Bibliography
Powers of Two (2004)
The Devils in the Details (2003)
with James P. Blaylock
Three short stories: one by Blaylock (The Devils in the Details),
one by Powers (Through and Through), and a collaborative effort (Fifty Cents)
What If Our World Is Their Heaven? The Final Conversations Of Philip K. Dick (2003)
edited by Gwen Lee
Introduction by Tim Powers
The William Ashbless Memorial Cookbook (2002)
with James B. Blaylock
James B. Blaylock and Tim Powers give their fictional poet his own real-life recipes,
and more, in The William Ashbless Memorial Cookbook. There's Chicken a la Ashbless and
Can O' Beans Salad, mini-essays inspired by Ashbless's letters to Dean Koontz,
lots of good-natured cooking advice--and even an afterward attributed to Ashbless,
who indignantly notes that life isn't dead after all. Goofiness abounds.
On Pirates (2001)
by William Ashbless (with a bit of help from Tim Powers and James P. Blaylock)
Night Moves and Other Stories (2001)
Powers' short stories collected in one volume: Two Men in New Suits, Night Moves,
The Better Boy (with Blaylock), We Traverse Afar, Itinerary, The Way Down the Hill,
Where They Are Hid, and Story Notes
This deluxe small press collection pulls together for the first time all of Powers's
published short fiction. An introduction by Powers's friend and sometime coauthor, acclaimed
contemporary fantasist James P. Blaylock, offers some remembrances of their past adventures after
they met during grad school in Southern California in 1972 and hints at some of the themes that
drive both authors' fiction: a strong sense of place, and the curious interface between weirdness
and the mundane world. The infamous Santa Ana winds provide momentum to the otherworldly crossovers
in "Night Moves," a World Fantasy Award nominee, and "Itinerary." "The Better Boy," written by
Powers and Blaylock, combines both authors' strengths in an optimistic tale of hope and obsession,
while a Christmas carol marks the route back to life for a grieving man in "We Traverse Afar."
In "The Way Down the Hill," long-standing arguments come to a head at a reunion of immortal
body-snatchers, and history gets twisted in surprising ways in the time- travel adventure of
"Where They Are Hid." In these six stories, readers unfamiliar with the author's work will discover
the power of memories and hope, while longtime fans will be interested in comparing Powers's
short works to his novels.
(c. Publishers Weekly, Dec 18, 2000, v247 i51 p60)
Declare (2000)
2001 International Horror Guild Awards Best Novel
2001 World Fantasy Awards Best Novel
As a young man, Alan Hale, working for British Intelligence, failed to stop a mysterious
Soviet mission on Mt. Ararat and re-entered civilian life. Twenty years later, he must return
to Turkey to accomplish the mission that has haunted him since the end of World War II. Powers,
known for his complex fantasy tales, here turns in a classic spy novel with a supernatural twist
that ties Lawrence of Arabia to the fall of the Iron Curtain. Fans of John le Carre will appreciate
the authentic period detail, meticulous descriptions of the business of espionage, and portraits of
actual spies, such as Kim Philby; others will enjoy the suspense and chilling atmosphere of Cold War
antics, as well as Powers's intricate chronology and plotting.
(c. Library Journal, Nov 15, 2000 v125 i19 p97)
Declare appeared on the Los Angeles Times Book Review (Southern California):
Hardcover Fiction bestseller list the week of February 18, 2001, at Number 10
Earthquake Weather (1997)
1998 Locus Award for Best Fantasy Novel
1997 Bram Stoker Award Finalist
Under a malign influence, Janis Plumtree murders the Fisher King. Driven by remorse, she finds
a group of simultaneously helpless and powerful people who will help her bring the King back or find
a new King. Unfortunately, other claimants and the god Dionysus plan otherwise. An after-the-fact
sequel to Last Call and Expiration Date.
Expiration Date (1995)
1996 Locus Award for Best Dark Fantasy/Horror Novel
The playful spirit of Lewis Carroll's Alice books--"the Old and New Testament for ghosts"
as one character in this screwball supernatural comedy puts it--live on in World Fantasy
Award-winning Powers's latest dazzler (after Last Call). The ghosts here aren't malevolent
specters but lingering essences of the dead that are snorted and ingested by spirit junkies for
the rush of memories they yield. When 11-year-old Koot Hoomie Parganas becomes possessed by the
ghost of Thomas Alva Edison, a feeding frenzy begins among West Coast ghost eaters eager to absorb
the great inventor's genius. Kootie's efforts to elude his pursuers eventually dovetail with
electrical engineer Pete Sullivan's quest to prevent his evil stepmother from eating the ghost of
his father and thus covering up her complicity in his death. Powers builds this world on a wacky
foundation of physics and metaphysics, and he peoples it with eccentrics like Sherman Oaks,
a one-armed ghost hunter who detects his quarry with his phantom limb, and Nicky Bradfield,
a deceased teen celebrity who subsists entirely on cinnamon candy. Although filled with routine
chase sequences, the novel is a minefield of exploding surprises that will have readers convinced
that the author has tapped into a more magical reality behind everyday life.
