Tim Powers Books

After Many a Summer, a magisterial new novella from Tim Powers, borrows its title from a line in Tennyson's famous poem "Tithonus." An elegiac appeal for death on the part of the titular figure from myth, a man who was granted the everlasting life he had originally begged from the gods, only to have their gift turn to ashes in his mouth, only, as Tennyson wrote, to become someone whom "only cruel immortality consumes." What does this have to do with homelessness, troubled movie production companies, kidnapped heiresses, prophecies delivered by taxidermized heads, and a Los Angeles County rendered with such masterful, lived in, bone deep attention to physical detail that to read the opening is to feel the heat from cracked asphalt rising through your shoes and to taste cheap fortified wine grown warm in the sun cloying your tongue? Can all these seemingly disparate things be connected, cohered, clarified? This is a Tim Powers story. Of course they can. Conrad is a down on his luck screenwriter who takes a very strange assignment that leads him to encounter a kidnapped heiress after delivering her ransom--a hundred-year-old mummified head fond of cryptic utterances. Nothing goes Conrad's way, though, because nothing, no matter how bizarre, is what it seems.

'The Drawing of the Dark is not only one of my favourite Tim Powers novels, it's simply one of my favourite novels. The seamless and seemingly effortless blend of action and humour, the wonderful characters, the rich settings, the brilliant plot - all of it is perfect' James P. Blaylock

Brendan Doyle is a twentieth-century English professor who travels back to 1810 London to attend a lecture given by English romantic poet Samuel Taylor Coleridge. This is a London filled with deformed clowns, organised beggar societies, insane homunculi and magic. When he is kidnapped by gypsies and consequently misses his return trip to 1983, the mild-mannered Doyle is forced to become a street-smart con man, escape artist, and swordsman in order to survive in the dark and treacherous London underworld. He defies bullets, black magic, murderous beggars, freezing waters, imprisonment in mutant-infested dungeons, poisoning, and even a plunge back to 1684. Coleridge himself and poet Lord Byron make appearances in the novel, which also features a poor tinkerer who creates genetic monsters and a werewolf that inhabits others' bodies when his latest becomes too hairy.

"Sebastian Vickery has learned something about UFOs that he shouldn't have-and Naval Intelligence, desperate to silence him, orders his old partner, Agent Ingrid Castine, to trap him. But Castine risks career, liberty, and maybe even life to warn Vickery-and now they're both fugitives, on the run from both the U.S. government and agents of the Russian GRU Directorate, which has its own uses for the UFO intelligence. With the unlikely aid of a renegade Russian agent, a homeless Hispanic boy, and an eccentric old Flat-Earther, Vickery and Castine must find an ancient relic that spells banishment to the alien species, and then summon the things and use it against them-in a Samson-like confrontation that looks likely to kill them as well. Sweeping from the Giant Rock monolith in the Mojave Desert to a cultist temple in the Hollywood Hills, from a monstrous apparition in the Los Angeles River to a harrowing midnight visitation on a boat off Long Beach Harbor, Stolen Skies is an alien-encounter novel like no other"-- Provided by publisher

When Michael Crawford discovers his bride brutally murdered in their wedding bed, he is forced to flee not only to prove his innocence, but to avoid the deadly embrace of a vampire who has claimed him as her true bridegroom. Joining forces with Byron, Keats, and Shelley in a desperate journey that crisscrosses Europe, Crawford desperately seeks his freedom from this vengeful lover who haunts his dreams and will not rest until she destroys all that he cherishes. Told in the guise of a secret history, this long-awaited tale of passion and terror is finally back in print after more than 20 years.

Set in 19th century London, the story follows Isaac Fairchild, a dimwitted beggar summoned by the sinister Horrabin, a clown who leads a guild of down-and-out individuals. Horrabin is rumored to maim his followers to enhance their begging skills. In a hidden chamber, Fairchild discovers Horrabin's plan to merge his mind with that of the Spoonsize Boys, tiny homunculi used for theft and assassination. While Fairchild longs for intelligence and understanding, he must confront the significant costs of such transformation.

