The Books Of Tim Powers
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Tim Powers is an American author, most famous for his supremely imaginative Historical Fantasy novels, although he has also written several science fiction stories. His work typically consists of an unlikely hero who finds himself in the midst of an unlikely but strangely convincing combination of genuine historical events, real-world mythology and the often bizarre products of Powers' imagination.
Powers first two books were the science fiction novels “The Skies Discrowned” and “Epitaph in Rust”, which I haven’t read yet but the general consensus of reviewers is that they are fairly unremarkable. His first notable work was his first fantasy novel, 1979's “The Drawing of the Dark”.
Drawing Of The Dark
The novel is set in 1529; Eastern Europe is in turmoil as the Turkish Emperor Suleiman invades country after country in a seemingly unstoppable progress towards conquering the continent. The book starts in Venice as Brian Duffy, a middle-aged Irish mercenary, gets into a fight with some young noblemen. After seeing off the locals, he has a seemingly chance encounter with Aurelianus, a mysterious old man who hires Duffy to travel to Vienna and work as a bouncer in a brewery Aurelianus owns there. Duffy is naturally a bit puzzled by getting paid a considerable amount of gold to travel over the Alps in Winter to do a job any number of Viennese could do, but it's nothing compared to his confusion when some very unusual things start happening to him on his trip. After over-imbibing in an inn on the way he encounters what seems to be the Roman God Bacchus. This could be dismissed as an effect of the alcohol, but he finds it more difficult to explain why supernatural assassins seem to be hunting him, and why mythological beasts escort him through the Alps.
Arrival in Vienna doesn't lead to a return of normality. His job as a bouncer at the famed Herzwestern Brewery is easy enough, but the whole city is in danger as Suleiman's army besieges the city. As the real-world battle between East and West goes on around him Duffy also finds himself the centre of a mythical battle between East and West, involving Merlin, Arthurian legend, the Fisher King and a bunch of has-been Vikings who seem to regard Duffy as their prophesied leader in the final battle of Ragnarok.
“Drawing of the Dark” set the template for Powers' later fantasy books. The historical background (in this case, the siege of Vienna), the mythology (the legends of King Arthur and the Fisher King) and the eccentric plot (Beer being the ultimate weapon in the battle between East and West) are typical of what was set to become trademarks of Powers' work. The plot has many original elements, whilst still fitting comfortably into the epic fantasy genre and despite some of the wild concepts Powers manages to make even the wildest of his imaginings sound reasonably plausible.
The characters are varied and likeable despite having a number of flaws and the writing style is entertaining, easy to read and often amusing. As a light read this works very well, although it does lack the depth of some of Powers' later, better work. The plot is more whimsical and less intense than in “The Stress of Her Regard” or “Declare”, for example.
In summary, this is an entertaining, light-hearted book that serves as a good introduction to Powers' novels. It is far from being his best work, but it is certainly fun to read.
The Anubis Gates
Powers' next novel - “The Anubis Gates” is probably his most famous and, in the opinion of many, his best book. Again this returns to the historical fantasy genre, but there has been a great leap forward in complexity, imagination and quality of writing since “The Drawing of the Dark”.
The novel starts in what was then contemporary America, (now known as the 1980s). Brendan Doyle is an academic at an American university whose area of expertise is English poets of the early 19th Century – principally Samuel Taylor Coleridge, and the comparatively obscure (and indeed, fictional) William Ashbless. After the death of his wife when he lost control of his motorbike, Doyle has been living a fairly listless existence, until he is intrigued by an eccentric millionaire with an unusual employment offer. The millionaire has discovered how to travel back in time, to a small number of locations, and he intends to go back to 1810 with some of his wealthy friends to attend a reading by the famous poet Coleridge. Doyle is hired to provide some academic background to the event, and is reminded of the necessity to return to a certain field outside London by a certain time so that he can return to the 20th Century. However, after Coleridge’s reading he is kidnapped by an eccentric bunch of gypsies who take him to see their master – an Egyptian sorcerer who accidentally created the means of time travel as part of an unsuccessful attempt to resurrect an ancient Egyptian God. Doyle manages to escape the Egyptians but is too late to return to the 20th Century and now has the problem of trying to survive in London as a penniless foreigner when nobody he knows will be born for another century.
