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The Stress of Her Regard

The Stress of Her Regard

List Price: $4.95
Your Price: $4.95
Product Info Reviews

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Rating: 5 stars
Summary: Tim Powers at his best!
Review: "The Stress of her Regard" is simply Tim Powers finest work. As in other Powers books, this one takes several historical figures (Byron, Shelley, Keets, and others), an vivid description of the setting in time and place, a bit of historical detail, and some wonderful fantasy and blends them together in an unforgetable book. "The Stress of her Regard" tells the story of Byron, Shelley, an heroic OBGYN, the terrible muse who "gives" them their poetry, and their attempts (sometimes half-hearted) to be free of her. Another wonderful Powers' novel is "Last Call" which is set in modern day California and Nevada and tells the story of Buggsie Seagal, Poker, Tarot cards, Las Vegas, and how they all relate to the Fisher King. If you like well thought out novels which draw a huge number of (often strange) bits of fact and fantasy together the novels of Tim Powers will be sure delight you.

Rating: 4 stars
Summary: Yeah, I liked it but...
Review: "The Stress of Her Regard" seems to have been Powers' most ambitious effort at the time. It doesn't have the easy, relaxed readability of his earlier works and this caught me a bit off guard at first.

It's got a 19 century setting, though there is a lot of area covered - London, Venice, the Alps and seemingly a greater number of major characters than one is used to with Powers.

There is also a deeper and darker intensity to this work and although it's not a favourite of mine, I'll read it again and certaily recomend it to anyone who likes Powers.

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: the first Powers book I read...
Review: ...but not the last by a longshot.

I've enjoyed reading fantastic fiction (mainly SF, but with a touch of fantasy here and there) all my life, and this novel forced me to redefine my concept of what it means to have one's mind blown. Although the main character is a fictional doctor who is haunted by an accidental "marriage" to what may be one of the "giants in the earth" mentioned in Genesis, he crosses paths with several of the Romantic poets, who never struck me as "historical figures" in the way they were written. They were just as human as the protagonist, and just as terrified by the fate that pulled them together. That fact, along with the author's fine eye for period detail, did a lot to keep this story grounded in some sort of "reality" when the supernatural fireworks began.

In this novel, as with others such as "The Anubis Gates" and "On Stranger Tides," Powers picks out colorful characters from history--people who lived strange lives, and about whom we know little--then, taking care not to contradict anything we do know, he "fills in the gaps" in some pretty incredible ways. I liked the term another poster used: "gonzo history."

I should mention that this story, while ultimately very hopeful, goes through some dark, *dark* places, and with its moments of horror and eroticism, it's probably not a good choice for younger readers.

Because of the historical angle, many readers will already know the fates that await certain characters, but even those moments are suprising, and brilliantly executed. BTW: If you're reading, Mr. Powers, thanks for letting Shelly go out with such a bang. When the couple were on the beach, and she said, "I can see it! It's coming!" I got such a chill that I had to put the book down and just savor it for a moment.

Rating: 3 stars
Summary: Stress of Her Regard
Review: A nebulous plot and muddled symbolism (vampires, lamiae, the Muses, the Graiae, the Sphinx, and so on) make this book at once original and hard to follow. It's yet another retelling of the lives of Byron and Shelley and their crowd, though Powers also introduces new characters. Although the various characters go through horrific experiences, they have a blank quality; they're not deeply developed. But the scientific part of the vampire premise, the part about them being silicon-based and about the composition of sunlight changing and affecting them, is fascinating. I wish the author had explored that more.

Overall, I'd classify this as a fun, interesting book, not especially deep, with some intriguing ideas thrown in.

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: The greatest novel ever written.
Review: As soon as I saw that this was out of print, I took my old paperback copy and sealed it in a Ziploc bag. For fantasy fans, this is Tolkien for adults. For horror fans, this makes Anne Rice and even Mary Shelley herself seem like adolescents telling ghost stories over a campfire. For fans of historical fiction, this will blow away anything you've read before. This book is engrossing and sophisticated at the same time. It's a fantasy novel that won't make you feel at the end as if you've wasted your time in a mindless escape.

Rating: 2 stars
Summary: unsympathetic characters and uninteresting plot
Review: Compared to The Annubis Gates, to which this book is kind of a sequel, The Stress of Her Regard features characters that never became sympathetic for me, and the plot is impossibly convoluted (even for Tim Powers). I didn't particularly care how it ended, I was just glad that it was over. Go back and re-read The Annubis Gates or The Drawing of the Dark instead.

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: Better than English class
Review: For all of you who didn't pay attention in school, especially during the section on Romantic poets, Tim Powers will make you regret that. In this novel, he puts forward the concept that the best of the poets (Keats, Byron, Shelley) were inspired by this vampire type thing. Intertwined with that is the story of another man who finds himself married to the vampire and all the consequences that entails. This story has to be one of Powers' creepiest and even if the plot isn't as totally convoluted (yet sensible) as Last Call or Anubis Gates, it's still darn good, his eye for period detail is uncanny, the amount of research he must have done is staggering because everything feels right. I've no idea what the poets were like in real life but I have a feeling that they were not unlike the portrayals here. We'll never really know but this is good enough. But here he shows his typical sense of imagination, with enough ideas for three full novels. It's a bit darker than his other books and a little heavier on the gorier side of violence but it's everything that you would generally expect from an author this good. Oddly enough it's out of print though I don't see why, they brought back Drawing of the Dark recently, now if they would only bring this, On Stranger Tides and Dinner at Deviant's Palace, I think there will be a lot of happy people out there. But that's just one opinion.

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: Out of Print?! What A Mistake!
Review: I am a big fan of Tim Powers, however, that said and done, this is one of the best Fantasy novels I have ever read. Byron, Keats, and Shelley are under the stresses of admiration if not love by a vampire-like creature who not only gives them imagination but ultimately destroys them. Literature fans will love it. However, the other characters in this book are fantastic people too. I could not put this novel down and have just reread it again! It's a great story by a great storyteller.

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: Out of Print?! What A Mistake!
Review: I am a big fan of Tim Powers, however, that said and done, this is one of the best Fantasy novels I have ever read. Byron, Keats, and Shelley are under the stresses of admiration if not love by a vampire-like creature who not only gives them imagination but ultimately destroys them. Literature fans will love it. However, the other characters in this book are fantastic people too. I could not put this novel down and have just reread it again! It's a great story by a great storyteller.

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: How can this book be out of print?
Review: I still can't decide whether I like this book or "Last Call" better. They display different strengths of Powers' style. Both have complex plots, but Powers hides the ball better in "Call," keeping the reader guessing as to how all this really works throughout much of the novel. In "Stress," he lets you in on more earlier, particularly you English majors out there who paid attention in Brit Lit. Where "Stress" excels is in historical allusion. The novel is Powers' best use of historical context to enrich a story--and he has done it well in almost all of his novels.

It is a crying shame that this book is out of print.


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