The WORLD FANTASY AWARD-winning novel from the author of THE ANUBIS GATES and DECLARE.

A swashbuckling, rip-roaring adventure: Pirates! Zombies! Blackbeard! Voodoo! Treasure! AND the book that inspired Pirates of the Caribbean IV: On Stranger Tides.

"The joy of fiction is the joy of the imagination. . . ." The best stories engage readers, compelling them to turn pages in anticipation of what comes next. Great literature is defined by its imagination, as demonstrated in this exceptional anthology, which redefines the boundaries of imaginative fiction. It features contributions from renowned writers like Peter Straub, Chuck Palahniuk, Roddy Doyle, and Joyce Carol Oates, among others, showcasing their craft and challenging misconceptions about genres. Curated by Neil Gaiman and Al Sarrantonio, who personally selected each story, the anthology sets a high standard for this "new literature of the imagination." The collection aims to present familiar themes in fresh, illuminating ways. Notable tales include Joe Hill's disturbing exploration of evil in "Devil on the Staircase," Lawrence Block's unique take on fishing in "Catch and Release," and Carolyn Parkhurst's dark sibling rivalry in "Unwell." Joanne Harris introduces ancient gods in modern New York in "Wildfire in Manhattan," while Richard Adams's "The Knife" delves into vengeance. Jeffery Deaver's "The Therapist" features a psychologist on a mission to save lives, and Neil Gaiman's chilling "The Truth Is a Cave in the Black Mountains" offers a haunting punishment for a grave crime. This visionary volume will transform readers’ perspectives and ignite a renewed appreciation for exceptional fiction.

In the second book of the Fault Lines trilogy, Tim Powers dazzles with a dark and extraordinary urban fantasy set in an otherworldly LA, as a young boy finds himself targeted by malevolent ghost hunters There is a Los Angeles that few people can see, a shadowed metropolis of ghosts, ghost hunters, and ghost junkies who crave the addictive rush of inhaled spirits. When eleven-year-old Koot Hoomie Parganas decides to flee the constrictive grasp of his New Age parents, he inadvertently steps into this world. Escaping with his parents’ most prized possession, Koot is soon the object of the most intense supernatural manhunt in history. On an ordinary day, Los Angeles can be treacherous; this “other” LA could prove downright fatal for an unsuspecting youngster who’s suddenly the target of every hungry ghost hunter prowling the City of Angels. But Koot will not be taken easily. And though not everyone racing to Koot’s side means him harm, they are greatly outnumbered by malevolent forces driven by a terrible, undeniable need. Expiration Date is the second book in the Fault Line trilogy, which begins with Last Call and concludes with Earthquake Weather . At once exhilarating and terrifying, this book is a bravura display of the brilliant, bold invention that has moved bestselling author Peter Straub to declare World Fantasy and Philip K. Dick award-winner Tim Powers “one of my absolute favorite writers.”

From the award-winning author of "Declare, Last Call" and "Three Days to Never" comes a standout historical thriller in which art and the supernatural collide.

Magic lives in remarkable realms – and in the short fiction of today's top fantasists. In this fifth breathtaking volume of the year's best flights of the fantastic, award–winning editors David G. Hartwell and Kathryn Cramer present a dazzling new array of wonders – stories that break through the time–honored conventions of the genre to carry the reader to astonishing places that only the most ingenious minds could conceive. In the able hands of Neil Gaiman, Kage Baker, Tim Powers, and others, miracles become tangible and true, impossible creatures roam unfettered, and fairy tales are reshaped, sharpened, and freed from the restrictive bonds of childhood. Lose yourself in these pages and in these worlds – and discover the power, the beauty, the unparalleled enchantment of fantasy at its finest.

A mysterious phone call compels ex-MI6 agent Andrew Hale to face the haunting memories of an ultra-secret wartime operation called Declare, which took him from Nazi-occupied Paris to post-war Berlin and the Arabian desert.