He soon finds out that mere survival isn't his only problem. This resurrection attempt also created Dog-Faced Joe, a body-switching werewolf who has gone on a murderous rampage through London, who Doyle is destined to come into contact with. To make matters worse, the Egyptian sorcerors are plotting to bring down the British Empire and Doyle begins to suspect that his rich sponsor had motivations for travelling back in time other than just attending a poetry recital.
The historical detail of 19th and 17th Century London and Egypt has obviously been well-researched and the accuracy of the background helps make the supernatural events occurring in the foreground seem almost plausible. Surprising explanations are offered for the Great Fire of London and the actions of famous poet Lord Byron and a number of other historical events pop us as cameos in the story. Even by Powers' standards the plot is imaginative, taking in werewolves, Egyptian sorcerers, real-life poets, deformed puppet-masters, time travel and Beatles songs. It is a mark of how well-written the book is that suspension-of-disbelief is comparatively easy to achieve and the intricate time travel plot is impressively free of an obvious paradoxes.
The story is highly entertaining, it is easy to sympathise with the main character’s plight and in terms of quality of writing this may be the best of Powers' books.
The combination of an intricate, imaginative, original plot and a highly entertaining story makes this one of Powers' best books, and one of the finest fantasy books I have read.
On Stranger Tides
Powers' next fantasy book was “On Stranger Tides”, a novel which largely followed the formula established in “Drawing Of The Dark” and “The Anubis Gates” but relocated the action to a new setting - the early-18th Century Caribbean, during the last years of the infamous era of pirates in the Caribbean.
The main character is John Chandagnac, an accountant who travels from London to the Caribbean to confront his late father's brother, who has stolen the family inheritance. During his voyage he meets a young woman, Beth Hurwood, who is unknowingly part of a scheme by her deranged father, Benjamin Hurwood, to use Voodoo magic to bring her dead mother back to life. Before they can reach their destination, their ship is attacked by pirate captain Phil Davies. Chandagnac unwittingly offends Davies and is offered a choice – either be killed or enlist among the pirate's ranks. Despite his law-abiding instincts, John has no wish to die and soon ends up renamed as 'Jack Shandy', an unusual case of an accountant-turned buccaneer.
Shandy realises that Davies and his crew may be rough, but they are nevertheless reasonably likeable, however before he can get too comfortable in his new life, he has another encounter with Beth Hurwood and her father. Her Father has made a pact with the legendary pirate Ed Thatch (more famously known as Blackbeard), and they set off on a journey to Florida to find the mythical Fountain Of Youth. Needless to say, they have sinister intentions and Shandy must find a way to rescue Beth from her fate.
The plot is, compared to “The Anubis Gates”, fairly straightforward – although it does continue Powers' fondness for using fiction to offer unlikely supernatural explanations for the some of the documented behaviour of historical figures – principally Blackbeard, although several other real-life figures also turn up. The supernatural element here is provided by the frequent use of Voodoo magic, for both benign and evil reasons – including the always-entertaining concept of Zombie Pirates, a species of monster tragically under-used in fantasy fiction. In terms of sheer entertainment value, this is one of Powers' best books, the characters are likeable and it's more light-hearted, and less convoluted, than many of his other novels. As ever, Powers manages to make his unlikely narrative seem reasonably convincing, although it does feature one of Powers' more irritating trademarks – the virtually indestructible hero. No matter how much punishment and mutilation poor John Chandagnac goes through, he is still able to put up a good fight when the story demands it of him, at a time when his injuries would seemingly have incapacitated most people. It also has to be pointed out that, although Powers' novels are highly original compared to other fantasy fiction, in many way they seem a bit similar to each other – John Chandagnac's experiences in some ways mirroring those of Brendan Doyle, although admittedly in a completely different setting.
In summary, the plot may not be Powers' best, but it is highly entertaining and a contender for one of his best books. It may lack complexity compared to “The Anubis Gates”, but “The Anubis Gates” doesn't have Zombie Pirates in it.
The Stress Of Her Regard
“The Stress of Her Regard” is Powers' enigmatically-named fourth fantasy novel. Although it contains many elements familiar from his earlier works, this is a much more serious – and in some ways, more ambitious – book than his previous novels. It is also the first that could also be categorised in the horror genre, as this is a highly original take on a familiar genre – the Vampire novel.
