What does Tim Powers write about?

[Teresa Edgerton]

It will be interesting to hear what you make of it. Not sure it's the best introduction to his work, or the most likely to appeal to you personally.

[rune]

Originally Posted by Kelpie

It will be interesting to hear what you make of it. Not sure it's the best introduction to his work, or the most likely to appeal to you personally.

The library didnt have much to offer for this author so I didnt have choice!

[Stalker]

I read two novels by Tim Powers - both excellent. He's got a brilliant sense of the style and writes on topics I, personally, find interesting.
His Anubis Gate deepens the reader into times of England of early 20s of 19th century. I would characterise the book as Cryptohistorical Fantasy. Byron and Ashbless are the central figures of the novel. Misterious Egyptian cult carrying out its magical rites in the heart of London, the thieves' society and variety people of all London's foul places are depicted with Dickens' mastery. It will certainly strike your imagination once you've read it!
On Stranger Tides is a good piece of Adventure Fantasy ill bring you to Caribbean pirates, and when I watched the movie Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl I supposed that general motif of the movie was influenced by the above book by Tim Powers although its plot has nothing to do with the book one of whose central characters was Edward Teach known generally as Black Beard.

[Culhwch]

Where's this guy been hiding? All sounds great, and it's the first I've ever heard of him. Pirates and Gaiman-esque urban fantasy. Should be good, will keep an eye out...

[knivesout]

Tim Powers - one of fantasy's best-kept secrets.

[Stalker]

Simply don't understand why he's so misterious. Web and critics seem to know him perfectly well.
Here is the link to one of the sites dedicated to him: http://www.passarola.com/interests/tim.html

[rune]

Early days yet with Earthquake Weather, first chapter is a little strange but hoping i can get into it.

[GOLLUM]

Originally Posted by knivesout

Tim Powers - one of fantasy's best-kept secrets.

You're telling me JP. I've heard of the author but not read a single thing by him. As a fantasy and horror fan more than
Sci Fi can you recommend a particular series/book I might like?...

BTW I don't mind the urban fantasy style.

[knivesout]

The Anubis Gates is probably the best place to start. Ancient Egyptian magic, time travel, mad clowns, body-hopping shapeshifters...lots of fun to be had! And you get to meet Samuel Taylor Coleridge too.

[GOLLUM]

Thanks for the prompt reply JP, I'm going to track down Anubis Gate ASAP because this sounds like the kind of book I might enjoy, especially if Coleridge get's a look in...

[Brys]

Gollum, I'm reading the Drawing of the Dark at the moment, and it's so far a very good fantasy novel, so you should check that out. It has a significant historical element (based around the siege of Vienna) but some of his fantasy ideas are very intriguing. Add to that excellent humour and an all-round entertaining plot. I'm also planning on reading Anubis Gates asap though.

[Shoegaze99]

Originally Posted by Brys

Gollum, I'm reading the Drawing of the Dark at the moment, and it's so far a very good fantasy novel, so you should check that out. It has a significant historical element (based around the siege of Vienna) but some of his fantasy ideas are very intriguing. Add to that excellent humour and an all-round entertaining plot.

I bought The Drawing of The Dark blindly, based solely on a cover blurb that prominently mentioned beer. Read it, loved it and immediately bought two other Powers books.

[Marya]

Sorry for bumping an old thread but On Stranger Tides has recently, as of March 2006, been rereleased in paperback. Another interesting thing I read in this thread was the mention of the Pirates of the Caribbean movie. Interestingly, this book was the major inspiration for the adventure games in the 1990's - The Secret of Monkey Island and Monkey Island 2: LeChuck's Revenge. Both of these games were designed by Ron Gilbert when he worked at LucasArts (when they made adventure games and not just Star Wars games).

I had only heard about this recently and wanted to get the book and thought I'd search here to see if anyone else had read it.

This is from Ron Gilbert's blog, The Grumpy Gamer:

I was sorting through some boxes today and I came across my copy of Tim Power's On Stranger Tides, which I read in the late 80's and was the inspiration for Monkey Island. Some people believe the inspiration for Monkey Island came from the Pirates of the Caribbean ride - probably because I said it several times during interviews - but that was really just for the ambiance. If you read this book you can really see where Guybrush and LeChuck were [s]plagiarized[/s] derived from, plus the heavy influence of voodoo in the game.

When I am in the early stages of designing, I'll read a lot of books, listen to a lot of music and watch a lot of movies. I'll pick up little ideas here and there. We in the business call it stealing.

This book really got me interested in pirates as a theme. Fantasy was all the rage back then and I wasn't keen on doing another D&Dish game, but pirates had a lot of what made fantasy interesting without being fantasy.

After some early failed starts I shelved the idea and began work on the Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade game. When it was finished I went back to work on Monkey Island and re-thought much of the design and story. Although re-thought is a strong word since I didn't have much to start with.

The bulk of the motivation for Guybrush's character being so naive stemmed from wanting him to know as little about the world as the player. One huge problem adventure games had/have - Police Quest being the most frustrating example for me back then - was the character was supposed to know all this information that the player didn't. I hated playing games like Police Quest where I get fired for not signing out my gun (or such such craziness), when I was supposed to be a cop. I should know that stuff? Shouldn't I?

I figured if Guybrush didn't know anything, then the player wouldn't be frustrated when they didn't know how to do basic pirate tasks. Which was the whole genesis for the opening line:

"Hi, my name is Guybrush Threepwood and I want to be a pirate"

It told the player that Guybrush didn't know any more then they did, and they were going to learn together.

[Teresa Edgerton]

Yes, I read On Stranger Tides, quite a while back, and enjoyed it very much. It's considerably more accessible than his more recent books, and lacks the depth, but it's a well-written and entertaining adventure. I liked the way he associated Blackbeard with Voodoo -- not sure whether or not this is historically correct, but I liked it.

[Marya]

Thanks Teresa. I haven't read a lot of fantasy but saw a blurb about this one and it looks like a fun read.