Three Days to Never

Three Days to Never, Tim Powers. Subterranean Press, 2006. Limited 474. A nice production marred by too many typos. At a retail price of $80, this un-slipcased limited shouldn't have flaws like sloppy editing. As for the novel, after thoroughly enjoying Powers' earlier work like The Anubis Gates, this hefty novel is a painful disappointment. Although Powers can write very well, this novel suffers from a simplistic plot that has been overly developed into a convoluted exercise in -- what seems to be -- literary experimentation. Powers obviously did an abundant amount of research and passes that on to the reader, but after struggling through the unnecessary complexities of this work, I can't help feeling a bit abused, as if I've just sat through an overly-winded professor's interpretation of certain historical events -- and a very monotone professor at that. I can't recommend this novel except to the diehard Powers fan. I still can't get over the fact that the same man wrote The Anubis Gates (a deep, thoughtful tale of time travel livened with humor, horror, action and the perfect amount of historical info) also created such a flat and painfully paced story that, more than anything, had me shaking my head with disappointment.