The Anubis Gates by Tim Powers

I don't read what I consider to be an excessive amount of science fiction or fantasy. I used to, don't get me wrong. Just, these days, I tend to prefer straight fiction or humor, excepting of course Neil Gaiman's body of work which I will continue to devour, reading-wise. Either way, I was pleasantly surprised by this book... though I shouldn't've been. It was a Philip K. Dick award winner, it's about British people and mythology and it had tons of literary references (the guy goes back in time ostensibly to see a Samuel Taylor Coleridge lecture... that's right, The Rime of the Ancient Mariner and Kubla Kahn inspire freakin' time travel, bitches. Oh, pardon me, is my English major showing?)

Either way, the novel was clever. The main character, a historical biographer named Brendan Doyle, goes back in time from 1983 as a part of this group of millionaires (and, unbeknownst to him, evil scientists) going to see an 1810 Coleridge lecture and ends up accidently getting stuck there. It was a lot like Buffy in parts, which made me love it. It didn't take itself too seriously but it was well-thought-out enough that I didn't cringe and say "Really? Really?!" out loud to my faithful but deaf reading companion, my dog Ruby. Doyle ends up living through all these horrors perpetuated by a group of people attempting to control the travel through the streams of time called the Anubis Gates, which are like holes in the ice covering of the river of time. I probably screwed up that metaphor, but still. There's a man called Dog Face Joe who is sort of a werewolf thing who can jump into other peoples bodies, people splitting their spirits, a group of evil disfigured beggers the leader of whom is dressed as a clown on stilts, Doyle realises that he's not the only person from the 20th century when he hears people whistling "Yesterday" by The Beatles--a splendid time is guaranteed for all! Also, there's a woman disguising herself as a tough street boy street urchin. So, see, everything I love pretty much reverts back to drag.

Through hours of strenuous research (ie: idle googling), I discovered that the character of William Ashbless, the poet whose biography Doyle was working on only to discover that he himself IS Ashbless, was actually created as a joke in college with one of his buddies, to kind of poke fun at crappy poets by submitting "nonsensical free verse" to the paper under the Ashbless name.. The link to the wiki is here:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Ashbless

There's a lot of the plot I didn't reveal here, but really, I enjoyed this novel. Good times, two thumbs up.