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Several friends recommended books by [a:Tim Powers|8835|Tim Powers|https://s.gr-assets.com/assets/nophoto/user/u_50x66-632230dc9882b4352d753eedf9396530.png], saying that his books were of a similar genre to those of [a:Charles Williams|36289|Charles Williams|https://images.gr-assets.com/authors/1217390107p2/36289.jpg]. This is the second one I've read, and I was rather disappointed. This

I found it a bit too messy. The plot is complex, and sometimes saying a book has a complex plot is a recommendation. [b:Foucault's Pendulum|17841|Foucault’s Pendulum|Umberto Eco|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1396645125l/17841.SY75.jpg|11221066] by [a:Umberto Eco|1730|Umberto Eco|https://images.gr-assets.com/authors/1588941738p2/1730.jpg] has a complex plot, and has many similar elements, but it is the kind of complexity that makes one want to read it again to unravel it. This one made me want to say to the author, "just get on with the story". In [b:The Annubis Gates|132137368|THE ANNUBIS GATES (PAPERBACK)|Tim Powers|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1697834916l/132137368.SX50.jpg|2193115] you start reading one story, and then you find you're in a different one, with no apparent connection with the first one.

It begins with Brendan Doyle an American student of literature, being asked to go on a time travel trip with a group of wealth dilettantes to hear a lecture given by Samuel Taylor Coleridge in 1810. Doyle is interested in a minor poet, William Ashbless, who was said to have been present at the lecture, and is persuaded to join the expedition in the hope of meeting Ashbless, but when the expedition returns to the 20th century (1984) Doyle is somehow left behind, and has little option but to become a beggar, and soon finds that begging is an industry controlled by a few, and you have to join one of the begging cartels to survive.

That on its own has the seeds of quite a complex plot, but numerous disparate elements are added, which are difficult to follow, because of Powers's habit, noted in another of his books that I have read, of suddenly switching from one scene to another without giving any clue to the reader that he has done so, until you are two or three paragraphs into the new scene, and then have to go back and reread the paragraph after making a mental adjustment to fit it to the new setting and characters. But in the second reading one tends to.... (text disappeared, can't be arsed to type it again now, will maybe edit it later)

I discovered,after taking this book out of the library, that it was the third book in a trilogy, and I haven't read the first two, so I've missed much of the backstory, and I'm not really qualified to review it.

Jade runs away from her boarding school in Cumbria, England, just before being expelled, and her foster mother Emily meets her, and they are then chased by Jade's real father, Kobal, and escape from him with some difficulty, and they are joined by a Benedict, a long-lived member of a miliary monastic order. Benedict believes that Kobal wants to use his seven children, by seven different mothers, for an evil purpose. He had gathered six of them, but Jade had escaped (presumably in one of the earlier books) and Kobal was looking for the seventh. So the three of them set out to travel to Romania, where they hope to find the seventh child.

It was quite a pleasant read, with lots of adventures during the travels, though the denouement was a bit over the top.

A group of travellers who meet on a ship sailing from New York to the Caribbean find their lives entwined long after they step ashore in Haiti, under the dictatorial rule of "Papa Doc" Duvalier and his dreated secret police, the Tonton Macoute.

Brown, the narrator, is a hotelier, returning from an unsuccessful trip to New York attempting to sell the hotel, which he had inherited from his mother. Among his travelling companions are Mr and Mrs Smith, vegetarians hoping to establish a vegetarian centre in Haiti, and "Major" Jones, who turns out to be a con man. The Smiths stay at Brown's hotel, and make it their base for preaching the benefits of vegetarianism.

These expatriates are the comedians of the title, and at many points in the story I was reminded of [a:Jean Genet|29952|Jean Genet|https://images.gr-assets.com/authors/1605227116p2/29952.jpg]'s play [b:The Balcony|163767|The Man on the Balcony (Martin Beck, #3)|Maj Sjöwall|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1320419982l/163767.SY75.jpg|158098], where the setting is a brothel, and the clients are given an opportunity to act out their fantasies. So the comedians play their roles in a society in which everything seems unreal, like a stage set. Over it all hovers the spectral figure of Baron Samedi, the Voodoo lwa of the dead, who functioned (in real life as well as in the novel) as the evil genius of Papa Doc Duvalier.

