Tim Powers Books

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.

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

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.”