In the last month or so, I've read all of the books in the Aegypt cycle. It's been a bit of a chore. The book spirals through time, characters and storylines, changing the past, present and future. Or perhaps it is a major river (starting Y-shaped) with many streams, brooks, creeks, rivulets trickling forth.
Crowley knows the strangeness of his plot structure well, and addresses it in a passage about halfway through Endless Things where Pierce (I shall resist a near-obligatory pun on the implications of his name) is reviewing and editing the last, unpublished book by his favorite author, Fellowes Kraft:
"The book itself, Kraft's original, had turned out to be even less complete in some ways than Pierce remembered it being. As the pages had silted up Kraft had seemingly begun making the worst of fictional errors, or ceased correcting them: all those things that alienate readers and annoy critics, like the introduction of new major characters at late stages of the story, unpacked and sent out on new adventures while the old main characters sit lifeless somewhere offstage, or stumble to keep up. New plot movements, departing from the main branch of the story for so long that they *become* the main branch without our, the readers', agreement or assent. All of it inducing that sense of reckless haste or -- worse -- droning inconsequence that sooner or later causes us -- us, the only reason for any of it, the sole feelers of its feelings, sole knowers of its secrets -- to sigh, or groan in impatience, or maybe even end (with a clap) the story the writer seems only to want to keep on beginning."
Post script: I would also like to know what happened to John Dee's crystal ball and what is the deal with the weird animal car names.