Brown, who is having an affair with a diplomat's wife, wants to elope with her, but is trapped by, among other things, the corrupt bureaucracy of the authoritarian state, whose ministers tend to disappear when they fall out of favour, and whose bodies disappear even during their funerals.

[a:Graham Greene|2533|Graham Greene|https://images.gr-assets.com/authors/1254688603p2/2533.jpg] manages to convey the atmosphere of an authoritarian state well, with the ruthless elimination of those perceived as enemies of the regime.

The fictional biography of a monastic holy man in medieval Russia.

Arseny, an orphan, is brought up by his grandfather, and trained by him as a herbalist-healer in a small village in northern Russia. After his grandfather's death he succeeds him as the village healer, but when a patient close to him dies, partly as a result of his own negligence and over-confidence, he leaves the village and becomes a homeless wanderer, seeking salvation for himself and those he has lost.

As he travels he resumes his activities as a healer, and begins to heal people through prayer as well as through his medical skill as a herbalist. He adopts various roles of holy men, as pilgrim, fool-for-Christ, tonsured monk and finally hermit. At some of these stages his name changes, and at the final stage, as a schemamonk he is given the name Laurus, after a second-century saint.

There are many saints who were monastic holy men, whose hagiographies describe events similar to those in this fictional biography, but by putting such things together in the account of one person's life, it shows a spiritual progression. In this it is similar to [b:The Way of a Pilgrim|29799|The Way of a Pilgrim and the Pilgrim Continues His Way|Anonymous|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1388490638l/29799.SX50.jpg|30219], which is, however, set in the 19th century.

I have often expressed the wish to be able to read more novels of the kind written by [a:Charles Williams|36289|Charles Williams|https://images.gr-assets.com/authors/1217390107p2/36289.jpg] and various people have been recommending books by [a:Tim Powers|8835|Tim Powers|https://s.gr-assets.com/assets/nophoto/user/u_50x66-632230dc9882b4352d753eedf9396530.png], telling me that they are a similar genre. After searching in vain in bookshops and libraries for years, I was given some money and got the ebook version of this one. and yes, I can say it is in the genre of Williams's novels, which means that in writing about this one, I'm inevitably comparing it with Williams. Another book one could say is in a similar genre is [b:Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell|14201|Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell|Susanna Clarke|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1357027589l/14201.SY75.jpg|3921305], which I tried to read and didn't finish.

In [b:The Drawing of the Dark|5094|The Drawing of the Three (The Dark Tower, #2)|Stephen King|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1370918050l/5094.SY75.jpg|2113248] Brian Duffy, an Irish mercenary soldier of the 16th century, is down-and-out in a port town somewhere in southern Europe (I've forgotten the name of the town, and Kindle won't let me page back to look it up, perhaps it was Trieste or Venice) when he is recruited by a strange character as a bouncer for his pub in Vienna. Duffy travels to Vienna to take up his employment, with several strange adventures on the way.

On arriving in Vienna, he is not welcomed by the manager of the pub, but is pleased to meet an old girlfriend. Epiphany, who had married someone else, but her first husband had died, giving him something to hope for. When his employer eventually arrives in Vienna, Brian Duffy discovers that being a bouncer is only the start of his duties. The year is 1529 and Suleiman the Magnificent in Constantinople is preparing to send his army to capture Vienna. His object however, seems to be not so much the city itself as a certain barrel of beer, which it is said, will revive the Fisher King of Arthurian legend and give magical powers to those who drink it. The army of the Sultan approaches, the city is besieged, but behind the conventional battle to attack the city walls, there is a magical battle for control of the beer, with rival magicians on each side seeking to control armies of supernatural creatures.

There are physical battles with swords and cannons and mines and sorties, and there are the magical battles between the rival magicians and characters channelling Merlin and King Arthur. But though the elements are there, Charles Williams it isn't. The appearance of the supernatural creatures is described, but they don't seem to mean anything. They are simply tools in the hands of the rival magicians. And the ending was disappointing -- the title suggested it would end with the drawing of the dark beer, but that happens offstage, as it were, if it happened at all.