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A review by johnwillson
Declare by Tim Powers
5.0
Declare is an amazing book; literally, it amazes me with its verisimilitude, detail, manifold plot, and stunning revelations that make one's hair stand up.
A British spy in the '40s through '60s navigates the ever-changing demi-monds of World- and Cold-War espionage. He gradually uncovers a most-secret layer of the Great Game in which rogue intelligence bureaus vie to control the primordial spirits of the Earth. That's about as well as I can encapsulate this soaring work into two sentences.
There's tense and gritty spy action complete with double-double-(double-)crosses, a bit of "who was my father" fate opera, doomed romance, geopolitics, and theological terror. It's John Le Carré meets the Old Testament.
This book is perhaps the best example of secret history fiction, a genre that Powers helped to define. Many of the characters were (are) real people. Almost every event portrayed or mentioned in the story really happened, on the dates given in the book. The author studies the period, the people, cultures and conflicts extensively, and then speculates on the "actual" occult and supernatural drivers of it all. The result is a story that transcends "realistic"; it feels REAL, chillingly so.
Another great pleasure of reading this book is the preponderance of quotes and references to other literary works, both by the text and by the characters. Fun for readers, it is also yet another aspect that lends a sense if inevitability to the story: older works have been hinting at it all along.
This is one of the best books I've ever read. It was even more enjoyable on the second read-through. I'm sad there are no sequels (although there are many spiritual successors penned by Powers). I'm sure I'll return to this book again and again.
A British spy in the '40s through '60s navigates the ever-changing demi-monds of World- and Cold-War espionage. He gradually uncovers a most-secret layer of the Great Game in which rogue intelligence bureaus vie to control the primordial spirits of the Earth. That's about as well as I can encapsulate this soaring work into two sentences.
There's tense and gritty spy action complete with double-double-(double-)crosses, a bit of "who was my father" fate opera, doomed romance, geopolitics, and theological terror. It's John Le Carré meets the Old Testament.
This book is perhaps the best example of secret history fiction, a genre that Powers helped to define. Many of the characters were (are) real people. Almost every event portrayed or mentioned in the story really happened, on the dates given in the book. The author studies the period, the people, cultures and conflicts extensively, and then speculates on the "actual" occult and supernatural drivers of it all. The result is a story that transcends "realistic"; it feels REAL, chillingly so.
Another great pleasure of reading this book is the preponderance of quotes and references to other literary works, both by the text and by the characters. Fun for readers, it is also yet another aspect that lends a sense if inevitability to the story: older works have been hinting at it all along.
This is one of the best books I've ever read. It was even more enjoyable on the second read-through. I'm sad there are no sequels (although there are many spiritual successors penned by Powers). I'm sure I'll return to this book again and again.