Strange Itineraries

by Tim Powers

Ghosts, accidental time travel, a secret clan of immortals, and Maxwell's Demon are all subjects in this complete collection of short stories by Tim Powers. Elusive and evocative, these stories are excursions into strange and dangerous worlds and are as colorful and inventive as Powers's novels. A pioneer of the popular "Steampunk" genre of speculative fiction, his complex and tightly researched "secret histories" blend with compelling fantastical elements to create some of today's most memorable modern science fiction.

Contents
“Itinerary”
“Night Moves”
“Pat Moore”
“The Way Down the Hill”
“Through and Through”
“Where They Are Hid”
“Fifty Cents”
“The Better Boy”
“We Traverse Afar”

Genres: Fantasy, Short Stories, Science Fiction, Fiction, Speculative Fiction, Collections, Anthologies

206 pages, Paperback

First published July 1, 2005

About the author

Timothy Thomas Powers is an American science fiction and fantasy author. Powers has won the World Fantasy Award twice for his critically acclaimed novels Last Call and Declare.

Most of Powers's novels are "secret histories": he uses actual, documented historical events featuring famous people, but shows another view of them in which occult or supernatural factors heavily influence the motivations and actions of the characters.


Powers was born in Buffalo, New York, and grew up in California, where his Roman Catholic family moved in 1959.

He studied English Literature at Cal State Fullerton, where he first met James Blaylock and K.W. Jeter, both of whom remained close friends and occasional collaborators; the trio have half-seriously referred to themselves as "steampunks" in contrast to the prevailing cyberpunk genre of the 1980s. Powers and Blaylock invented the poet William Ashbless while they were at Cal State Fullerton.

Another friend Powers first met during this period was noted science fiction writer Philip K. Dick; the character named "David" in Dick's novel VALIS is based on Powers and Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? (Blade Runner) is dedicated to him.

Powers's first major novel was The Drawing of the Dark (1979), but the novel that earned him wide praise was The Anubis Gates, which won the Philip K. Dick Award, and has since been published in many other languages.

Powers also teaches part-time in his role as Writer in Residence for the Orange County High School of the Arts where his friend, Blaylock, is Director of the Creative Writing Department. Powers and his wife, Serena, currently live in Muscoy, California. He has frequently served as a mentor author as part of the Clarion science fiction/fantasy writer's workshop.

He also taught part time at the University of Redlands.

Excerpted from Wikipedia.

Reviews

[Theo Logos · Rating 4 out of 5]

Tim Powers is my favorite living writer of speculative fiction. Occult hidden histories, California Noir, Ghosts (oh those Tim Powers Ghosts!) an uncanny and creepy literary universe that seems to hold consistent across all of his various writings — these are the things in which Powers is unparalleled. His novels are endlessly fascinating, but his short stories are set apart for very refined tastes. They often imply much more than they reveal. Here are uncanny koans, mental mysteries, conundrums of consciousness. Each is condensed genius.

Itinerary 3.5 ⭐️
Inexplicable phone calls, followed by explosions, An atmospheric but confusing tale of ghosts houses and ghostly past that eats its own tale.

Night Moves 3 ⭐️
The Santa Ana wind, blows in strange dreams, a ghostly imaginary playmate, and entrapping illusions

Pat Moore 3 ⭐️
A recent widower and professional gambler finds himself in deadly struggle with a powerful Ghost who shares his name

The Way Down the Hill 5 ⭐️
A reunion of a clan of immortal body snatchers exasperates old rivalries, tensions build to conflict, and a final facing of the music. This is my favorite of Powers short tales — it moves me with every reread.

Through and Through 4 ⭐️
A jaded priest is haunted in the confessional by a parishioner he failed

Where They Are Hid 4 ⭐️
A time travel tale focused on a pair of twins who have never met — one with the power to reshape the world, and the other an invalid because of his unknown brothers power.

Fifty Cents (with James Blaylock) 4.5 ⭐️
Old guy driving in the dessert is caught in twisted time loop around a fateful encounter at a diner. One of my favorites.

The Better Boy (with Jame Blaylock) 3.5 ⭐️
Gentle, everyday magic; The Old man and the Sea, but with a tomato instead of a marlin

We Traverse Afar (w James Blaylock) 3 ⭐️
A despondent, recent widower experiences a Christmas Eve haunting

[Craig · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is a collection of short fiction by Powers, three of which were written in collaboration with James P. Blaylock. Like his longer works, most of these stories are thought-provoking in that much of the story (and back-story) is implied, rather than laid out for the reader, so they're capable of being interpreted on different levels through various layers of the narrrative. His recurrent topics of ghosts, time-travel, and religion are featured in the best of this volume.

