Tim Powers

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Tim Powers at the Israeli ICon Convention in 2005
Tim Powers at the Israeli ICon Convention in 2005

Timothy Thomas Powers (born February 29, 1952) is an American science fiction and fantasy author. Powers has won the World Fantasy Award twice for his critically acclaimed novels Last Call and Declare.

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[1],

"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."

—Timothy Thomas Powers

Contents

[edit] Biography

Powers was born in Buffalo, New York, and grew up in California, where his Roman Catholic family moved in 1959.

He studied English Literature at Cal State Fullerton, where he first met James Blaylock and K. W. Jeter, both of whom remained close friends and occasional collaborators; the trio have half-seriously referred to themselves as "steampunks"[2] in contrast to the prevailing cyberpunk genre of the 1980s. Powers and Blaylock invented the poet William Ashbless while they were at Cal State Fullerton.

Another friend Powers first met during this period was noted science fiction writer Philip K. Dick; the character named "David" in Dick's novel VALIS is based on Powers and Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? (Blade Runner) is dedicated to him.

Powers's first major novel was The Drawing of the Dark (1979), but the novel that earned him wide praise was The Anubis Gates, which won the Philip K. Dick Award, and has since been published in many other languages.

Powers also teaches part-time in his role as Writer in Residence for the Orange County High School of the Arts, where Blaylock directs the Creative Writing Conservatory, and Chapman University, where Blaylock teaches.

Powers and his wife, Serena, currently live in Muscoy, California. He has frequently served as a mentor author as part of the Clarion science fiction/fantasy writer's workshop.

He also taught part time at the University of Redlands.

He is not to be confused with Los Angeles stand-up comic Tim Powers.

[edit] Bibliography

[edit] Novels

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 (1979)
The siege of Vienna was actually a struggle between Muslim and Christian magicians over the spiritual center of the West, which happens to be a small inn and brewery in Vienna. The "dark" is a beer that has been brewing for centuries, which the Fisher King will eventually drink.
The Anubis Gates (1983)
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 poets—Byron 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 poker 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 (2001)
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 (2006)
time travel, Charlie Chaplin, Albert Einstein, and more.

[edit] Short story collections

  • Night Moves and Other Stories
  • On Pirates (with James Blaylock)
  • The Devils in the Details (with James Blaylock)
  • Strange Itineraries: 2005, published by Tachyon Publications of San Francisco, California

[edit] Other published work

  • The Complete Twelve Hours of the Night (1986) Joke pamphlet cowritten by James Blaylock and published by Cheap Street Press; features in The Anubis Gates
  • A Short Poem by William Ashbless (1987) Another joke chapbook written by Phil Garland which Tim Powers and James Blaylock went along with. Published by The Folly Press.
  • The Bible Repairman (2005) A chapbook containing an original short story. Published by Subterranean Press.
  • Nine Sonnets by Francis Thomas Marrity (2006) A chapbook containing nine sonnets "written" by one of the main characters in Three Days to Never. Published by Subterranean Press and given away with the collectors' edition of Three Days To Never.
  • A Soul in a Bottle (2007) A ghost story about a poetess largely based on American poet Edna St Vincent Millay. This novella published by Subterranean Press.
  • Three sonnets by Cheyenne Fleming (2007) Printed loose and inserted into the collectors' edition of A Soul in a Bottle.

[edit] References

  1. ^ Powells.com Interviews - Tim Powers
  2. ^ Nova Express, Volume 6, Number 1, "An Interview with Tim Powers," Page 9.

[edit] External links

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