This is a fine little Tim Powers story, with regret and hope in equal measures. It takes the author's usual penchant for slightly misguided protagonists to the afterworld, with a man in search of revenge and lost love, but finding something perhaps a bit more realistic in the realm of the dead.

It was fun, and a nice way to spend an afternoon. ( )

This novella is a relatively quick read. It really just focuses on the imaginative bits that Tim Powers is known for, and it finishes on a single relatively easy-to-predict premise.

It has a noir feel, which shouldn't surprise anyone by the title, but of course it's really about death and moving on. Literally, in this case. It might be billed as a literary piece turned into an UF turned into a dark and dirty streets gumshoe pulp. And why not? Purgatory isn't supposed to be a particularly *nice* place, and should it surprise anyone that the best it has to offer is the "cabbie"? Of course not.

I can say, however, that the imagery is beautiful, the world-building is interesting, and while the incremental ticks of our MC's metamorphosis as he goes through his to-do list is really quite minimal, I'd expect more for a full-sized novel.

Thanks to Netgalley for the ARC!

( )

Very disappointing in light of Tim Powers's Faultline Trilogy, which I just read recently. I see Powers is somewhat inconsistent, so I'll have to ask for recommendations as to what of his quantitatively impressive output I'll read next. ( )

A man's hate is so strong for someone who killed the woman he loved that he is willing to pursue that man himself beyond death to consign him fully to nothingness/oblivion. That of course means that our protagonist has to die so he can meet his enemy on the "other side."

Interesting premise. And in the universe Tim Powers creates it becomes possible. A medium to the whom the man is directed has the power to make it happen, as he is in contact with the souls residing in Purgatory. The transition is achieved, and Purgatory is something of a dream-like place, but with definite boundaries. While a way-station on the way to Being in the Infinite, it reveals itself not to be the place of intense purging-place of traditional Catholic theology, but more of a place where can come to resolution of uncompleted issues they still have to "figure out" before they can move on to the peace of Eternity.

Because the environs of Purgatory seem so hallucinogenic to the newcomer (the reader as well as the newly dead), it is initially disorienting, that being witnessed completely arbitrary. But to stick with it (the dead person must; the reader need not) is to find that there are rules governing it all. Be patient, reader! The book is short--qualifying really only as a novella--and all will be revealed in the end.

For me, the greatest hurdle to overcome is the premise that launches the book--that someone could be so obsessed with hate as to want to willing be killed himself to pursue his already-dead enemy. Further, to take such a drastic measure would require an unshakable conviction that there exists a certain kind of afterlife that the enemy might be "enjoying," that by being killed, the protagonist could occupy too. And the impetus for his hate--that the other killed the woman he loved--has to have been fueled by a greater passion than is communicated in this particular story.

But put that overanalysis aside, and the reader may find him/herself treated to an entertaining story. ( )

Entertaining but a bit disappointing novella by Tim Powers, a living classic in the fantasy genre from whom I expected more. This story of revenge started in quite a promising way, but once the main character arrives in the purgatory (and I found slightly unbelievable that anyone would accept to go through what he has to go through to get there) I started to feel that I was losing interest in it, maybe things were happening too fast, maybe the description of this strange purgatory was more relevant in the book than the plot and the characters themselves…
Compared with those of his novels I’ve read, this is definitely a minor Power’s work, but given its brevity, it’s still worth reading if you’re a fan of Tim Power or you enjoy fast-paced fantasy stories with a touch of surrealism. ( )