More Walls Broken

Thank you to Netgalley and the Publisher for providing me with a copy of this in exchange for my honest opinion.

Right from the get-go of this regrettably short story, you get two impressions. Impression the first, Tim Powers is an excellent writer. The story flows smoothly, the dialog is excellent, and the plot is intriguing. The second, the first few chapters are Keystone Cops (the professors) in a graveyard. This story is not a comedy, but I found the first few chapters funny. What this is, is a modern-day occult ghost story. Three professors from Cal-tech enter a graveyard to perform an occult ritual to materialize the ghost of departed Armand Vitrielli, what happens is they materialize Vitrelli's daughter instead. They flee the cemetery with the “daughter” in tow (keystone cops part) completely missing what emerged after they left. From this beginning, Powers crafts a well written, if sometimes bland plot. The story is solid, but after the initial chapters in the graveyard it didn't resonate and connect with me as much as I would have liked it too. I would certainly want to read Power's other works, however. Powers is an excellent writer of dialog and story flow. But this just wasn't my favorite.

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Three faculty members visit the grave of a fourth to see if they have unlocked the secret of calling forth the spirits of the dead. Utilizing an odd device and occult procedures, the scientists call forth both a ghost and a visitor from a parallel dimension.

This is not a novella; the length runs to something a bit longer than a short story, but it has quite a bit of story packed into its short length. The story moves along nicely. For a novella, the characters become quite sympathetic. There is enough mystery and uncertainty to make the story worth pondering after it is finished.