Winner of the Philip K. Dick Award: In a nuclear-ravaged California, a humble musician sets out on a dangerous quest to rescue his lost love from the clutches of a soul-devouring religious cult In the twenty-second century, the City of Angels is a tragic shell of its former self, having long ago been ruined and reshaped by nuclear disaster. Before he was in a band in Ellay, Gregorio Rivas was a redeemer, rescuing lost souls trapped in the Jaybirds cult of the powerful maniac Norton Jaybush. Rivas had hoped those days were behind him, but a desperate entreaty from a powerful official is pulling him back into the game. The rewards will be plentiful if he can wrest Urania, the official’s daughter and Gregorio’s first love, from Jaybush’s sinister clutches. To do so, the redeemer reborn must face blood-sucking hemogoblins and other monstrosities on his way to discovering the ultimate secrets of this neo-Californian civilization. One of the most ingeniously imaginative writers of our time, Tim Powers dazzles in an early work that displays his unique creative genius. Alive with wit, intelligence, and wild invention, Dinner at Deviant’s Palace is a mad adventure across a dystopian future as only Tim Powers could have imagined it.

"The magical King of the West has been killed in California, and his assassin is one of the multiple personalities in the head of Janis Cordelia Plumtree--but which one? Sid Cochran is a one-time winemaker who blames his wife's suicide on the wine god Dionysus, and believes that Dionysus is now pursuing him. Janis and Sid escape together from a mental hospital in Los Angeles and--pursued by ghosts, gangsters, and a crazy psychiatrist--set out for San Francisco and the wine country to try to restore the dead King of the West to life. The god Dionysus himself is a player in this perilous game--and not on their side. But when the spirits flow and even the gods lose all inhibition, you have to save the world just to survive!"--Back cover

THE TRUE STORY OF THE BRONTË SISTERS AS ONLY TIM POWERS COULD WRITE IT. This is a ghost story. It is a story about werewolves, and things that go bump in the night. It is a story of an ill-fated land, the pathless moors of Northern England so well chronicled in Wuthering Heights. And it is the story of a real family whose destiny it is to deal with this darkly glamorous and dangerous world. When young Emily Brontë helps a wounded man she finds at the foot of an ancient pagan shrine in the remote Yorkshire moors, her life becomes contentiously entwined with his. He is Alcuin Curzon, embittered member of a sect working to eradicate the resurgent plague of lycanthropy in Europe and northern England. But Emily’s father, curate of the Haworth village church, is responsible for having unwittingly brought a demonic werewolf god to Yorkshire forty years ago—and it is taking possession of Emily’s beloved but foolish and dissolute brother. Curzon must regard Emily’s family as a dire threat. In spite of being at deadly odds, Emily and Curzon find themselves thrown together in fighting werewolves, confronting pagan gods, even saving each other from the lures of moorland demons. And in a final battle that sweeps from the haunted village of Haworth to a monstrous shrine far out on the moors, the two of them must be reluctant allies against an ancient power that seems likely to take their souls as well as their lives.

"Something weird is happening to the Los Angeles freeways--phantom cars, lanes from nowhere, and sometimes unmarked offramps that give glimpses of a desolate desert highway--and Sebastian Vickery, disgraced ex-Secret Service agent, is a driver for a covert supernatural-evasion car service. But another government agency is using and perhaps causing the freeway anomalies, and their chief is determined to have Vickery killed because of something he learned years ago at a halted Presidential motorcade. Reluctantly aided by Ingrid Castine, a member of that agency, and a homeless Mexican boy, and a woman who makes her living costumed as Supergirl on the sidewalk in front of the Chinese Theater, Vickery learns what legendary hell it is that the desert highway leads to--and when Castine deliberately drives into it to save him from capture, he must enter it himself to get her out. Alternate Routes is a fast-paced supernatural adventure story that sweeps from the sun-blinded streets and labyrinthine freeways of Los Angeles to a horrifying other world out of Greek mythology, and Vickery and Castine must learn to abandon old loyalties and learn loyalty to each other in order to survive as the world goes mad around them"--

AIDS and South Africa. Khosi, a 14-year-old girl, yearns for this thing called the future. Does she want too much?

