A traveling musician and former “redeemer” Gregorio Rivas, who is trying to have a peaceful life, agrees to do “just one more job”, another “redeemer”, that is, to rescue the girl with whom he was very much in love. the “Jaybirds”, hippie followers of messiah Norton Jaybush. A fairly straightforward quest story takes you from place to place as you struggle to maintain your sanity and fight your inner demons and outer enemies.
Some science fiction / fantasy writers believe that no research is necessary, that anything goes because “it’s not real.” No matter the lack of motivation, the poor storytelling, nothing that makes sense, the ignorance of the most basic details … Tim Powers refuses to write like that; the research you do for each and every one of your books could get someone a Ph.D.
On the other hand, some writers do a lot of research and then try to put it all into the book, even if it slows down the narrative to the speed of a very tired turtle, even if the reader has no desire to know every detail of each book that he author had read. Tim Powers doesn’t fall into that trap, either.
What this author seems to believe is that books should be fun to read. Yes, considerable research needs to be done. Yes, the writer should know a lot about the subject of his writing, but all that knowledge goes into writing a credible novel, not an encyclopedia. Plus, Powers’ writing is easy to read, avoids distracting the reader with his style, and lets the story and characters speak for themselves.
There is nothing accidental in Tim Powers’ writing. A Jaybush religious leader? Jesus, Jaysus, Jebus, Jaybush … A misshapen name for a very misshapen character. Dinner at Deviant’s Palace it is filled with so much joy, that it never slows down the book: if you notice it, you may enjoy it, if you don’t, you will have fun with the rest of the novel.
Although the post-nuclear apocalypse is a bit outdated as a topic, Dinner at Deviant’s Palace still a very fun read. The fairly normal beginning of the novel gets crazier as the book progresses, so the reader runs into a hippie (but much darker) religious sect, telepathy, a parasite from outer space called “hemogoblin” ( not a typo), another parasite from outer space, radioactive fish, narcotics, lots of music and much more. Oh, and donuts.
While the above list may seem random, nothing in Dinner at Deviant’s Palace it’s accidental. Everything in there, no matter how unusual, even how crazy it may seem, has its proper place, and Powers’ superb writing ensures that everything is kept under control. The reader is not lost in this wild journey, nor is he overwhelmed by strange things, nor does creativity suffer from the writer’s self-control.
Dinner at Deviant’s Palace is a luxurious, lucid, carefully crafted and extremely funny novel, a novel that is hard to put aside, a novel that you love to return to, hear the wild music again, fight the hemogoblin and the mad cult members and your own Deviant, be the hero who rescues the damsel in distress, and fall in love again, while on the run with nothing but donuts.