The Anubis Gates - What else by Tim Powers would you recommend?

[Jonathan]

Given that I like Anubis Gates and loathe Earthquake Weather I am quite wary of reading much else by him sight unseen. Which other books by him are worth a shot?

[Sandi]

The only other Tim Powers book I've read is "Declare". I couldn't make it through it the first time I picked it up. It wasn't that it was bad, it's just very dense and packs a lot into every page. I didn't have as much time to devote to reading then as I do now, so I just couldn't stick with it. I tried it again this year and I really, really liked it. It's a difficult read, but it's so worth the effort.

[Lori]

Yes, Declare is his most difficult, it's not an easy read because it requires concentration.

I just about love everything Powers writes. My favorite was Last Call. Strange Itineraries was great too. I'm saving 2 other books so I have some more to look foward to: Expiration Date and The Stress of Her Regard.

[Richard]

I finished Last Call last night, and can definitely recommend it. I think it was a much stronger and more intriguing story than Anubis Gates. It has its flaws -- but I can't recall reading a book that I thought was perfect, though. If you'd like to discuss it, here is my review.

[Sarah]

Last Call is my favorite after Anubis Gates. Then Stress of Her Regard, then Drawing of the Dark, then Forsake the Sky. I hated Expiration Date and Earthquake Weather, I'm afraid, and didn't get through Declare.

[[deleted user]]

Earthquake Weather and Expiration Date are my least favorite of his books. I liked them, but only because I had read Last Call first, which I loved. I've loved all his other books besides those two. Declare didn't seem dense at all to me, I read it practically overnight. The Drawing of the Dark was simply marvelous. Dinner at Deviant's Palace was good. On Stranger Tides is just plain fun. Three Days to Never: A Novel was fantastic. The Stress of Her Regard is patiently waiting on my shelf for me to give it some attention, as soon as I'm in the mood more it.

[Margaret]

I did read The Drawing of the Dark waybackwhen, but don't remember enough about it now to know whether I'd recommend it or not (though I'm left with a vague favorable impression). The others of his I've read and enjoyed are The Anubis Gates,The Stress of Her Regard, and Declare.

[Sandi]

I recently read Three Days to Never: A Novel and found it to be much more accessible than either The Anubis Gates or Declare. I really liked it and I liked that I didn't have to work my poor brain quite as hard.

[Sandi]

Nate, I think you are not a typical reader. I tried to read Declare when my son was about 4. It just didn't work for me at that time and I couldn't make it through. The second time, a couple of years ago, It went just fine. It was still very dense, but I had the time and attention span to handle it.

[[deleted user]]

I think a lot of it is timing, your mood at the moment greatly determines how you judge a book. I've put down many books thinking they were terrible only to go back later and love them and re-read books I loved only to decide they weren't all that great.

[Sandi]

That happens all the time. I think I've gotten pretty good at deciding whether I'm having a hard time with a book because of me or because of the book. I knew with Declare that it was 100% me. I could tell that it was a really good book that I just wasn't in a place to read. On the other hand, I've tried reading The Da Vinci Code twice without success and am convinced that the problem is the book, not me.

I rarely, rarely re-read. The exception would be something like Declare that I recognized as a good book and really wanted to finish or certain classics like To Kill a Mockingbird, Beloved or Madame Bovary that are very special to me. Even then, it's no more than once a decade.

[[deleted user]]

I probably re-read 2% of the books I read. That's still a lot though. I've read The Hobbit maybe 20 times and Ender's Game maybe 15 times and the rest of the ender books 2-10 times each (every time he releases a new one I read the whole series LOL). I do the same with all my favorite series.

[colleen the convivial curmudgeon]

I read On Stranger Tides and I thought it was pretty good, pretty fun - but also a bit slow in places. Not good enough that I'd recommend it without some caveats, but certainly not something that turned me off Tim Powers, either.

And I also have 'The Stress of Her Regard' on TBR. I've never read anything else by him, though, so I can't compare it in that regard.

[[deleted user]]

I've tryed picking up Stress a couple times, but it starts off a little slow and I just ended up reading something else. Just waiting for the right time/mood/frame of mind, so I will enjoy it to the fullest.

[Stuart]

There are a lot of similarities between the plots and background of Declare and The Stress of Her Regard. IMO it's worth reading Declare first if you can, it's a better book and a lot of it is based on putting together the hints and clues. If you have read TSHR then you may soon recognize what the central mystery is, and won't get the whow moment.

From what I remember TSHR speeds up a bit as it goes on, and is less reliant on building up suspense than Declare.

[[deleted user]]

That's a bit interesting considering Stress was written 12 years earlier than Declare. I loved Declare, maybe I should reread it before reading TSHR. I do tend to see a lot of similarities in the plot/background/theme of his books. Thanks for the info, Stuart.