into a story of a post-apocalyptic future. In his introduction to the Open Roads edition, Powers explains the novel's interpretation of the Orpheus myth (a connection I would have missed if Powers hadn't explained it).

Dinner at Deviant's Palace is a science fiction novel with elements of fantasy. You can always expect the unexpected in a Powers novel, and this one adds a strange creature called a hemogoblin to the standard description of America-turned-wasteland. The novel was written long before the current obsession with post-apocalyptic vampires, and the hemogoblin isn't a vampire in the traditional sense, but blood does play a central role in the imaginative plot. Powers is an exceptional storyteller who often adds horrific elements to the stories he tells, usually to shed light on some horrifying aspect of the present, but no matter the plot device, his true subject has always been human nature.

It's been a hundred years since the age of electricity, and California as it once existed is long gone. The calendar is based on a deck of cards, brandy is used as currency, and residual radiation renders some places off limits. Trash men run loose -- not quite human, not quite robot, a little like a talking vacuum cleaner mated with a barbeque grill -- and the San Berdoo army is threatening to invade Ellay.

Gregorio Rivas is a musician, but he used to perform redemptions. At one point he was a Jaybird, then he rescued people from the Jaybirds. The Jaybirds worship Jaybush (the name's similarity to Jesus is no coincidence), an entity described at one point as an "interstellar limpet eel." The Jaybird sacrament, if taken repeatedly, erodes the mind -- or maybe it opens the mind -- but Rivas is still sharp. Now he sings and plays the pelican and wants nothing to do with the man who wants to pay him a huge sum of money to perform a redemption. But when he learns that the girl under Jaybird control is Urania Barrows, the girl he once loved, he has no choice but to bring her back. Before Rivas became a Jaybird, he spent some time in the depraved city on the outskirts of Ellay known as Venice (home of the Deviant's Palace). It is to Venice he returns in his search for Urania, although he fears she has been taken to the Holy City of Irvine.

On its surface, Dinner at Deviant's Palace is the story of Rivas' attempt to save Urania, but it's really a story about a different kind of salvation. Rivas has become self-centered and self-indulgent, enjoying the fruits of a well-paid life. During his quest for Urania, he rediscovers his empathy for others. Yet empathy can be crippling when survival depends on dispassionate strength. Rivas faces a choice between regaining his confidence but sacrificing his new-found empathy, or remaining a caring person, however weak and uncertain that makes him. Powers also explores the nature of obsession -- with religion, with love, with distorted memories.

Trying to understand exactly what's happening in Dinner at Deviant's Palace sometimes poses a challenge, but by the end, the novel makes sense ... more or less. Its internal logic is consistent even if it isn't always easily understood. Complex characters and a fun story with a serious theme make the novel worth the effort.

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Bad Houses by Sara Ryan

Published by Dark Horse on November 12, 2013

I never thought much about (or paid any attention to) estate sales until I read this graphic novel. The contents of houses tell stories about their owners, the choices they made, what they held dear. People cling to possessions they don’t really want. Professional and amateur vultures devour the things left behind by the dead. One person’s junk becomes another person’s treasure, an endless cycle of acquisition and disposal.

Bad Houses is a story of ordinary people in an ordinary town (aptly named Failin). A bitter son puts his aging mother in a dilapidated assisted living center. He begins to date Danica, one of the center’s employees. Danica is a hoarder. Her daughter Anne feels suffocated by her mother’s obsession with the objects from her past. Anne begins to date Lewis, a young man who wants to escape his mother’s vice-like grip. Lewis works for his mother, conducting estate sales. He’s never known his father. In the midst of all this family drama, we learn things about relationships among the characters that they don’t know themselves.

Can people change their lives? One of the characters says that lives change all the time, and that’s true, but they don’t always change according to our plans. Some of the characters want to leave Failin but feel trapped by their circumstances. When should we hold on to things … or people? When should we let go? Sara Ryan examines these questions in a surprisingly moving, thought-provoking story.

The lives of the characters weave together in a graphic novel that is elegant in its simplicity, insightful in its complexity. The sketchy illustrations add nuance to the text.

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Border Angels by Anthony Quinn

Published by MysteriousPress.com/Open Road on October 22, 2013

Borders and what they represent form the underlying theme of Border Angels. Women from Eastern Europe are smuggled across borders to work in Western European brothels, while a shadowy underworld populated by immigrants, legal and illegal, operates close to the borders in case the need arises to flee. Border Angels opens in a brothel in Northern Ireland, where a shady businessman named Jack Fowler promises to rescue Lena Novak from a life of prostitution. Before the rescue can occur, however, Lena's pimp drives her away from the brothel. The police become involved when they find the shell of a burned-out car and the pimp's charred remains. Lena's footprints lead from the car to the riverbank, where they disappear. The river marks the border between the Republic of Ireland and Northern Ireland, once a crossing place for terrorists (or freedom fighters, depending on your point of view).

Celcius Daly is called upon to investigate the pimp's death and, soon thereafter, Fowler's drowning. As was true in Anthony Quinn's previous Daly novel, a former IRA member plays a role. Ashe is trying to make a "journey away from violence" but the journey takes a U-turn that brings him back to Ireland. Lena is the strongest character, an empowered woman who doesn't need rescuing, who has the wits and the guts to rescue herself. Daly is relegated to the role of observer for most of the novel, caught between Lena's schemes and his Commander's wrath.