The setting is 19th-Century Europe, and the hapless hero this time around is surgeon Michael Crawford. On the night before his marriage, Crawford has a drunken encounter with what appears to be a female statue in the courtyard of an inn – fearful of losing his wedding ring while trying to sober up his drunken best man he puts the ring on the statue's finger for safekeeping. Unfortunately, when he wakes up the next morning, he finds no trace of the statue and the innkeeper denies having ever seen such a thing. Crawford is duly married to his bride, Julia, with the only hitch in the wedding being caused by Julia's unstable sister Josephine – a twin, who occasionally believes that she is Julia, and Josephine died at birth. However, upon awakening the morning after his wedding Crawford finds his new bride dead in bed beside him, having apparently been brutally killed while Crawford slept. After fleeing his angry in-laws, Crawford ends up in London, under an assumed name, in the company of a young surgeon and aspiring poet named John Keats. Keats explains to him that the night before his wedding he inadvertently 'proposed' to a Nephilim, a member of a supernatural race that is the source of Vampire mythology, as well as a number of other real-world myths. The Nephilim will love and protect Crawford, but it is too alien to really understand humans, and is insanely jealous, causing it to kill anyone he loves.
To escape the creature, Crawford must find a way to 'divorce' his supernatural wife, however it is not an easy task, and the Nephilim are seductive enough that most of their victims don't want to escape their grasp. Crawford travels to the Alps, where a cure may be achievable. He is followed by Josephine, who blames him for her sister's death and soon also falls under the influence of another Vampire. In the Alps he meets up with a number of expatriate Englishmen who are also victims of the Nephilim – including the famous poets Lord Byron (who also appeared in “The Anubis Gates” and Percy Shelley, whose wife Mary based her novel “Frankenstein” on her husband's encounter with the Nephilim (according to Powers, anyway). Crawford, Byron and Shelley all realise that they must break free of the Nephilim or their families will continue to die around them; however they all find it difficult to resist the temptations of the supernatural race.
Unlike Powers' early books, this is quite episodic – with long time jumps interrupting the story. The story is filled with an impressive amount of historical detail, Powers providing supernatural explanations for even the most trivial actions of Byron, Keats and the Shelleys – as well as more major events like the Austrian occupation of Venice - with chapter headings containing frequent (and strangely appropriate) quotations from the journals and poems of the poets. The supernatural mythology is also developed with more detail than in previous books, with the Nephilim referencing numerous myths and legends.
This is a much darker novel than the frequently light-hearted “Drawing Of The Dark” or “On Stranger Tides” and some passages are genuinely disturbing. Powers doesn't attempt to scare the reader, but he is very good at being unsettling. The plot is intricate, and the level of historical detail is undeniably impressive, but the episodic plot doesn't really flow well, especially as its focus switches between the three main characters. The fidelity to historical events is also a disadvantage, as minor (real-life) characters are introduced and then disappear, adding nothing to the story and Byron's and Shelley's actions sometimes do not make much sense in the context of the supernatural problem they find themselves in. Another problem is the fact that several of the characters break free from the Nephilim surprisingly early in the book – it is difficult to see why the other characters never attempt to do the same thing.
The characters are somehow not as likeable as their counterparts in Powers' other works – the heroes of the other novels may have their flaws but they aren't as weak-minded (although still strangely indestructible) as Michael Crawford is. It is certainly possible to sympathise with their plight, but their problems are often too self-inflicted to really care about the book's characters.
In summary this is an ambitious book, which manages to be a genuinely disturbing horror novel as well as being a highly original piece of fantasy. However, the entertainment value is less than in Powers' other works. “The Stress of Her Regard” is an interesting story, but not the best that Powers has written.
Last Call
“Last Call” is unusual among Powers novels, in that it is the first to be set in the ‘modern’ era, in this case early-90s Las Vegas.
Las Vegas is generally associated with gambling, and there is plenty of gambling going on in this novel, even if little of it is in casinos. The game in question is a variation of Poker called Assumption played for very, very high stakes. Once a generation a very special poker game occurs on Lake Mead where, although plenty of money changes hands, most of the participants are unaware of just what they are playing for. The winner of the game stands to gain huge mystical powers as the latest incarnation of the Fisher King of the West, the losers stand to have their very souls possessed by the new King by the time the next game comes around.
The main character, Scott Crane, has had an eventful and often unfortunate life. The son of the reigning Fisher King, Scott was rescued by his Mother from his father’s clutches just before his ruthless father turned him into a soulless extension of his own personality, like his hapless elder brother. After his mother’s death Scott was brought up by an itinerant gambler named Ozzy Crane who taught his adopted son his lucrative poker-playing skills but walked away from him after Scott ignored Ozzy’s warning and took part in the fateful poker game on Lake Mead in 1969.
