A genius joins the family tree

REVIEWS BY GAVIN J. GRANT

A new Tim Powers novel is always a reason to celebrate, and Three Days to Never doesn't disappoint. This is a novel that will make you lock the doors, unplug the phone and turn off your computer. Powers introduces readers to Frank Marrity, a college professor who thinks he's just an ordinary guy until he begins having psychic flashes in which he and his 12-year-old daughter, Daphne, can read one another's minds. This is the Marritys' first step over the edge into a sideways world where Frank and Daphne learn that they—and everyone else—can be literally wiped out of history. When Frank's grandmother dies, he finds she had tried and failed to burn down her garden shed. Frank discovers a packet of letters which eventually leads him to two discoveries about Albert Einstein: Einstein was his great-grandfather and had discovered a weapon so powerful that he kept it secret, fearing what would happen if he revealed its existence. Meanwhile, Daphne discovers a videotape that is the last surviving copy of a film Charlie Chaplin made in an attempt to communicate with the dead. A number of people are hunting for the tape, including "remote viewers" used by the Israeli secret service, the Mossad. Another secret group, the Vespers, includes a blind woman who, fascinatingly, can see through other people's eyes. Powers' skill is to bring together seemingly disparate events and hang a convincing yet fantastic story on them. Three Days to Never doesn't ever slow down and will please both Powers' growing readership and those with a special interest in secret societies.


Brothers in exile

Sarah Monette's The Virtu is a humdinger of a fantasy full of action, romance, intrigue, a library god, characters named Mehitabel and Zamyatin and, of course, wizardry. The Virtu is a sequel to Monette's debut, Mélusine, but due to some skillful backfilling, can definitely be read on its own. Felix Harrogate is red-haired, handsome and somewhat less devilish than he used to be. He has been humbled by being used as a cat's paw to destroy the Virtu, a 200-year-old magical object which protected the city of Mirador by binding all the envious wizards to the city. Felix was driven insane in the process of the destruction and was exiled from Mirador. He left in the company of his half-brother, Mildmay the Fox, whose existence he has just discovered. Mildmay is a cat burglar who always knows where he is and has the enviable ability to find his way through any maze. His few words are alternately hilarious and blunt. When he thinks, "I could do this. I'd been an assassin and a cat burglar, and I'd done harder things than get down a pillar with two arms, one leg, and a crippled hocus on my back," it is at once believable, nerve-racking, funny and horrifying. The brothers' relationship is deep yet mostly unspoken. After Felix heals and they journey back to Mirador, the brothers discover they share more than they would have suspected. Developments come thick and fast toward the end, leaving everything satisfyingly tied up. Monette loves language and is unafraid to delve into dark corners, which makes for a novel that is both poetic and suspenseful.


Familiar faces

Mark Budz' third novel, Idolon, takes place in Santa Cruz about a hundred years into the future. The latest fashion is a type of electronic skin ("philm") which can be programmed at will to look like a celebrity—or anything else. The members of one cult, the Transcendental Vibrationists, all wear the same philm, motivated by their belief that when everyone shows the same face, they will be lifted up to heaven. Enter Kasuo van Diijk, a homicide detective who is investigating the death of a young woman (it's unlucky to be young, blond and female in a noir novel) who is wearing a new kind of philm and whose DNA isn't in any government database.

Idolon is a fun, old-fashioned science fiction noir thriller with a well-thought out premise and up-to-the minute scientific speculations—on everything from wearable computers and what kind of viruses they might get to artificial intelligence and the future of the family. Budz is building a name for himself among hard science fiction readers and this new novel should add to his growing reputation.


Gavin J. Grant is the co-editor of The Year's Best Fantasy & Horror: 2006 (St. Martin's).

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