The Stress of Her Regard

Unbelievably good for a book I had never heard of. This is first class writing combined with a plot that keeps you engaged till the last page. Phenomenal.

This book blows me away. Tim Powers is a master at taking real or historical fact and twisting it just enough (but not too much) so convincingly, that I almost accept that his version of events is the true story. That this is the true story that was too disturbing or fantastical to be told in text books. I'm not going into plot cuz you can read that elsewhere, but the scope of Powers imagination is a dazzling and breathetaking thing to behold. When I finished reading the last page, I had that weird feeling you get when you have fallen and smacked your head pretty hard..but not enough to fall unconscious, where the world is suddenly still and calm and waiting for your next move. I can't recommend this book more, though I don't think everyone will experience it in the same way I have.

In my 41+ years of reading, I will admit that there are few times that an author has truly caught me off guard and offered me a genuinely surprising book. Tim Power's The Sress of Her Regard is tuly exceptional--it is an alternative "biography" of the Romantic poets, a scary and sometimes gory vampire story, a distinctly odd and profoundly affecting love story, and a literary tour de force. It was housed with science fiction in my local library, but I think this does it an injustice (with no offence meant to those who love science fiction). It transcends a great many boundaries. It was lyrical, creepy, thought-provoking, and has made me re-read and re-think Keat, Byron, and Shelley. I wish it was still in print. It is a book I would love to own and share with others. (I will warn you that it is often not easy to read and not for the young or squeamish amongst us.)

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.

...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.

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.