Now it is nearly time for the next big card game, and if Scott can’t figure out a way to avoid his fate he stands to lose his soul the next time Assumption is played on Lake Mead. Despite grieving for the recent tragic death of his wife and struggling with a growing alcoholism, Scott must somehow come out of retirement as a poker player and figure out a way to out-think his estranged Father and somehow win the game of Assumption to become the King himself.
He is assisted by his step-father Ozzy, reluctantly coming back to help his children out of danger when Scott’s step-sister Diana (also connected by birth to the mysticism surrounding the Fisher King) and her children are endangered by the various aspiring claimants to the throne. Assistance (and some mild comic relief) comes from Scott’s whimsical neighbour Arky Mavranos, a man with terminal cancer desperately hoping for a miracle to cure his illness.
There are a variety of eccentric (and sometimes completely insane) antagonists, all trying to put their own candidate for Fisher King on the throne, not to mention the many other bodies, losers in former Assumption games, possessed by the reigning King.
As ever, Powers has invented his own new mythology for this book, mingling invented Poker superstitions with Tarot card symbolism and of course the mandatory secret pseudo-historical events.
This novel is regarded as one of Powers’ best works, winning the World Fantasy and Nebula awards. I wouldn’t say that it is quite my favourite of his books, but it is still a very good. The characters are memorable but perhaps not quite as likeable as the protagonists of earlier novels such as Drawing Of The Dark and On Stranger Tides. As Powers writes more books his mythologies seem to get ever more complicated and it can occasionally be a bit difficult to follow, but it is never less than intriguing.
Expiration Date
“Expiration Date” is the second book in the loose trilogy started by “Last Call” and continued by “Earthquake Weather”. There is actually very little connection to “Last Call”; it barely shares any plot or characters.
As the book starts, an 11-year old boy named Koot Parganas decides to run away from his eccentric parents, as an act of rebellion against their strict religious beliefs that constrain his life. However, his act of rebellion has unexpectedly serious consequences when he decides to take with him his parent's most prized possession which, unknown to him, contains the ghost of electrical pioneer Thomas Alva Edison.
It turns out that in Los Angeles there is a bustling trade in the spirits of the dead, with wealthy addicts desperate for the experience caused by ingesting a spirit. Certain ghosts are more prized than others, and the ghost of Edison (who in real life attempted to build a machine to talk to the dead) would be of incalculable value. Koot soon finds himself on the run, helped by people with dubious motives and with his only ally the spirit of the dead inventor – who has to deal with the culture clash of modern America.
The other main character in the book is Pete Sullivan, an itinerant Electrician with an affinity for spirits, who returns to Los Angeles in an attempt to evade Loretta De Lavara, who tried to exploit his talent to capture the spirit of Sullivan's dead father. Pete eventually meets up with another major character – Angelica Elizalde, a psychiatrist traumatised by her encounter with a ghost, which was fatal to some of her patients.
There is quite a lot more to the plot, this is one of the longest of Powers' books and the story is among the more convoluted. Whereas most Powers books concentrate on one central character, here there are several and as a result the book feels a bit less focused than usual, especially at the beginning when the characters have no connection to each other.
As ever the background is convincingly portrayed, although the rules that govern the behaviour of the ghosts does seem a bit arbitrary – it's hard to see why they have a fascination with palindromes, for example. Despite being sent in contemporary America, Powers does manage to fit in a bit of his trademark historical detail, relating to the lives of Edison and Harry Houdini.
The book is well written, Powers is able to fit words together with impressive skill, however his characters aren't as interesting as in his other books. There are arguably too many characters and some of their motivations are a bit vague. Also the plot just doesn't seem as well constructed as in previous novels – there are too many subplots that don't add too much to the story and the interconnection of the various subplots seems a bit tenuous.
In summary, this is an entertaining book but it's far from Powers best, with a number of flaws in regard to the plotting and characterisation.
Earthquake Weather
Earthquake Weather – which is simultaneously a sequel to both Last Call and Expiration Date is possibly Powers’ least-loved Fantasy novel judging from other comments on the Internet. I think it is a fair description to describe this as one of his weakest, but even Powers at his weakest is still well worth reading.
