Wow what a book! The plot twists and turns and spirals every which way and I never knew what was going to happen next.

An ancient conspiracy of sorcerers have been working for centuries to bring Egypt back into power. As the book starts, they break holes through the wall between our world and the place where the Egyptian gods exist, and in the process, create a series of gaps in the stream of time. These are the Anubis Gates.

More than a century later, Brendan Doyle, an expert in early 19th century poetry and about as unlikely a hero as you can imagine, joins a group of people who use one of these gates to travel back in time. The purpose of the trip is to attend a lecture by Coleridge. And that is where everything goes wildly off the rails. Body snatching werewolves, ancient Egyptian gods lurking in the Thames, evil clowns on stilts, a hypnotised Byron, a dreaming Coleridge - and it all works. As always with Tim Powers, there is a wonderful mix of science, history and sorcery and it all seems quite plausible.

Wild, violent, extremely grim at times, but very entertaining.