I have been a Tim Powers fan ever since 1990, my freshman year at college, when my friend's roommate loaned me his copy of The Anubis Gates. Sadly I find myself liking Powers' more recent novels less and less, with each novel being more dispiriting than the one before.

Three Days to Never is his most recent novel, and it is the one which I like the least. It seems difficult to believe that it comes from the same author who brought us The Anubis Gates. There isn't even any fencing in it. And I ask you, what kind of Tim Powers novel has no fencing in it? Not even a little.

What it does have is drinking, in spades. Alcoholism (and its aftereffects) has long been a thread drawn through Powers' books, but in Three Days to Never it finds its fullest expression. Something which was once portrayed as a terrifying black hole to be escaped from with your life (if at all) is here treated more like a sad, inevitable fate.

I don't know Tim Powers (although I have heard he's a really great guy). I have no idea what his relationship is to alcohol. But let me say this: if my friend had written this book, I would be extremely concerned for their welfare. This is a book written by a man who has fought alcoholism all his life, and is losing the battle. Or worse: is beginning to feel that the battle is futile.

Three Days to Never also includes another Powers theme, the loss of a wife or a parent. In this case both, as the protagonist (coincidentally, a middle-aged college Lit professor) is a widower, and the book begins with the death of his mother. He has lost his wife and his mother, and his daughter has lost her mother and grandmother. I would have liked this sadness to be explored more. Instead it's just there, turning the edges of the scenes sepia-toned.

Also, there are a large number of cats, which remain unexplained. I suspect they were Marrity's wife's pets, if only because they reminded me of the simple poignancy of the coffee cup left on the stove in Last Call.

But all these things would only be rough edges in a book that went somewhere. Three Days to Never literally doesn't. Powers is at his best when he's running his characters quickly through outlandish scenarios, the vivid imagery coming at you so quickly you have to stop to take a breath. That doesn't happen here.

Faced with the entirety of time and space, we spend most of it bounded sharply for no real reason. The characters spend a surprising amount of time sitting around waiting. It doesn't make for a gripping read.

Interspersed between scenes where characters sit around talking to each other, we get vast swaths of exposition. So many aspects of the magic are explained that one can't help but wonder why they aren't shown, instead.

I found my mind kept wandering to Matt, the orphaned dybbuk. He seemed like he could have been one of the most interesting aspects of the book. Except that the entire plot hinges upon Matt being pushed off-stage. Pity, that.