The book is set a few years after Last Call and Expiration Date. Scott Crane, the benevolent Fisher King of the West, has been murdered by a schizophrenic young woman possessed by a psychopathic male ghost who was a previous challenger for the post of Fisher King. The young woman’s less insane personalities, the timid Janis and abrasive Cody, want to make amends for the murder and intend to atone for their crime by attempting to bring Crane back to life.
The connection with Expiration Date comes in when Janis escapes from the mental institution she was incarcerated in after being put there by the police for confessing to a crime that, as far as they can see, never happened. While in the institute she is menaced by the chief psychiatrist Dr Armentrout - a ruthless man who feeds off the psychic emanations of his patient’s disturbed personalities in an attempt to stave off the attentions of the guilt-bearing ghosts who haunt his life. Janis escapes with the help of Sid Cochran, a wine-grower committed to the institute after a bout of seeming temporary insanity following the sudden death of his wife. Cochran sees visions of the God Dionysus whose appearances are connected to the Fisher King himself.
Since the Fisher King is (at least temporarily) dead, a new heir must come forward. One candidate is the teenage protagonist of Expiration Date, Kootie Parganas, whose unusual upbringing makes him a likely candidate. After Janis and Cochran join up with Kootie, his parents, and Scott Crane’s old friend Arky Mavranos, they must somehow find a way to bring Scott Crane back to life before his ghost departs too far to ever come back.
This isn’t as easy as it sounds (and it doesn’t sound very easy). They don’t know exactly what they have to do, even with guidance from a ghostly renegade former disciple of Dionysus, and there are numerous people out there who want them to fail, among them Dr Armentrout, the ghost inhabiting Janis’ head and members of Janis’ father’s former cult. To make matters worse, the various people trying to work together to reincarnate Scott Crane don’t know if they can trust each other, particularly the multiple personalities of his murderess.
Earthquake Weather is quite a good book but doesn’t have the brilliance of Powers’ best work. As in Expiration Date, the mystical background doesn’t seem as convincing as in some of Powers’ best work, and the attempt to shoehorn together the two separate mythologies from Last Call and Expiration Date into a single story is a bit unconvincing, with some previously crucial parts of the mythology such as Last Call’s Tarot card games being largely ignored except for token mentions.
It is possibly slightly better than Expiration Date because of the superior characters. Janis (and the other personalities in her head) is a slightly unconvincing but certainly original and interesting piece of characterisation and nominal hero Sid Cochran is quite likeable despite his out-of-his-depth haplessness.
Even second-rate Powers is still better than many other fantasy authors and although it may not be his best story it is still as original as ever.
Declare
Tim Powers' next novel was “Declare”, an ambitious mixture of historical fantasy and World War 2-era Spy Fiction. His previous two novels had received some mediocre reviews, so a lot of people were keen to see if he could reverse the trend with “Declare” - while he didn't convince everybody, most fans seem happy to regard this as the best Powers novel since “Last Call” or “The Stress of Her Regard”.
In this story the Intelligence Services of the various countries involved in the Second World War are all aware of the effect that supernatural powers are having on the conflict and its aftermath. The main character is Andrew Hale, a young and in many ways naive (at least at the start of the story) agent recruited by the British Intelligence to infiltrate the Soviet Union's intelligence operations in Nazi-occupied France. He then falls in love with his slightly more experienced fellow agent Elena, a devoted communist veteran of the Spanish Civil War. During their time in France they are always on the verge of being discovered by the Germans, especially when the Soviets seem indifferent to the possibility of them being captured. At this point the story is a fairly traditional (and well written) example of the Spy Thriller genre, but before long Andrew starts to notice a number of strange events occurring that could only have a paranormal explanation.
The book is set in a number of different time-frames, mostly told in flashbacks from 1963 when Andrew is re-activated from retirement as a college lecturer and told that he is going to have an opportunity to have a second attempt at a disastrous mission to Mount Ararat in 1949. In the years since the war he has learned that the Soviets have made alliances with supernatural creatures that aid the Red Army in return for brutal sacrifices. The tiny secret branch of British Intelligence devoted to the problem must somehow find a way to destroy the Soviet's supernatural resources.
Unfortunately British Intelligence has been infiltrated by a number of Soviet double agents, including Kim Philby, a man who has a close connection to Andrew and to the supernatural entities that live on Mount Ararat. A further complication is Andrew's former love, Elena, whose purpose in the struggle may not be entirely compatible with Andrew's own.