Unlike many modern crime novelists, Quinn tells a credible story and doesn't waste words doing it. He imbues his characters with honest emotions while avoiding melodrama. His thoughtful commentary on Northern Ireland never overshadows the story. While the story isn't particularly original, it's well told. Quinn develops Daly's character less than he did in the first novel, but I'd rather read a story with limited character development than a story with mindless action and needless padding. Border Angels left me looking forward to the next Celcius Daly novel.

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The Exodus Towers by Jason M. Hough

Published by Del Rey on August 27, 2013

Camp Exodus has been overrun by a militia of immunes commanded by a less than angelic Gabriel, stranding Skyler in the wilderness where he's at risk of being attacked by subhumans. But even worse than subhumans are a new breed of ... armored subhumans? That won't make sense to you if you haven't read The Darwin Elevator, and even then it might not makes sense. In any event, since The Exodus Towers picks up the plot where The Darwin Elevator dropped it, you won't get much out of the second novel in this trilogy if you haven't read the first.

The troubles at Camp Exodus occupy the first half of this lengthy novel. Much of it seems like filler. One meandering plotline focuses on Samantha Rinn from Skyler's old scavenger crew, who spends much of the novel on a sort of wok release from her imprisonment in Darwin. A better plotline focuses on the ongoing power struggle between Tania Sharma, who is in charge (more or less) of the Orbitals -- some of them, anyway -- and Russell Blackfield, who is in charge (more or less) of Darwin -- part of it, anyway. Blackfield is in a power struggle of his own with a dude named Grillo, who has mustered a private army of religious zealots.

The story derails for quite a long time as Skyler takes on the immune militia. Significant plot advancement is relegated to the novel's final quarter. While those events are worth waiting for, they bring us no closer to the resolution of the mysteries that drive the trilogy: Why did aliens build the space elevators? Why did they release a disease that killed most humans while turning most survivors into zombie-like subhumans? What do the aliens plan to do next?

It's a given that science fiction depends upon a willing suspension of disbelief. The Exodus Towers occasionally tested my willingness, particularly when a group of immunes decides to engage in strange genetic experiments involving subhumans. As was true in The Darwin Elevator, I'm not sure the whole subhuman subplot works very well, even though it's central to the story. Perhaps the final installment will explain why subhumans are central to the story.

Characters are the strength of the first two novels in the trilogy, although it's best not to get too attached to anyone because Jason Hough kills them off rather freely. Relationships between the characters are convincing. The Exodus Towers is always interesting, including the chunks that add nothing to the overall story. It's good enough to persuade me to move on to the final installment, but it would have been better with fewer words.

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The Wasteland Saga by Nick Cole

Published by Harper Voyager on October 15, 2013

The Wasteland Saga is a post-apocalyptic trilogy. The first and best of the novels, The Old Man and the Wasteland, follows a scavenger known as the Old Man as he takes a journey of redemption. Carrying a Hemingway novel and engaging in an internal monologue with the character Santiago from that novel, the Old Man is tested as he engages in conflicts with nature, with other people, and with himself. The second novel, The Savage Boy, focuses on a young man who is overcoming a disability while taking his own journey of self-discovery.

The third novel, The Road and the River, doesn't seem to have been separately published. It contains echoes of the first novel -- too many echoes, perhaps, as I was left with the feeling that I'd read this novel before. The Old Man is on a mission (rescuing people trapped in a Colorado bunker). He travels through the Wasteland. He talks to, and takes advice from, Santiago. He's introspective. He faces his fears. He perseveres. He learns to trust himself. Sacrifices are made. Good conquers evil.

The primary difference between the third novel and the first (apart from the fact that the Old Man is driving a tank instead of walking) is the addition of the Old Man's granddaughter as a traveling companion. She sees the world with the clarity of innocent eyes and helps focus the Old Man's conscience. Also joining the Old Man is the Savage Boy from the second novel. Like the granddaughter, the Savage Boy is an archetype of purity. That's good in the sense that he's admirable, but the complexity of his character that we saw in the second novel is missing here.

Perhaps due to the story's familiarity, the first half of The Road is a River lacks the intensity of the first two novels. The novel begins to build dramatic tension in the second half and it springs a surprise at the end of the Old Man's journey. The surprise isn't particularly convincing but it sets up a high-impact ending.

As was true of The Old Man and the Wasteland, the most memorable aspect of The Road is a River is the Old Man. Forty years after the bombs fell, he's forgetting the past. He can't remember what a feather duster is called, or the name of the canned stew he always made when he was a student. He wants to return to a past that no longer exists, not because he longs for its comforts (he can't imagine any home other than his little shack) but because he longs for its values. He wants life to have meaning. He wants people to have dignity. He wants people to care about each other, to behave unselfishly. He wants a better world for his granddaughter than the one into which she was born.

While not as emotionally affecting as the first novel, The Road is a River has some touching, resonant moments. Nick Cole has modeled his writing style in these novels after Hemingway, and emotional honesty was Hemingway's strength. The story could easily become maudlin, but honesty saves it. On the other hand, the "story of salvage" theme is reprised from the first novel so often that it becomes tiresome, and I could have lived without the epilog. Still, The Road is a River is a fitting end to a strong trilogy.

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