The Anubis Gates
Encyclopedia
The Anubis Gates is a time travel
fantasy
novel by Tim Powers
. It won the 1983 Philip K. Dick Award and 1984 Science Fiction Chronicle Award.
have risen to power in Egypt
and suppress the worship of the old Egyptian gods
. A cabal
of magicians
plan to drive the British out of Egypt by bringing the gods forward in time from an age when they were still powerful and unleashing them on London
, thereby destroying the British Empire
. In 1802, a failed attempt by the magicians to summon Anubis
opens magical gates in a predictable pattern across time and space.
In 1983, ailing millionaire J. Cochran Darrow has discovered the gates and found that they make time travel
possible. Darrow organizes a trip to the past for fellow millionaires to attend a lecture by Samuel Taylor Coleridge
in 1810. He hires Professor Brendan Doyle to attend and give expert commentary. One of the magicians, Doctor Romany, happens to spy the time travelers and kidnaps Doyle before he can return. Doyle manages to escape torture and flees back to London, now trapped in the 19th century.
Doyle joins a beggars guild and meets a beggar named Jacky. He plans to meet and befriend William Ashbless
, a wealthy poet that Doyle has studied profusely, in order to gain a benefactor. Doctor Romany scours the city for Doyle with his legion of murderous beggars, led by the clown-magician Horrabin. At the same time, Doyle discovers that Darrow has remained in the 19th century to search for Dog-Face Joe, a body-swapping werewolf
, in hopes of bribing Joe into granting him a healthy new body. Doyle himself becomes targeted by Joe, receiving the poisoned body of Darrow's former bodyguard, but manages to cure himself of the poison.
In his new body, Doyle realizes that he himself is the historical Ashbless. He copies down Ashbless' poetry from memory and deduces his own future from his study of Ashbless' life. Using this knowledge, he continues to thwart the magicians' plans. After Romany discovers a gate to the 17th century, Doyle follows him through and stops his attempt to change the past. Meanwhile Darrow successfully contacts Dog-Face Joe and organizes a deal in which Joe will provide Darrow with healthy bodies and allow him to live forever.
Doyle is kidnapped and brought to Muhammad Ali's
Egypt, where the magicians' Master tempts him with resurrecting his dead wife if he will tell them the secrets of the time-gates. Doyle resists and kills the Master. Meanwhile, Jacky discovers Darrow's secret and kills him along with Dog-Face Joe. Doyle returns to London, where the last magician, Romanelli, kidnaps him, Jacky, and Coleridge. In a drugged stupor, Coleridge frees Horrabin's twisted menagerie of monsters, allowing him and Jacky to escape. Romanelli escapes with Doyle to the underworld, but is eaten by Apep
while Doyle is rejuvenated on board the sunboat of the god Ra
. Doyle meets back up with Jacky and discovers that not only is Jacky secretly a woman, she is his future wife.
Decades later, after living out Ashbless' entire life and becoming a widower, Doyle goes out to meet his historic date with death. Doyle discovers that his intended murderer is a duplicate of himself that the Master had made in Egypt decades before. Doyle kills the duplicate, thereby supplying the corpse for his death, and boats away into an unknown future.
J. Cochran Darrow
The Master
Amenophis Fikee
Doctor Romanelli
Doctor Romany
Jacky
Horrabin
, The Anubis Gates features a number of the Romantic Poets
as characters. In addition to Coleridge, there is Byron
(alongside the fictional 19th century poet William Ashbless
created by Powers and James Blaylock
). Other real people characterized in the novel are the famous publisher John Murray
and the physician who treated Byron for a fever while he traveled in Greece was named Dr. Romanelli.
The novel intertwines a number of real events into the story such as the massacre of the Mamluk beys
by Muhammad Ali
in 1811 and the failed rebellion by James, Duke of Monmouth
against James II
in the 1680s.
The ship, Blaylock, that Doyle claims he came to England on is named after friend James P. Blaylock.
Time travel
Time travel is the concept of moving between different points in time in a manner analogous to moving between different points in space. Time travel could hypothetically involve moving backward in time to a moment earlier than the starting point, or forward to the future of that point without the...
fantasy
Fantasy
Fantasy is a genre of fiction that commonly uses magic and other supernatural phenomena as a primary element of plot, theme, or setting. Many works within the genre take place in imaginary worlds where magic is common...
novel by Tim Powers
Tim Powers
Timothy Thomas "Tim" Powers is an American science fiction and fantasy author. Powers has won the World Fantasy Award twice for his critically acclaimed novels Last Call and Declare...