Professor Doyle freut sich auf ein Treffen mit dem Dichter Coleridge, doch das Abenteuer verwandelt sich in einen Kampf ums Überleben. Im magischen London von 1810 muss er sich dunklen Kräften stellen, die das Geheimnis der Unsterblichkeit suchen, und erkennt, dass seine Reise fatale Folgen haben könnte.

Il giovane burattinaio John Chandagnac sta attraversando il Mar dei Caraibi alla ricerca di uno zio che non ha mai incontrato, apparentemente responsabile della morte di suo padre e ruggito con l'eredità di famiglia. Poco prima di giungere a destinazione, la nave su cui John e i suoi compagni di viaggio - la bellissima Beth Hurwood e suo padre Benjamin, un pensatore folle - sono imbarcati viene attaccata dai pirati che uccidono il capitano e costringono Chandagnac a unirsi alla loro ciurma. Chandagnac, ribattezzato Jack Shandy, scopre così la terrificante storia di Benjamin Hurwood e della sua defunta moglie, e soprattutto ciò che si nasconde dietro i piani dell'uomo per riportarla in vita. Jack dovrà cercare in ogni modo di frenare i folli propositi di Benjamin Hurwood, e potrà farlo solo assumendo il controllo della nave su cui viaggiano. E tra emozionanti e incredibili avventure, la sua strada incrocerà anche il cammino del celebre pirata Barbanera.

Poslední výzva od Tima Powerse je okultistická novela zasazená do prostředí paralelního gangsterského světa Las Vegas a vypráví příběh jednookého profesionálního hazardního hráče, který zjišťuje, že není skutečným vítězem dávné partie pokeru, a snaží se vyhrát zpět vlastní duši. Strhující, nadpřirozený a neuvěřitelně realistický příběh. První kniha ze dvou.

Poslední výzva od Tima Powerse je okultistická novela zasazená do prostředí paralelního gangsterského světa Las Vegas a vypráví příběh jednookého profesionálního hazardního hráče, který zjišťuje, že není skutečným vítězem dávné partie pokeru, a snaží se vyhrát zpět vlastní duši. Strhující, nadpřirozený a neuvěřitelně realistický příběh. Druhá kniha ze dvou.

Když v roce 1939 řekl Albert Einstein Franklinu Rooseveltovi, že je možné zkonstruovat atomovou bombu, neřekl prezidentovi o svém dalším objevu, tak mimořádném a nebezpečném, že zůstal tajemstvím… až dosud. Když dvanáctiletá Daphne Marrityová vezme z domu své babičky videokazetu nadepsanou Pee-wee a jeho veliké dobrodružství, netuší ona ani její otec, vysokoškolský profesor Frank Marrity, že krádež přilákala pozornost izraelské tajné služby a prastarého okultistického spolku z Evropy, ani to, že se během několika hodin objeví její dávno ztracený dědeček, který se také zoufale snaží kazety zmocnit. A když někdo ukradne Daphneina plyšového medvídka, slepá vražedkyně málem zastřelí Franka a na Daphne z vypnutého televizoru hovoří duchové, ocitají se oba uprostřed vražedného zápasu. Aby přežili, musí se rychle naučit pravidla magické šachové partie a využít všechen svůj důvtip a odvahu, aby unikli osudu mnohem horšímu než smrt…

Podle filmu Roba Marshalla napsal James Ponti. Byl proklet, ponechán napospas svému osudu a málem obětován na konci světa. Nyní se slavný kapitán Jack Sparrow vydává na svou zatím nejnebezpečnější výpravu za Pramenem mládí. Na strastiplné pouti se znovu setká s bývalou láskou – krásnou a tajemnou pirátkou Angelikou – a stane se vězněm na strašlivé lodi Pomsta královny Anny, jíž nevelí nikdo jiný než obávaný Černovous! Kapitána Jacka čeká boj s děsivými zombiemi a nádhernými, ale o to nebezpečnějšími mořskými pannami. Navíc musí vyhrát závod se Španěly, Angličany a zrádným kapitánem Barbossou a dosáhnout Pramene mládí jako první. Vyplujte s námi na nebezpečné moře. Vítr už napíná plachty!