Uncertain Principles

Tim Powers is one of those authors who has carved out a niche for himself telling a particular type of story, sort of like Guy Gavriel Kay with his pseudo-historical fantasy novels. In Powers's case, the niche might be summarized as "supernatural secret history." His best novels are set in something that's more or less the real world, but with a twist. There are ghosts and spirits and poorly-understood magic in the world, and famous scientists and inventors and politicians turn out to be deeply involved in the supernatural underground.

His latest, Three Days to Never fits right in with Declare and Last Call and Expiration Date and the rest. In this case, the supernatural conceit is that Albert Einstein invented a way to travel through time in 1928. Sixty years later (more or less), a literature professor in California finds himself caught up in a struggle between the Mossad and a more sinister secret society, both of whom want Einstein's discovery, and are willing to kill to get it.

So, as I said to Kate, it's pretty much a Tim Powers novel. In addition to Einstein, Charlie Chaplin turns out to have played a key role in making the machine work, so you've even got the quirky and unexpected celebrity cameo. There are some lovely little character touches, too, such as the Mossad agent who keeps getting premonitions that he'll never again experience various things-- never swim in the ocean, never hear a telephone ring. If you like his other stuff, this one has most of the same features.

I had a problem with this book for an unusual reason: it ran afoul of my knowledge of physics. I'm usually pretty forgiving about daft fictional physics, but there's a bit late in the book where one of the characters provides a technobabble explanation of how the time travel phenomenon works, and it's absolute garbage. I can't even come up with a good way to retcon it as a misunderstanding by the characters or something like that. It's essential to the plot, and it absolutely butchers General Relativity.

As I said, that's somewhat unusual for me, and if you're not normally bothered by that sort of thing, well, it might not bother you here. Other than the technobabble meltdown, it's a pretty good book, though. It's no Last Call, but if you're in the right mood for a Powers novel, it'll get the job done.