Let me introduce you to . . .

. . . a fantasy author named Tim Powers.

Since the latest Pirates of the Caribbean movie, On Stranger Tides, is based in part on one of his books, I thought I'd bring him to your attention. If you haven't already heard of him.

Powers is a master of taking actual historical events and retelling them, adding fantastic elements like voodoo and magic. I think he takes something that's always been a mystery and writes an entire, complex novel to explain it. For example, just before Blackbeard the Pirate sailed into the battle that claimed his life he shot his best friend, Israel Hands, in the knee. He said it was because, "Hell, if I didn't shoot one of you every now and then you'd forget who I am." Then he sailed into a really stupid situation that got him killed. Blackbeard was a master a naval battles, but he got himself trapped in waters too shallow to manuever, and the Royal Navy cut him to pieces. Why? I think this book was written to answer that. The short version is, Blackbeard had ulterior motives and knew exactly what he was doing. Read the book to find out more.


Then there is my personal favorite, The Stress of Her Regard. Remember that historic gathering of the romantic poets Byron and Shelly, and Shelly's wife, Mary, author of Frankenstein? A couple of movies have been based on it, along with several novels. During this meeting conversation turned to matters macabre, and everyone present agreed to write some sort of horrific story--Mary went on to write the masterpiece for which she is mostly remembered. During that meeting Byron's personal physician, Polidori (who was later personal physician to Bram Stoker--one wonders if he influenced Stoker, inspiring Dracula) had some sort of odd hallucination. He started shrieking, pointing at Mary, screaming something that sounded like "Eyes in her breast! Eyes in her breast!" He later said he'd begun hallucinating and imagined a woman with eyes where her nipples would be. He claimed he'd fallen under the spell of the conversation. (Polidori later wrote a forgettable novel, Varney the Vampyre, btw.)


Powers takes that strange moment and builds what I consider his masterpiece around it. Basically, Polidori was not saying what history says. It was actually a German phrase that sounds sort of like that but has a completely different meaning. I can't begin to elaborate, except to say it involves the origin of the vampire myth--what vampires actually are, where they came from, all that. It is absolutely breathtaking. It also contains one moment that is so heartbreaking I can't bring myself to read it again. It involves Shelly and a desperate attempt to save one of his children from becoming a vampire. Gods. I had tears in my eyes after that one. When I re-read it I had to skip those pages. Read it for yourself. You will not be able to stop.

Then, there is The Anubis Gates. Considered by many to be Powers' masterpiece, it involves magical time travel, a body-switching werewolf, and a poem that cannot possibly have an author. As a tasty, amusing tidbit, it also proposes an origin for the phrase "OK". And, in a weird sort of way, the origin of a classic Beatles tune. The story is, when Paul McCarthy wrote "Yesterday" he was convinced he'd  heard the tune before. He played it for everyone he could think of and nobody could identify it. I think--and this is just me--that this is the seed that grew into this book. It's something that comes up, almost incidentally, in the plot. Read it for yourself.

Pick any of these three--or all of them. You will not be disappointed. Rocking good reads all!