You have good taste in literature. I bought two used hardcopies of “Deviant’s” on Amazon last year and gave them away as solstice gifts! That book, and “Drawing of the Dark”, were what hooked me on Powers. I wish he’d write something as good as those two again… or that somebody would make either one into a movie…
I loved Drawing of the Dark! I have it right here on the shelf next to me and I think you just set my evening plans!
I’m torn between desperately wanting DotD made into a movie, and fearing that Hollywood would “Damnation Alley” it… or introduce a computer-animated giant white orc character, or something.
I still carry ‘hemogoblin’ and ‘tooth sayer’ around with me, always ready to slip out.
‘Jaybirds.’ The Dogtown Gate. Iceskating sad tinmen robot girls.
Man, that book is so frickin’ awesome.
‘Hide Me Among the Graves’ was pretty good, but it was no ‘Anubis Gates’ which invites direct comparison. The ‘darker’ spin did however make me read Christina Rossetti which was worth the price of admission, however. ‘Goblin Market’ FTW!
“Last Call” was my long-delayed introduction to Powers, but my favorites are probably “Expiration Date” and “The Anubis Gates.” Ironically, it was some weird brain-mixup spent 20 years thinking the Anubis Gates was military scifi that had me avoiding him (probably a stray neuron from the Blade Runner dialogue). DaDP doesn’t seem nearly as strong to me as AG, but I enjoyed it.
The Powers-magic-idea of avoiding contact with the earth & whatever else is attached never ceases to work for me, and Expiration Date seems to be jam-packed with wacky ideas (living ghosts drinking atomic-fireball-candy-tea to survive and surrounded by constantly-reworked plumbling/wiring and electric pigs, ghost-bums shitting bottlecaps and twigs, etc etc etc) that just work.
Never hurts to read Powers. I wish there were more. Just think if he could pump them out like his friend PKD…
Nah - he would never pump them out like that. He takes his time, noodles them, revels in them, sweats them out, doodles them until they come together jusssst right.
Go, Timothy!
Pretty sure I got turned on to Tim Powers from a BB link. Was just thinking the other day to get another one of his books so this comes at the right time.
Dinner At Deviant’s Palace, as SF rather than Powers’ usual contemporary or historical fantasy, felt off-kilter when I read it way back on first publication. To me, it’s his least satisfying book.
Recently finished a mostly-re-read of Last Call. My original copy went poof and vanished – not literally – when I was about thirty pages from the finish. I figured it would pop back up eventually, but after more than fifteen years, I finally got a second copy. Surprisingly, that original copy still hasn’t shown back up after getting the second copy. Most things like that suddenly reappear somewhere in plain sight.
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