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Tim Powers

My Brother's Keeper by Tim Powers

My Brother's Keeper by Tim Powers

Tim Powers latest, My Brother's Keeper, is a tale of misplaced charity causing a multigenerational curse. It is also a secret history of the Brontë family, and as usual, Powers' explanation for their troubles is such a good story that it threatens to replace whatever else you

WBH Weekly Digest 2023-06-30: The Fantasy Canon

WBH Weekly Digest 2023-06-30: The Fantasy Canon

I'm back from a work trip, a family wedding, and a family vacation. On with the posting! A thread about the long history of Conan as a character, and the various reasons for his complicated publishing history. Spider-Man Has Lost His Place - Front Porch RepublicSpider-Man now devalues

Operation Kronstadt: British Secret Intelligence Service

In the beginning of Operation Kronstadt, Lieutenant ‘Gus’ Agar has a very odd meeting with the head of the British Secret Intelligence service, Captain Mansfield Cumming, a man known simply as ‘C’. …His commanding officer at HMS Osea had ordered him to report to the Admiralty that morning where he

I Might Believe in Faeries

Friend of the blog Aaron Irber invited me on his podcast I Might Believe in Faeries to talk about Tim Power’s masterful time-travel novel The Anubis Gates. I spoke with Aaron and his patrons for an hour an a half in a wide-ranging discussion on Powers’ use of symbolism,

Linkfest 2021-07-09: When Orcs Were Real

Tree of Woe: When Orcs were Real A contrarian view of the interaction between humans and Neanderthals. Danny Vendramini in his book Them and Us: How Neanderthal Predation Created Modern Humans makes some extremely speculative claims that Neanderthals were monsters of myth and legend. As the comments make clear, this

Alternate Routes by Tim Powers Book Review

Alternate Routes [Amazon link] is a combination of the myth of Daedalus and the horror with which long-time residents of Los Angeles regard their infamous freeway system. I’m not an Angeleno, but I don’t find a supernatural conjunction between the LA freeways and the Minotaur’s Labyrinth at

A lucky find and an unexpected vistor

I was recently asked by Aaron Irber on Twitter if I was going to review Alternate Routes by Tim Powers. Thanks to a lucky find at my favorite used bookstore, the answer is now definitely yes! It also happens that recently someone with a San Bernardino IP address went through