[Harlan · Rating 4 out of 5]

Strange Itineraries is a collection of Powers' published short stories, and as such it is extremely representative of his longer work. It is brilliant, enchanting, yet sometimes inconsistent and full of itself. The first several stories, Itinerary, The Way Down the Hill, and Pat Moore, are remarkably creative stories that would get 5-star ratings if viewed alone. The rest, including those co-authored with Blaylock, seem to be attempts at something that don't quite work. Powers excells at putting people in the modern world in fantastic situations where ghosts or other apparitions appear, and watching how they deal with this new reality. Sometimes it works, and the story becomes a successful morality tale or a meditation on the ties among people. Sometimes it doesn't, and everything gets tangled up in the what-if part of the story.[return][return]Also notable are the ongoing themes Powers uses in his work. The desert Southwest and its dry emptiness, the importance of family (sisters and brothers here, parents in some of his novels), and interactions with strangers all play prominent roles in this collection. His ability to evoke a setting and create a familial relationship in just a few sentences is extremely compelling, and this best of his work does this gracefully and enchantingly.

[Nigel · Rating 5 out of 5]

I don't know why I was surprised to find Tim Power's stories so full of ghosts. Time travel loops, yeah, the odd immortal, lots of Catholicism, sure, but so many ghosts, after a Christmas full of listening to MR James stories it caught me on the hop. They're great, though, weird, ingenious, chilling and unpredictable, and I'm really coming to apreciate his use of California as a setting, a place I've always found drab and opressively over-lit in appearance whenever it turns up on TV and films, which it does a lot, like an open plan office without a roof - well suited to noir, oddly enough when used well, and now for ghost stories like these. Very enjoyable. Barged through them at high speed, but still thinking about them.

[Scott · Rating 3 out of 5]

I had heard much about Tim Powers for a while. I even had a couple of his novels. But I decided to get a copy of his short story collection and read it first a few years ago. I think this turned out to be a bad idea. Though I still did enjoy this collection on a few levels.

This, as far as I know, is his only published collection of short stories. He is primarily a novel writer, and I think it showed in this collection. A lot of great ideas that needed more time to get fleshed out. There was one story that (to me) screamed the need to be a novel, or even just a novella. His style is modern/urban fantasy, with a penchant for writing in the past. Usually in the 60's, 70's and 80's.

Here is the rundown of stories:

"Itinerary"
"The Way Down the Hill"
"Pat Moore"
"Fifty Cents" (co-written with James P. Blaylock)
"Through and Through"
"We Traverse Afar" (co-written with James P. Blaylock)
"Where They Are Hid"
"The Better Boy" (co-written with James P. Blaylock)
"Night Moves"

My favorite of the nine stories was "The Way Down the Hill". It could have easily been longer, but still was satisfying at it's length. It deals with a division of humans among us that are reincarnated. Many even commit suicide when things get tough in old age, because who after all wants to go through that hell? One recent addition (and recent meaning 150 years ago) to the clan becomes it's leader, but has created a bit of a shake up amongst the other brethren. After years of missing their regularly scheduled meetings, one of it's members gets caught up in a coup of sorts.

I thought "Pat Moore" was decent, but that was the story that needed more. It has a very surreal feel at times, and could have easily been much, much longer. "Itinerary" was a great time travel type story that really confused me. But how he tied all the issues together really impressed me. "The Better Boy" was an odd tale of a man obsessed with his tomato plants, and using frozen ether to save them from the worms. I found parts of it interesting and just a good story, and other parts just not interesting at all, maybe even pointless. Though some of that may have come from the character development, which in that case is a credit to Powers' skill. Or Blaylock's, since it was co-written with him.

I read a review on Amazon.Com where the reader backed up my feelings that Powers is a great novelist and it shows at times in this collection. Though he still gave the book a 5-star rating. (Insert eye rolling smiley) I, on the other hand, have never read any of Powers' novels, though have a few on my shelves. Again, I think his writing style lends itself to novel writing. Though overall, this wasn't a bad read.

[Tim Hicks · Rating 3 out of 5]

If I'd stopped after four or five I would have given four stars.
But then the stories stopped working for me, and indeed became boring.
I skipped the last two.

But those early ones were great brain-stretchers, easy to read but challenging to comprehend.

[Max · Rating 3 out of 5]

You can really see Powers develop the ideas in these stories that would later form the basis of his novels. As it turns out I've read these short stories before, under I think the collection "Night Moves"? If you're a Powers fan, it's worth a read, though of the two I would recommend Night Moves more, I think that one has commentary from Tim on each story.

[Benjamin Kahn · Rating 2 out of 5]

A collection of interesting ideas, that don't totally work as stories. I found a lot of them confusing or not filled in enough. There was one story I quite liked, but I don't have the book with me so I can't remember the title. The rest were mostly good ideas that didn't quite gel as stories.

[Douglas · Rating 3 out of 5]

I give this story high marks for inventive weirdness, but not much in the way of plot. It felt like it would have been a good stage to set a story in, but the story was missing.

