Last Call

Yes, I did finish Last Call by Tim Powers today, and I do believe that I saved the best 'til last.
Here, we have a story that spans four decades; combines Tarot (and their debased forms in ordinary playing cards), figures from mythology (not specific figures, just, you know, the mythical bits, not the myths themselves), Arthurian legends, Las Vegas, desperate gamblers, a cast of very disturbed individuals, and furious gunplay. All in a battle to be the King (and Elvis is only mentioned once).
Symbols fly thick and fast - this is a novel about modern magic, and symbols play a large part in it. But I found that rather than be obscure and confusing, it was gripping and fairly straightforward. (Though magic is twisty and turny enough in and of itself that that's not saying much, necessarily.) The magic was primal, and viscerally true, and not always pleasant.
I highly recommend this book. It feels like it's peeled my skull away from my brain, and yet I feel I haven't learned anything from it that I didn't already know. And one thing I realised I'd forgotten until near the end of the book - Las Vegas is bat country. :)
Though there was a bit in the book tonight that seemed to echo with the whole 'read and review the five' idea. In Neil Gaiman's Stardust, a rhyme crops up that I never heard before...

How many miles to Babylon?
Nine score and ten.
Can I get there by candlelight?
Yes, there and back again.

And when it cropped up near the end of Last Call... wooo. :)