. It won the 1983 Philip K. Dick Award and 1984 Science Fiction Chronicle Award.
Plot summary
In 1801 the BritishUnited Kingdom
The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern IrelandIn the United Kingdom and Dependencies, other languages have been officially recognised as legitimate autochthonous languages under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages...
have risen to power in Egypt
Egypt
Egypt , officially the Arab Republic of Egypt, Arabic: , is a country mainly in North Africa, with the Sinai Peninsula forming a land bridge in Southwest Asia. Egypt is thus a transcontinental country, and a major power in Africa, the Mediterranean Basin, the Middle East and the Muslim world...
and suppress the worship of the old Egyptian gods
Egyptian mythology
Ancient Egyptian religion was a complex system of polytheistic beliefs and rituals which were an integral part of ancient Egyptian society. It centered on the Egyptians' interaction with a multitude of deities who were believed to be present in, and in control of, the forces and elements of nature...
. A cabal
Cabal
A cabal is a group of people united in some close design together, usually to promote their private views and/or interests in a church, state, or other community, often by intrigue...
of magicians
Magician (fantasy)
A magician, mage, sorcerer, sorceress, wizard, enchanter, enchantress, thaumaturge or a person known under one of many other possible terms is someone who uses or practices magic that derives from supernatural or occult sources...
plan to drive the British out of Egypt by bringing the gods forward in time from an age when they were still powerful and unleashing them on London
London
London is the capital city of :England and the :United Kingdom, the largest metropolitan area in the United Kingdom, and the largest urban zone in the European Union by most measures. Located on the River Thames, London has been a major settlement for two millennia, its history going back to its...
, thereby destroying the British Empire
British Empire
The British Empire comprised the dominions, colonies, protectorates, mandates and other territories ruled or administered by the United Kingdom. It originated with the overseas colonies and trading posts established by England in the late 16th and early 17th centuries. At its height, it was the...
. In 1802, a failed attempt by the magicians to summon Anubis
Anubis
Anubis is the Greek name for a jackal-headed god associated with mummification and the afterlife in ancient Egyptian religion. In the ancient Egyptian language, Anubis is known as Inpu . According to the Akkadian transcription in the Amarna letters, Anubis' name was vocalized as Anapa...
opens magical gates in a predictable pattern across time and space.
In 1983, ailing millionaire J. Cochran Darrow has discovered the gates and found that they make time travel
Time travel
Time travel is the concept of moving between different points in time in a manner analogous to moving between different points in space. Time travel could hypothetically involve moving backward in time to a moment earlier than the starting point, or forward to the future of that point without the...
possible. Darrow organizes a trip to the past for fellow millionaires to attend a lecture by Samuel Taylor Coleridge
Samuel Taylor Coleridge
Samuel Taylor Coleridge was an English poet, Romantic, literary critic and philosopher who, with his friend William Wordsworth, was a founder of the Romantic Movement in England and a member of the Lake Poets. He is probably best known for his poems The Rime of the Ancient Mariner and Kubla...
in 1810. He hires Professor Brendan Doyle to attend and give expert commentary. One of the magicians, Doctor Romany, happens to spy the time travelers and kidnaps Doyle before he can return. Doyle manages to escape torture and flees back to London, now trapped in the 19th century.
Doyle joins a beggars guild and meets a beggar named Jacky. He plans to meet and befriend William Ashbless
William Ashbless
William Ashbless is a fictional poet, invented by fantasy writers James Blaylock and Tim Powers.Ashbless was invented by Powers and Blaylock when they were students at Cal State Fullerton in the early 1970s, originally as a reaction to the low quality of the poetry being published in the school...
, a wealthy poet that Doyle has studied profusely, in order to gain a benefactor. Doctor Romany scours the city for Doyle with his legion of murderous beggars, led by the clown-magician Horrabin. At the same time, Doyle discovers that Darrow has remained in the 19th century to search for Dog-Face Joe, a body-swapping werewolf
Werewolf
A werewolf, also known as a lycanthrope , is a mythological or folkloric human with the ability to shapeshift into a wolf or an anthropomorphic wolf-like creature, either purposely or after being placed under a curse...
, in hopes of bribing Joe into granting him a healthy new body. Doyle himself becomes targeted by Joe, receiving the poisoned body of Darrow's former bodyguard, but manages to cure himself of the poison.
In his new body, Doyle realizes that he himself is the historical Ashbless. He copies down Ashbless' poetry from memory and deduces his own future from his study of Ashbless' life. Using this knowledge, he continues to thwart the magicians' plans. After Romany discovers a gate to the 17th century, Doyle follows him through and stops his attempt to change the past. Meanwhile Darrow successfully contacts Dog-Face Joe and organizes a deal in which Joe will provide Darrow with healthy bodies and allow him to live forever.
