by Tim Powers
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| List Price: | $25.95 |
| Average Rating: |  |
| Lowest New Price: | $5.04 |
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Product Description
Albert Einstein's groundbreaking scientific discoveries made possible the creation of the most terrible weapon the world had ever known. But he made another discovery that he chose to reveal to no one—to keep from human hands a power that dwarfed the atomic bomb. When twelve-year-old Daphne Marrity takes a videotape labeled Pee-wee's Big Adventure from her recently deceased grandmother's house, neither she nor her college-professor father, Frank, realize what they now have in their possession. In an instant they are thrust into the center of a world-altering conspiracy, drawing the dangerous attentions of both the Israeli Secret Service and an ancient European cabal of occultists. Now father and daughter have three days to learn the rules of a terrifying magical chess game in order to escape a fate more profound than death—because the Marritys hold the key to the ultimate destruction of not only what's to come . . . but what already has been.
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Average Customer Review:
0 of 1 people found the following review helpful:
 Interesting premise but....FIND AN EDITOR!, 2008-09-27
I read the back cover and was captivated. UNFORTUNATELY, I COULDN'T GET PAST PG 170 and threw it in the trash. (Tim, PLEASE, get an editor, move the story!) For Pete's sake, 170 pgs and NOTHING HAS HAPPENED. IF you consider buying this book, get the $.01 version, at least then you can use it as a cheap coaster on your coffee table.
Is there a writer out there that could take another stab at this one?....it is in need of a re-write!
1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:
 I thought only angels could bi-locate, 2008-08-13
Tim Powers's book is a work of wicked imagination, a terrific romp, culminating a little cheesily, however. Too pat. Nonetheless, I have new respect for Einstein's baby-making powers, as well as his adept ability to discover radical new theories--even those I had never heard about before.
But as the work of fiction describes there are others who do know. Some murky clandestine outfit that's truly scarry and a Mossad (Israeli CIA) group with a member who can't go into the ocean or listen to Rimsky-Korsakov. Don't ask Oren Lepidopt, however, he couldn't explain it himself.
Einstein, who weirdly factors into the story, was certainly very far-sighted. Powers's story uses this and is so far-fetched as to be plausible. Truth is indeed stranger than fiction, though this work may stretch that a little bit. Dean Koontz is correct in blurbing _Three Days To Never_ as "A hurricane blowing away the stale postmodern sensibility of most fiction." And I write as one who has seen Einstein's letter to FDR, recommending the construction of what would become the nuclear bomb because of the threat the Nazis posed.
I don't want to give anything away. I picked this book up on a lark. But I was able to read it quickly. It's a page-turner that also makes one think about issues of time travel, the supernatural, and free will. It gives a new twist on that German word for doubles, doppelgänger.
I also liked how the Israelis are presented in a way I find appealing and accurate: as the good guys.
I am also more leery about partaking so much with alcohol, coming as I do from Irish who fit the stereotype. The old Frank Marrity is such a creep, while I very much admired his younger incarnation. Now that's an achievement for any writer to present the same person at different ages simultaneously.
Great job, Mr. Powers!
0 of 0 people found the following review helpful:
 Weird book, okay, but weird, 2008-07-31
This was the first book that I've read by Tim Powers. It was okay; I give it four stars. It was also weird with dybbuks (what the heck are they?), ghosts, talking 'dead' heads and multi-dimensional out-of-body travel being just a few of the oddities contained in this book. Of course, that craziness is not really a negative. What I found though was that the book was quite confusing at times for me, in particular, I had a hard time keeping track of some of the characters. That is probably what kept me from giving this a 5 out of 5.
0 of 0 people found the following review helpful:
Another Tim Powers brain-twister., 2008-07-02
Before Albert Einstein and Mileva Mari Maric were married, they had a child, a daughter named Liserl. She was left with Mari's parents and nothing more is known of her, her life, or her death. All that is known is that her parents didn't claim her after their marriage. This child has been the subject of books: non-fiction and fiction. Tim Powers has his own take on what happened to Liserl in Three Days to Never.
Three Days to Never takes place in, you guessed it, three days. However, it also has flashbacks, flashforwards, and lots and lots of actions. Since the story involves quantum physics and essentially time travel as well as mysticism, there are also, in some cases, two sets of the same people involved in the action.
The unfortunate part of reviewing this book is that it's very difficult to tell you anything without giving away some of the plot. But I'll give it a go. Frank Marrity and his daughter Daphne check up on Frank's mother who had called him and said she'd burned down the small shed in her back yard. While checking it out, Frank and Daphne find the shed intact although soaked with gasoline, a cement slab with Charlie Chaplin's hand and footprints, and a VHS tape of Pee-wee's Big Adventure. Later watching the tape, Daphne learns it isn't the movie she thought it was, instead it was the only copy of a Chaplin film that assists the viewer in achieving an altered state of consciousness. Daphne, who has a bit of psychic ability and a link with her father, ends up setting her room on fire. At this point, things go into high gear. There's an Israeli and a German secret undercover operation trying to get the tape and cement slab and a time machine. There's lots of characters with mixed agendas and motives added to the mix.
Once, I got into the book, I found it very hard to put down. I was confused at first but eventually sorted the various parties out. It will be up to the reader to determine the good, the bad, and the misguided -- I have my own ideas about who falls in which category but won't spoil the read with my impressions.
It's not an easy book to read. There's a lot going on and you'll need some non-interrupted reading time at the beginning of the book to get the plot and characters straight in your mind. Once you do that, hang on because it doesn't matter what is happening outside the book, you won't want to put it down.
1 of 2 people found the following review helpful:
 Dis-Jointed, 2008-06-18
Really hard to read; not a bad science fiction premise, but unable to get it out of second gear. Just painful. I just finished this book and I felt like it was like taking bad medicine.
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