[sare · Rating 1 out of 5]

Really weird. If you're looking for uncanny, Tim's your man. Probably not helped by how much i dislike the short story as a form

[Eddy · Rating 3 out of 5]

A bit weird! These short stories are not as engrossing as his novels, perhaps because the ideas simply can't be explored enough in this format.

[Kathy Schuller · Rating 1 out of 5]

Don't care for short stories in general and found these too weird DNF

[Sus · Rating 4 out of 5]

Somewhat to my surprise, I find myself more seriously impressed by this collection of shot fiction than by either of the two Powers novels I've read. (Those two are, admittedly, early works -- The Anubis Gates and On Stranger Tides -- so I should probably read some of his more recent work before making up my mind.)

Powers sometimes seems to me to be too light, too jokey, too easy -- and, to my mind, too much into his own sense of humor, which doesn't read to me like a particularly profound or humane one but rather smacks of the easy jokiness, the self-satisfaction and even the adolescent-boyishness with which SF, a genre I love, is I think too often afflicted.

That said, I find Powers' treatment of ghosts in this collection to be, well, haunting. "Pat Moore" has its strong moments (the fate of that bowl of popcorn gave me chills), although I think that, as in "Where They Are Hid," the story is ultimately failed by its overly complex plot mechanics, of which the writer neglects to bring us to a full and felt understanding through the experience of the protagonist. "Night Moves," for me, has similar problems (which are not at all helped by the resurfacing of that adolescent-boy attitude toward women in grating stereotypes).

The fantasist's dark theme of the souls of unborn children, which is (in a sense) that of "Where They are Hid," receives in a much more moving, disturbing and, to my mind, ultimately successful treatment in "The Way Down the Hill." "Through and Through," a closet-theatre piece set in a confessional, is brilliant -- it made me think of Connie Willis at her morality-and-religion-interrogating best -- and both "Itinerary" and "Fifty Cents," the latter co-written by Powers with James P. Blaylock, are, to paraphrase Paul di Filippo in his Introduction, among "the best ourobouros-style narrative[s:] since Heinlein's 'All You Zombies'." (Although Heinlein dazzles with cleverness, incidentally, Powers' stories -- at least here -- are better written.)

I enormously admire those last two stories, especially, for the way they handle in delicate balance both their mechanics and their mood. To learn to do that!

[Michael Smith · Rating 4 out of 5]

Powers is primarily a novelist -- one of our best, too -- not a short-story writer, and this collection of nine stories comprises all his short fiction to date. Still, Tim Powers is Tim Powers, and his slightly strange perspective on the world is such that any fan of Anubis Gates and Declare will want to spend time with this book. A quiet, rainy afternoon would be most appropriate. Most of these stories deal with loss in one way or another, loss of a spouse, loss of oneself, and the settings are ordinary, mostly California, mostly the inland deserts, but the characters are ordinary only on the surface. They tend to be sort of abstract, too, in a Rod Serling kind of way, like “Fifty Cents,” in which a guy driving across the Sonora on a personal quest keeps running into hitchhikers that turn out to be himself (sort of) in the past or the future. “We Traverse Afar” is about another guy, also dealing with loss, and a very pointed look at Christmas. In fact, as in his novels, you have to pay attention to Tim’s writing because what he has to say is likely to slip right past you otherwise. The most straightforward narrative piece in the volume, “The Way Down the Hill,” is also the earliest, written more than twenty years ago, but even it has a strong whiff of Phil Dick about it, not surprisingly, and it will inevitably bring to mind “All You Zombies.” Everyone compares Powers to Dick, of course, and they were friends, but I also see a connection to Fritz Leiber’s work from the early ‘50s. No space opera here, no high fantasy, no universe-straddling plots. Just quiet, thoughtful word-pictures, extremely well done.

[Shane · Rating 1 out of 5]

I started reading stories from this when I lost my book for a couple days. Decided to finish it but unfortunately it was a waste of time. Many of the stories just don't make any sense or have any kind of conclusion.

We Traverse Afar (with James P. Blaylock) - This was rather dark and not much really happened. About a widower, hanging out hating life. I guess there's supposed to be some hope in the last line but it didn't do much for me. (4.5)

The Better Boy (with James P. Blaylock) - Kind of absurd, southern, sci-fi ala -The Astronaut Farmer-. Not sure I completely understood the concept of th ether bunnies but it was kinda fun and there was a very touching moment near the end. (6.5)

Through and through - A priest has to decide whether he can peform rights to absolve a ghost of her sins. Never said what her actual sin was. No "punchline". (3.5)

The Way Down the Hill - Cool setup but very confusing because characters had their gender and then the gender of their body was often different. (6.5)

Night Moves - Very cool setup, interesting characters, but not real explanation. Quirky/distracting metaphors. (5.5)