Doyle is kidnapped and brought to Muhammad Ali's
Muhammad Ali of Egypt
Muhammad Ali Pasha al-Mas'ud ibn Agha was a commander in the Ottoman army, who became Wāli, and self-declared Khedive of Egypt and Sudan...
Egypt, where the magicians' Master tempts him with resurrecting his dead wife if he will tell them the secrets of the time-gates. Doyle resists and kills the Master. Meanwhile, Jacky discovers Darrow's secret and kills him along with Dog-Face Joe. Doyle returns to London, where the last magician, Romanelli, kidnaps him, Jacky, and Coleridge. In a drugged stupor, Coleridge frees Horrabin's twisted menagerie of monsters, allowing him and Jacky to escape. Romanelli escapes with Doyle to the underworld, but is eaten by Apep
Apep
In Egyptian mythology, Apep was an evil god, the deification of darkness and chaos , and thus opponent of light and Ma'at , whose existence was believed from the 8th Dynasty onwards...
while Doyle is rejuvenated on board the sunboat of the god Ra
Ra
Ra is the ancient Egyptian sun god. By the Fifth Dynasty he had become a major deity in ancient Egyptian religion, identified primarily with the mid-day sun...
. Doyle meets back up with Jacky and discovers that not only is Jacky secretly a woman, she is his future wife.
Decades later, after living out Ashbless' entire life and becoming a widower, Doyle goes out to meet his historic date with death. Doyle discovers that his intended murderer is a duplicate of himself that the Master had made in Egypt decades before. Doyle kills the duplicate, thereby supplying the corpse for his death, and boats away into an unknown future.
Major characters
Brendan Doyle- An English professor at Cal State FullertonCalifornia State University, FullertonCalifornia State University, Fullerton is a public university located in Fullerton, California. It is the largest institution in the CSU System by enrollment, it offers long-distance education and adult-degree programs...
, Doyle is still haunted by the motorcycle accident that killed his wife Rebecca. He is a short and non-athletic man who is having difficulty getting published. He is fascinated by the enigmatic poet William Ashbless.
J. Cochran Darrow
- A famous tycoon who is suffering from terminal cancer. His enterprises have discovered the time gates.
The Master
- The oldest and most powerful magician in the world, now somewhat feeble-minded, the Master plots to rejuvenate magic and restore Egypt by crushing Britain. His unnatural powers make contact with the earth painful for him and his magician followers.
Amenophis Fikee
- A powerful magician, Fikee is the Master's agent in Britain. He leads a clan of gypsies and wears clogs to avoid contact with the ground. After a magical ritual misfires, his mind snaps and he becomes Dog-Face Joe. Bodies that he inhabits grow fur, but he uses a body-swapping spell to flee the curse, poisoning his old bodies to prevent discovery.
Doctor Romanelli
- A powerful magician, Romanelli is the Master's agent in Turkey and leads a clan of gypsies to do his bidding.
Doctor Romany
- A "ka", or magical duplicate, of Romanelli created to help Fikee in London, Romany takes up Fikee's duties in his absence. He wears spring shoes to avoid contact with the earth.
Jacky
- Apparently a moustachioed young beggar, Jacky is actually a woman from a noble family who has taken a new identity to search for Dog-Face Joe, who switched bodies with her fiancé and caused her to kill him.
Horrabin
- An evil clownEvil clownThe image of the evil clown is a development in popular culture, in which the playful trope of the clown is rendered as disturbing through the use of horror elements and dark humor.-Background:...
who leads a pack of murderous beggars, Horrabin magically maims some of his minions to be more profitable. His "mistakes" become monsters that he locks away in the catacombs beneath his lair. He wears stilts to avoid contact with the ground. The "mistakes" eventually manage to kill Horrabin by using thrown mud to weaken him. Then they knock him to the ground and kill him.
Allusions/references to real people and events
As in Powers's later novel, The Stress of Her RegardThe Stress of Her Regard
The Stress of Her Regard is a 1989 horror/fantasy novel by Tim Powers. It was nominated for the 1990 World Fantasy and Locus Awards in 1990, and won a Mythopoeic Award...
, The Anubis Gates features a number of the Romantic Poets
Romanticism
Romanticism was an artistic, literary and intellectual movement that originated in the second half of the 18th century in Europe, and gained strength in reaction to the Industrial Revolution...
as characters. In addition to Coleridge, there is Byron
George Gordon Byron, 6th Baron Byron
George Gordon Byron, 6th Baron Byron, later George Gordon Noel, 6th Baron Byron, FRS , commonly known simply as Lord Byron, was a British poet and a leading figure in the Romantic movement...
