Thursday, October 11, 2007


Timothy Thomas Powers (born February 29, 1952) is an American science fiction and fantasy author.
Most of Powers's novels are "secret histories": he uses actual, documented historical events featuring famous people, but shows another view of them in which occult or supernatural factors heavily influence the motivations and actions of the characters.
Typically, Powers strictly adheres to established historical facts. He reads extensively on a given subject, and the plot develops as Powers notes inconsistencies, gaps and curious data; regarding his award-winning 2000 novel Declare, Powers stated,
"I made it an ironclad rule that I could not change or disregard any of the recorded facts, nor rearrange any days of the calendar - and then I tried to figure out what momentous but unrecorded fact could explain them all."
Tim Powers
Biography

Tim Powers Bibliography

The Skies Discrowned

  • also published as Forsake The Sky: a science fiction adventure novel.
    An Epitaph in Rust

    • also published as Epitaph in Rust.
      Powers of Two, (2004)

      • re-release of Skies Discrowned and Epitaph in Rust.
        The Drawing of the Dark

        • The siege of Vienna was actually a struggle between Muslim and Christian magicians over the spiritual center of humans in the West, which happens to be a small inn and brewery in Vienna. The "dark" of the title is a beer that has been brewing for centuries, which the Fisher King will eventually drink.
          The Anubis Gates

          • A time travel story set mostly in 1810, featuring a brainwashed Lord Byron, magic, Egyptian gods and a werewolf.
            Dinner at Deviant's Palace

            • Unusually for Powers, this is set in the future, in a postatomic America in which an extraterrestrial psychic vampire is slowly taking over.
              In 2001 the group Cradle of Filth released a song in entitled "Dinner at Deviant's Palace" that was simply the Lord's Prayer backmasked.
              On Stranger Tides

              • moves to the 18th century Caribbean; with pirates (many of them real characters, primarily Blackbeard), voodoo, zombies, Juan Ponce de Leon, and a strangely quantum-mechanical Fountain of Youth.
                The Stress of Her Regard

                • concerning the dealings of the Romantic poetsByron and Shelley are major characters—with vampire-like beings from Greek mythology.
                  Fault Lines

                  • series

                    • Last Call:

                      • a professional poker player finds out that he lost far more than he won in a game played with Tarot cards two decades ago.
                        Expiration Date

                        • a boy possessed by the spirit of Thomas Edison is hunted through Los Angeles by people wanting to consume the ghost he carries.
                          Earthquake Weather

                          • sequel to both Last Call and Expiration Date, involving the characters of both: two fugitives from a psychiatric hospital, the magical nature of multiple personality disorder, and the secret history of wine production in California.
                            Declare

                            • a Cold War espionage thriller which evokes Lovecraftian horror and the Epic of Gilgamesh, involving Kim Philby, djinn and the Ark on Mount Ararat.
                              Three Days to Never

                              • time travel, Charlie Chaplin, Albert Einstein, and more.

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