Tag: the stress of her regard

Book of the Week: The Stress of Her Regard.

I’m picking Tim Powers’ Romantics-vampire novel The Stress of Her Regard because, as I noted years ago, the truly terrifying thing about the book was how much sense it made.  It was sort of like that moment in Pride and Prejudice and Zombies where the author realized that putting a British regiment in the countryside to fight a zombie outbreak filled an obvious hole in the original plot.  …Well, maybe not, but The Stress of Her Regard is still one of the best books Tim Powers ever wrote.  Check it out.

Just finished “Hide Me Among the Graves.”

Tim Powers book: it’s a sequel to his genuinely terrifying novel The Stress of Her Regard.  Although the book was terrifying mostly because its thesis (that Bryon, Shelley, & Keats were all the targets/victims/beneficiaries of extremely jealous vampires*) explained the entire Romantic movement perfectly.  There were no holes in the logic.  Everything made too much sense.  You read it, thought Yeah, it must have been vampires – and then you shuddered.

Tim Powers does that a lot.

Anyway, Hide Me Among the Graves is not as good.  Which is not as bad as it sounds, because as the above might suggest I think that The Stress of Her Regard is one of the best two books that Powers has written.  If you’ve read the first book, you’ll like the second; if you haven’t read either, start clicking links to rectify this unfortunate situation.  Trust me: you deserve to be a person who has read The Stress of Her Regard.

Moe Lane

*This is one time where I don’t want to do too many spoilers for either book; but that much was bloody obvious from the start, if you’ll pardon the pun.  Or even if you won’t.

Looking for someone to read? (Tim Powers)

(Today’s author: Tim Powers)

Tim Powers is one of those authors who doesn’t exactly fit the standard criteria. Yes, it’s sort of fantasy; yes, it’s sort of modern fantasy, or sort of historical fantasy; and yes, there’s a sort of urban fantasy feel to his stuff. On the other hand, most authors don’t meticulously interweave historical accuracy in with the fantastic elements, and Tim Powers does. Read The Stress of Her Regard and you will totally buy the idea that the history of literature is the history of vampires, at least while reading it; and we are so conditioned now to accept that Voudon goes along with piracy* that we forget that this was first suggested by On Stranger Tides*.

If that hasn’t scared you away yet, good: because you’ll want to read Declare. This book involves three themes: the Catholic Church; the Cold War; and the secret occult origins and sustenance of the Soviet Union – with the last being treated in much the same way that modern fantasy treats the occult trappings of Germany’s Nazi regime. The book is written in a very classic Cold War spy fiction style: Len Deighton would have loved it (by the way, his SS-GB is one of the classics of the alternate history genre).  So check it out.

Continue reading Looking for someone to read? (Tim Powers)