Rating: 
Summary: Powers at the peak of his powers!
Review: I'm not a fantasy fan, but I love the writings of Tim Powers. The Drawing of the Dark is thoroughly original, captivating, and as good at it gets!
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Summary: What a great story!
Review: I'ts been a while since I read this book. But I cam to Amazon hunting for a copy. Yes, I enjoyed the story that much. The blending of fantasy and history make this a truly wonderful tale. The characters are always interesting and the plot progresses well for the entire story.
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Summary: Brilliant, the best of Powers' work
Review: I've read pretty much everything Powers has published, and this is far and away his best.It suffers least from Powers' unfortunate tendency towards excessive exegesis. The story is brilliantly funny, well plotted. The characterization is excellent. Really, there aren't enough superlatives for this farcical, yet deadly serious, novel. It's very clever, yet has the weight of a seriously researched historical essay. And it's all about beer. What more does any fantasy fan need?
Rating: 
Summary: not among Powers' best
Review: In "Drawing of the Dark", Powers flirts with ideas he will develop more fully in later books like "The Anubis Gates" and "Last Call", but this book is not as well-written or -researched than either of those. An unconvincing mish-mash of good ideas are never really used to their full advantage, and the reader is made to wait for something -- anything -- to happen. When the climax does come, it's decidedly unimpressive. The story is further marred by a reductive West/Christians=good, East/Mohammedans=bad mentality, which might have at least been made interesting by tapping into the rich subject of the Christ/Dionysos figure, but the connection was never [at least implicitly] made. Interesting for completists, but for those new to Powers, I suggest the superior "Anubis Gates".
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Summary: A Fabulous Blend of History , Legend and Myth
Review: It is 1529 and the Turks are about to lay siege to Vienna. In Venice an out of work Irish mercenary, Brian Duffy, finds himself a job as a bouncer at an inn in Vienna. There is however more to this than it appears as Duffy takes a phantasmagorical journey north only to find out that this is no ordinary inn and its brewery even more so.
Tim Powers once again deftly blends various elements from history and myth to spin a grand tale that has more twists than a maze designed by someone with double vision. He populates his landscape with a great group of memorable characters who fly in an out the story and often have you wondering what each is really up to. Have no fear though as Powers makes all quite clear and the result is some really fine story telling.
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Summary: Beer...It's not just for breakfast anymore
Review: It's so good to see this book back in print. When I first got hold of it, I was amaxed as to how good it was. Over the years I've had cause to re-read it a number of times and each time I find something new. Powers skillfully leads his readers on a grand adventure, while at the same time keeping everything light and fun and easy to read. By the time you've breezed through to the end, you realixe he's slipped in a whole boatload of allegorical messages about dealing with parents, following your dreams and not always seeing what you believe. And then there's the beer. Only someone of Powers' ability can make drinking beer an integral part of the Aurthurian mythos. I'll raise a toast to that!
Rating:
Summary: Drawing of the Dark
Review: Just about the best of Tim Powers' works. A dark fantastical journey through Europe in the late middle ages with plenty of geography on the way. An excellent plot, coloured in nicely by a drunken Irish mercenary who's a dab hand with a rapier - somehow making up for his lack of 'people' skills. This was in fact the first Tim Powers book that I ever read and have just re-read it.(something I NEVER do with books that I've read before!) Having now read most of his books, this one is only rivalled, in fact almost matched, by The Anubis Gates - another 'must read'.
Rating: 
Summary: Form the basis for reading Powers
Review: Many of Powers' themes and ideas in his later works are initially explored in The Drawing of the Dark, so if you are a new reader of Tim Powers start here.
Brian Duffy, veteran swordsman and mercenary, is an ordinary fellow on an extraordinary journey that involves plenty of swordplay, a touch of history, many magical creatures, and the consumption of a huge amount of beer (much of it by Duffy himself).
So put away your Robert Jordan and cast aside the cast of thousands of other Tolkein-inspired sword and sorcery tomes and pick up an original. Speculative fiction...get into it.
Rating:
Summary: Form the basis for reading Powers
Review: Many of Powers' themes and ideas in his later works are initially explored in The Drawing of the Dark, so if you are a new reader of Tim Powers start here.
Brian Duffy, veteran swordsman and mercenary, is an ordinary fellow on an extraordinary journey that involves plenty of swordplay, a touch of history, many magical creatures, and the consumption of a huge amount of beer (much of it by Duffy himself).
So put away your Robert Jordan and cast aside the cast of thousands of other Tolkein-inspired sword and sorcery tomes and pick up an original. Speculative fiction...get into it.
Rating:
Summary: Impresive
Review: The Drawing of the Dark was a great book. To qualfy as great I think a book has to be hard to put down, have interesting characters, have a good setting and most of all it must blend in some humor. This book did all of those things. I don't think that you could go wrong if you decided to read Drawing of the Dark.
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