Declare

Rating:
Summary: Another fine effort
Review: Okay lets state up front this book is not as good as the Anubis gates but very little is.

That said I found that i enjoyed this book a lot more than some of the authors later works (Expiration Date and Earthquake Weather). I found it to be a return to the earlier style of powers writing, an historical setting, with historical characters, viewed from another worldly perspective. I also feel being a fan of a good spy story helped in my enjoyment of this book.

So what is it about? a retired spy is recalled to the service after many years to complete a mission which had ended in failure on the slopes of mount arrarat. What makes this different is that this mission was to prevent a rival russian organisation harnessing the powers of the Djinn's who occupies the heights. And of course the man at the centre of the russian mission; Kim Philby.

In the end I came away from the book entertained and with a greater knowledge of the Djinn and Arab mythology. Recommended.

Rating:
Summary: Return to Form
Review: Declare is a welcome return to form from master fantasist Tim Powers, who after writing some of the most wildly imaginative books in the genre (Anubis Gates, Stress of Her Regard, Last Call) seemed to have lost his storytelling mojo amidst the startlingly boring supernatural mechanisms of Expiration Date and Earthquake Weather.

While Declare doesn't recapture the sheer comic joy of Powers' early books, it makes immediately clear that the espionage genre perfectly fits his particular style. The sometimes trying world-weariness that has stained each book since Last Call plays better in LeCarre territory than Southern California, as do the exhaustive details of Powers latest elaborate secret history.

At nearly 600 not always riveting pages, Declare would still be ponderous if not for the incisive writing and mordant wit. It may be the most inadvertently portentious novel ever written about magic genies, but the sharply etched characters and settings in the end make this a particular and entertaining read.

Rating:
Summary: Kenneth, I Declare, what is the frequency?
Review: John LeCarre meets Indiana Jones in an intelligent occult espionage thriller. Character and action! Romance and destruction! If you like John LeCarre, Neil Gaiman, Tim Powers and Elizabeth Peters (but gorier) I highly recommend this thinking-persons historical adventure.

Rating:
Summary: Another winner for Powers
Review: I just finished this book and I enjoyed so much, I now consider this Powers best book to date, slightly edging out The Anubis Gates. Powers has taken the real life events of English spy/traitor Kim Philby, added his own blend of the supernatural, and produced a great cold war spy novel with the typical Powers skewed view of things. I don't think my ignorance of Philby's life hindered the story at all. In fact, Philby, Hale and the other characters can be seen as completely fictional characters and the story is still enjoyable. That's how I read the book. Then I read the Afterword where Powers describes Philby and the mysteries surrounding his life and how the supernatural events he used filled in those mysteries. I found his explanation gave me another level on which to enjoy the book and makes me want to read more about Philby.

The writing is up to Powers usual high standards, though I did frequently see echoes of ideas he has already used in Last Call, Expiration Date, Earthquake Weather series. The structure of the book moves back and forth in time, usually within the same chapter. This can make it difficult to follow if you don't have the time to devote to a sustained reading.

Overall I'd give it 4.5 stars, but I can't round up to 5 since a 5 star book would have to completely wow me. This came close.

Rating:
Summary: Not as engaging as his other works
Review: If you are a Tim Powers aficianado, by all means read this book; but if you compare this to the power of Declare or the fun of his early books (Deviant's Palace, for example) this book deals too much with detail and not enough with anything that made me care about the characters or events. Declare just didn't draw me in. An interesting intellectual exercise, but not a great book.

Rating:
Summary: Fantastically Drawn, Impeccably researched
Review: If you read Tim Powers, then you expect a lot from him. Declare delivers. Like Anubis Gates, this is a work of magical realism based on actual historic events. That underpinning of history gives the work an eerie versimilitude that is engaging and challenging at the same time. Powers, true to form, takes a very different angle on the "true" reasons behind several pivotal historical events of our times. The book is a deftly executed and cleanly plotted and will hook you in the first paragraph and keep you guessing while you are running to keep up. Get it now.

Rating:
Summary: Lovecraft meets Tradecraft
Review: A product of copious research and a prodigious imagination, Declare marries espionage with the mystical ("Lovecraft meets tradecraft," as the author himself put it in an interview ). Working within a framework of the published details of the lives of T. E. Lawrence, Guy Burgess, St. John Philby and his infamous son, Kim, Powers delivers a fine dark fantasy that proudly displays myriad influences, among them The 1001 Arabian Nights, the Old Testament, Rudyard Kipling's Kim, and the novels of Graham Greene and John LeCarre. Powers even manages to evoke Dickens and the British boarding school sub- genre, most recently used to good effect in quite another context in J. K. Rowley's outrageously popular Harry Potter series.

Declare chronicles the life and times of Andrew Hale, an important, but anonymous, player in the modern version of the 19th Century's "Great Game" between Britian and Russia. From the moment he is first recruited by British intelligence, fate leads Hale toward a clash with the legendary double agent, Kim Philby. Working as a low level researcher, Hale learns of the Russian fascination with Mt. Ararat in eastern Turkey. Intelligence indicates that in 1883, the Russians actually transported a powerful supernatural entity known as a djinn from Ararat to their homeland, where, in return for human sacrifice, the being has protected its borders ever since. The reports also indicate the that djinn is only one of many other wordly beings residing on the mount, and that the Russians are interested in furthering their contacts with what may be a community of fallen angels.

As he rises through the ranks, he also becomes acquainted with the enigmatic Philby, a stuttering, pretentious creep whose destiny, it is slowly revealed, is also tied to the supernatural inhabitants of Mt. Ararat. Powers goes on to chronicle Hale's growing awareness of the magnitude of the issues he's confronting, alternating between the events of Hale's 1948 and 1963 treks to Ararat to counter Soviet moves, expeditions which both end tragically, costing dozens of lives on both sides. Doing so, he simultaneously illuminates Hale's mysterious background, and such earthshaking events as the erection and subsequent destruction of the Berlin Wall and the collapse of the Soviet Union.

While it is perhaps too early to dub this epic Powers' magnum opus, the case can certainly be made that it is the highpoint of his career thus far, as the novel displays all the positive qualities that have drawn readers to his writing over the years. Certainly, the idea of marrying two seemingly disparate worlds is not a new one for Powers--for instance, he explored similar territory in Last Call, which posited Bugsy Seigel as the modern incarnation of the legendary Fisher King. But Declare finds Powers in rare form, effectively exploring the nature of reality.

Rating:
Summary: Leaves work for the reader
Review: Declare leaves more work for the reader than Powers earlier books. I am not particularly fond of the spy genre, and found the first part of Declare slow going. However this slow methodical development is what made the impossible theme so plausible! In the end I have read Declare twice and it sits next to his other books on my shelf and in my regard.

Rating:
Summary: Like a dusty old stuffed trout mounted on the wall
Review: This book is like a visit to the taxidermist: old, stale, stuffed, dusty, musty. How did it get such good reviews? There must be lots of people who like anything in the spy genre. Nothing new here, just a rehash of all the cliches, without any wit to liven them up. Hale is boring & not very believable. Skip it. You want intelligent cold war thrillers, try early Len Deighton, or Nelson DeMille's "The Charm School".

Rating:
Summary: Solid Entertainment
Review: This is a typical Powers production in which a supernatural reality underlies apparently mundane events. This is a historical fantasy which draws on the mythology of The Thousand and One Nights to develop an entertaining alternative view of the Cold War. The plot, with its incorporation of real events into the supernatural framework, is ingenious. The quality of writing is solid. I think this is one of Powers' better books.