Itinerary - Strange, not sure exactly what it was about, but seemed to be someone who was nuts telling a story, so it didn't really make sense (5.0)

Pat Moore - Gave up after about 10 pages. (1.0)

Where They Are Hid - Another I should have given up on. I hate time travel (1.0)

Fifty Cents - Might have been good if there was any kind of explanation, instead it was just a bunch of nonsense (1.0)

[Douglas · Rating 5 out of 5]

Tim Powers is one of my favorite authors, and while he shines greatly in the form of the novel, where he has time and space enough to gather up many strands of plot and characters, his short stories are wonderful things. They pack more ideas into them than most novels do, and are very rewarding. The story entitled 'Pat Moore', included in this collection, is one of my favorite fantasy stories and ghost stories ever, and features more than one person named Pat Moore. It's an offbeat and weird start for story, but he exploits it for all the magic he can. Tim Powers will make you believe that magic really is real, and that it's everywhere, and in strange ways. Highly recommended.

[Janice · Rating 4 out of 5]

As with all collections of short stories, some of the tales in this book are better than others, but I really like Powers' writing, so I was quite happy with the book overall. That said, I'm thinking that the short story may not be the best format for Powers' material. His stories are never... happy. Not necessarily wholesale doom and gloom, death and destruction, but things just don't turn out all that well for the protagonist(s). Which is all well and good for a full length novel, but when concentrated down into a short story, it can be a little overwhelming. You'll notice it didn't stop me from giving this four stars though. :-)

[Mei · Rating 2 out of 5]

Ok, I didn't like these as much as the stories in The Bible Repairman. These stories are based on the same premise which Tim Powers tends to do well - ordinary, everyday people in fantastical situations who find themselves somehow crossing from this world into the supernatural. Time travel, ghosts, science. The blurry line between life and death. Yet perhaps because of their length the stories sometimes ramble on, and the characters are a little confusing and less sympathetic. There are one or two gems in here, but the rest, while well-written, didn't really grab me all that much.

[John · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is a strange and uneven collection of bizarre, sometimes moving stories; the better ones are a wonderful mixture of Alfred Bester, Philip K. Dick and, well, something else I can't put my finger on. "Itinerary", the first story in the book, I felt was by far the best in the collection, with "The Way Down the Hill" and "Night Moves" somewhat distant seconds. I found the rest of the stories awkward collections of strange ideas that didn't exactly gel into good stories.

[Mark Singer · Rating 4 out of 5]

Although known as a fantasy novelist, Tim Powers has also written short stories and nine of them are collected here for the first time in a collection published in 2005. Three of the nine were co-written by Power's college friend and fellow fantasy author James P Blaylock. All of them bear the Powers touch, and the most striking is "The Way Down The Hill", about a group of body leaping immortals who meet every several decades to reminisce.

[Orlando]

Ok, I'd only read one Tim Powers book before, and while it was weird, it was not this dark. This book is bizarre. I would not normally choose this kind of ghost-story nonsense, but it is well-written, and I'm enjoying it well enough. I've read two other books since I started it, and it's small, so obviously not my fav, but I'll probably finish it eventually.

[Ian Tregillis · Rating 3 out of 5]

A couple of the stories here were very enjoyable. Most, though, just didn't click for me. Several left me scratching my head and wondering, "So....?"

Overall, I think I enjoy Powers's novels far more than his short fiction. When it works for me his short fiction is just as cool as his other stuff. But most of the time it doesn't.

[Redsteve · Rating 2 out of 5]

Meh. Probably my least favorite Tim Powers book. Most of the short stories seem to fall into two categories:

1) good ideas that later got fleshed out in one of his novels.
2) poor (or at least mediocre) story ideas.

[Ron · Rating 3 out of 5]

Interesting collection of Tim Powers short stories. A number of the stories reminded me of Last Call, Declare and Three Days to Never among others. Enjoyable if you are in the right frame of mind.

[Phil Zimmerman · Rating 2 out of 5]

I completely missed the point on most of these stories. I was confused and most stories feel rushed and too crammed with ideas. I love Tim Powers but I am not sure his short works are for me. Oh well.

[Coleman · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a collection of short stories by Tim Powers. Some are naturally better than others, the first was very hard to comprehend, but that's just him. One of these stories in particular was incredible, and it will probably stay with me for a very long time.

[Keri · Rating 4 out of 5]

A worthwhile collection of short fiction. A few stories fall flat, and at least one is a bit morally preachy, but there are several truly effective, chilling gems.

[Booketeer]

First story was brilliant, but I expect them all to be so. (update: didn't get a chance to finish them)

[Allisonperkel · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book was mostly hit with a few misses.

[Ursula Pflug · Rating 5 out of 5]

My review of this wonderful book is up at The Internet Review of Science Fiction.

http://www.irosf.com/q/zine/article/1...