Along the way Powers manages to toss in the biblical Ark, the “Arabian Nights” stories, Lawrence of Arabia and the carefully-researched history of Philby and the other 'Cambridge Spies'.
“Declare” is a supremely ambitious work, even by Powers' standards. Only “The Stress Of Her Regard” comes close in the depth of plot, and the scale of historical detail. Even more impressive is the fact that as well as being a compelling story of the supernatural, it is also an excellent – if extremely unconventional – example of the espionage genre. The intricately described details of the lives followed by the spies are matched by his imaginative and typically strangely convincing interpretation of the myths of the Djinn that inhabit the area around the Arabian desert.
The use of flashbacks is a cunning device that allows Powers to slowly reveal the supernatural elements and is an excellent opportunity for foreshadowing events later in the book – as well as providing explanation for events that happened earlier in the book. Admittedly, it does also make the novel a bit difficult to follow initially.
The writing is compelling, the plot is intriguing, the characters are interesting and the (infrequent) action scenes are suitably suspenseful. This is one of Powers' finest works and a highly original mix of genres that works amazingly well.
Three Days To Never
The most recent novel by Tim Powers is 2006’s “Three Days to Never”. The novel is set in a more recent historical timeframe than most of his previous books – early-1980s California.
The main character is Frank Marrity, a college literature lecturer bringing up his 12-year old daughter Daphne alone after the death of his wife a few years earlier. One day he gets an incoherent phone call from his grandmother – who raised him and his sister after his father ran away and his mother committed suicide – claiming she has burned down the mysterious ‘Kaleidoscope Shed’ in the garden of her house. When Frank and Daphne rush round to the house they find it deserted and the shed unburned (but smelling of petrol). Frank is shocked to be told shortly after that his grandmother’s body has been found in the wilderness hundreds of miles away, apparently having died there shortly after phoning him from her house. Strange events continue to happen as Frank and Daphne find that they have an increasingly strong ability to hear each other’s thoughts, they find themselves being followed and then Daphne sets fire to part of their house, seemingly only using her mind. The fire-raising occurs after Daphne watches a videotape found in the Kaleidoscope Shed, a video marked as being the film “Pee-Wee’s Big Adventure”, but which turns out to contain the only copy of a disturbing silent-film era black-and-white horror film. The tape sends Daphne into a trance and she only breaks out of it by causing the fire and burning up the tape. As if things weren’t going badly enough for Frank a man claiming to be his father (who Frank has not seen or heard from for decades) shows up at his house and demands to speak to him.
Frank and Daphne gradually come to the realisation that they have stumbled upon a secret they would have been better off not learning and they find themselves pursued by a murderous organisation of psychics known as the Vespers, the Israeli secret-service agency Mossad and the man claming to be Frank’s father. They are all in pursuit of a machine they believe that Frank’s grandmother possessed – a machine left to her by the great physicist Albert Einstein who described it as a greater weapon than the atom bomb he helped develop.
This is not quite Powers’ best novel, but it isn’t too far away either. The plot is interesting, the story compelling and there are a number of memorable characters among both the Marritys and the various forces competing pursuing them. There are a few scenes scattered through the novel that manage to be particularly imaginative, sinister or humorous. There is also a very interesting piece of characterisation where we get to see a character from two very different perspectives. The only real flaw in the novel is that it is possibly a bit slow to start off with and some characters (such as Frank’s sister and his hapless brother-in-law) seem a bit underused.
In summary, over two decades after the release of “Drawing of the Dark” Powers continues to write excellent, imaginative fantasy novels.
Not reviewed (or read) yet : Powers' three science fiction novels and his short fiction.
Links
The comprehensive "Works of Tim Powers" website.
Subterreanen Press are the small-press publishers of some of Powers' more difficult-to-find-books.
The 'Anubis Gates' , a Tim Powers fan page.
"Stranger Tides" , another Powers fan site.
An interview with Powers about the release of "Declare"
The Tim Powers Yahoogroups forum/e-mail list, that Powers himself belongs to.
Chronicles:, a not-particularly-busy sub-forum at Chronicles.
All content ©2003 William Marnoch.
Comments? Agree/Disagree with the Reviews? Suggestions? Random Ramblings? Whatever you might want to say, feel free to e-mail me at william@wmarnoch.freeserve.co.uk .