(alongside the fictional 19th century poet William Ashbless
William Ashbless
William Ashbless is a fictional poet, invented by fantasy writers James Blaylock and Tim Powers.Ashbless was invented by Powers and Blaylock when they were students at Cal State Fullerton in the early 1970s, originally as a reaction to the low quality of the poetry being published in the school...
created by Powers and James Blaylock
James Blaylock
James Paul Blaylock is an American fantasy author.He is noted for a distinctive, humorous style, as well as being one of the pioneers of the steampunk genre of science fiction....
). Other real people characterized in the novel are the famous publisher John Murray
John Murray (publisher)
John Murray is an English publisher, renowned for the authors it has published in its history, including Jane Austen, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, Lord Byron, Charles Lyell, Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, Herman Melville, and Charles Darwin...
and the physician who treated Byron for a fever while he traveled in Greece was named Dr. Romanelli.
The novel intertwines a number of real events into the story such as the massacre of the Mamluk beys
Muhammad Ali's seizure of power
The process of Muhammad Ali's seizure of power in Egypt was a long three way civil war between the Ottoman Turks, Egyptian Mamluks, and Albanian mercenaries. It ended in victory for the Albanians led by Muhammad Ali of Egypt ....
by Muhammad Ali
Muhammad Ali of Egypt
Muhammad Ali Pasha al-Mas'ud ibn Agha was a commander in the Ottoman army, who became Wāli, and self-declared Khedive of Egypt and Sudan...
in 1811 and the failed rebellion by James, Duke of Monmouth
James Scott, 1st Duke of Monmouth
James Scott, 1st Duke of Monmouth, 1st Duke of Buccleuch, KG, PC , was an English nobleman. Originally called James Crofts or James Fitzroy, he was born in Rotterdam in the Netherlands, the eldest illegitimate son of Charles II and his mistress, Lucy Walter...
against James II
James II of England
James II & VII was King of England and King of Ireland as James II and King of Scotland as James VII, from 6 February 1685. He was the last Catholic monarch to reign over the Kingdoms of England, Scotland, and Ireland...
in the 1680s.
The ship, Blaylock, that Doyle claims he came to England on is named after friend James P. Blaylock.
Recognition
- Philip K. Dick Award winner, 1983;
- Locus Award nominee for Best Fantasy Novel, 1984;
- British Science Fiction Award nominee, 1985;
- SF Chronicle Award, 1984
See also
- William AshblessWilliam AshblessWilliam Ashbless is a fictional poet, invented by fantasy writers James Blaylock and Tim Powers.Ashbless was invented by Powers and Blaylock when they were students at Cal State Fullerton in the early 1970s, originally as a reaction to the low quality of the poetry being published in the school...
- Punch and JudyPunch and JudyPunch and Judy is a traditional, popular puppet show featuring the characters of Mr. Punch and his wife, Judy. The performance consists of a sequence of short scenes, each depicting an interaction between two characters, most typically the anarchic Punch and one other character...
- Egyptian mythologyEgyptian mythologyAncient Egyptian religion was a complex system of polytheistic beliefs and rituals which were an integral part of ancient Egyptian society. It centered on the Egyptians' interaction with a multitude of deities who were believed to be present in, and in control of, the forces and elements of nature...
- Muhammad Ali of EgyptMuhammad Ali of EgyptMuhammad Ali Pasha al-Mas'ud ibn Agha was a commander in the Ottoman army, who became Wāli, and self-declared Khedive of Egypt and Sudan...
- Massacre of the Citadel
- Roma people
- Fictional representations of RomaFictional representations of RomaMany fictional depictions of the Romani in literature and art present Romanticized narratives of their supposed mystical powers of fortune telling, and their supposed irascible or passionate temper paired with an indomitable love of freedom and a habit of criminality.Particularly notable are...
- Romani languageRomani languageRomani or Romany, Gypsy or Gipsy is any of several languages of the Romani people. They are Indic, sometimes classified in the "Central" or "Northwestern" zone, and sometimes treated as a branch of their own....
- SteampunkSteampunkSteampunk is a sub-genre of science fiction, fantasy, alternate history, and speculative fiction that came into prominence during the 1980s and early 1990s. Steampunk involves a setting where steam power is still widely used—usually Victorian era Britain or "Wild West"-era United...
External links
- The Anubis Gates at Worlds Without End