(c. Publishers Weekly, Dec 18, 1995 v242 n51 p44)
Last Call (1992)
1993 World Fantasy Award Winner
With Last Call, Tim Powers proves that magical realism isn't just for Latin American writers.
This 1993 Locus Award-winner by a prominent SF writer is widely regarded as a crossover novel that
appeals to both genre and magical realism fans. Against a backdrop of mythic proportions that takes
into account Jungian archetypes, the Fool's Journey of the Tarot, and medieval legends including that
of the Fisher King, this novel of Las Vegas and warring magical beings also incorporates real-world
places and people (including Bugsy Siegel, seen here as a former "Fisher King"). That something
supernatural is going on in Las Vegas is probably not a stretch for those who have seen Caesar's
Palace's Roman gods come alive through animatronics; Rio's Voodoo Lounge and Mandalay Bay's House
of Blues with their Haitian magical themes; and the Luxor Hotel's Egyptian relics.
(c. Dumars, Denise. Out of this World: SF for Novices (six science fiction novels).
Library Journal, August 2001 v126 i13 p196)
The Stress of Her Regard (1989)
1990 Mythopoeic Fantasy Awards: Children's and Adult
In this blend of history, legend, and fantasy set during the Regency period, Dr. Michael Crawford
flees England to avoid being charged with his wife's murder. A strange force seems to haunt him,
and England's greatest Romantic poets--Byron, Shelley, and Keats--help him understand what it is.
The Stress of Her Regard appears on the Librarian Favorites: Vampires and Werewolves list
On Stranger Tides (1987)
In this blend of fantasy and history, the time is 1718 and bookkeeper John Chandagnac
becomes pirate Jack Shandy. He has a series of adventures on the high seas, including a journey
to Florida in search of the fountain of youth, a sea battle with the British navy, and an encounter
with sunken ships crewed by zombies.
Dinner at Deviant's Palace (1985)
1986 Philip K. Dick Memorial Award Winner
1985 Nebula Novel Award Nominee
First published in 1985, this legendary and still distinctive novel may attract new fans,
although the post nuclear-war theme has become somewhat dated. Technology has vanished in a
barbaric, 22nd-century California run by a Sidney Greenstreet look-alike messiah, Norton Jaybush,
who boasts a fancifully colossal "night club of the damned" in Venice and his own Holy City in Irvine.
His young hippie followers, aka "Jaybirds," drift in a hallucinatory Philip K. Dick-style dream,
while "redeemers" strive to rescue them. The serviceable plot focuses largely on the efforts of the
hero, Gregorio Rivas, a musician and former redeemer who lives in "Ellay," to bring back a runaway.
The film Mad Max (1980) seems to have inspired many of the images in this rundown world, such as
"an old hut painstakingly polished Chevrolet body mounted on a flat wooden wagon drawn by two horses."
Powers has a nice knack for puns, e.g., a "hemogoblin," a balloon-like monster who sucks blood from
its victims, and fifths," paper money issued b y a "Distiller of the Treasury."
(c. Publishers Weekly, May 28, 2001 v248 i22 p56
The Anubis Gates (1983)
1984 Philip K. Dick Memorial Award Winner
Brendan Doyle is asked to give a lecture on Coleridge shortly before an eccentric millionaire
plans to jump backward in time to a lecture given by the poet himself. Unfortunately, Doyle is
kidnapped in London after the lecture and cannot return to 1983. With the aid of Jacky Snapp,
he fights to thwart a sorcerer who wants to turn the tides of history, and, in the process,
discovers more about the obscure and mysterious poet William Ashbless than he ever bargained for.
The Drawing of the Dark (1979)
When East strove against West at Vienna, Merlin had to call Arthur
back from Death.
Epitaph in Rust (1976)
A monk breaks the law by sky-fishing from the monastery roof and
becomes the object of a massive manhunt
The Skies Discrowned (1976)
An unwilling witness to a political assassination is condemned
to slavery in the Understreet