Why did Cecil B. DeMille really bury the Pharaohโs Palace set after he filmed The Ten Commandments in 1923?
Fugitives Sebastian Vickery and Ingrid Castine find themselves plunged into the supernatural secrets of Los Angelesโfrom Satanic indie movies of the โ60s, to the unqiet La Brea Tar Pits at midnight, to the haunted Sunken City off the coast of San Pedroย .ย .ย .ย pursued by a Silicon Valley guru who is determined to incorporate their souls into the creation of a new and predatory World God.
At the publisher's request, this title is sold without DRM (Digital Rights Management).
Aboutย Forced Perspectives:
โ. . . playfully blends Egyptian mythology, alternate Los Angeles history, and modern technology. . . . A cast of unusual side characters. . .add color and complexity. This labyrinthine tale of the bizarre and fantastic will grip urban fantasy enthusiasts until the end.โโPublisher Weeklyย (starred review)
About prequel,ย Alternate Routes:
โPowers continues his run of smashing expectations and then playing with the pieces in this entertaining urban fantasy. . . . This calculated, frenetic novel ends with hope for redemption born from chaos. Powersโ work is recommended for urban fantasy fans who enjoy more than a dash of the bizarre.โโPublishers Weekly
โAlternate Routesย is both a thrilling mash-up of science fiction, fantasy, and horror and a work of startling moral sophistication. The horror packs a wallop, and thereโs as much in the way of suspense and tension as the reader can bear. Powers takes us on one hell of a ride.โโThe Federalist
About Tim Powers:
"Powers writes in a clean, elegant style that illuminates without slowing down the tale. . . . [He] promises marvels and horrors, and delivers them all."โOrson Scott Card
"Other writers tell tales of magic in the twentieth century, but no one does it like Powers."โThe Orlando Sentinel
". . . immensely clever stuff. . . . Powers' prose is often vivid and arresting . . . All in all, Powers' unique voice in science fiction continues to grow stronger.โโWashington Post Book World
โPowers is at heart a storyteller, and ruthlessly shapes his material into narrative form.โโThe Encyclopedia of Science Fiction
โOnย Stranger Tidesย . . . immediately hooks you and drags you along in sympathy with one central character's appalling misfortunes on the Spanish Main, [and] escalates from there to closing mega-thrills so determinedly spiced that your palate is left almost jaded."โDavid Langford
"Onย Stranger Tidesย . . . was the inspiration forย Monkey Island. If you read this book you can really see where Guybrush and LeChuck were -plagiarized- derived from, plus the heavy influence of voodoo in the game. . . . [The book] had a lot of what made fantasy interesting . . .โโlegendary game designer Ron Gilbert
โPowers's strengths [are] his originality, his action-crammed plots, and his ventures into the mysterious, dark, and supernatural.โโLos Angeles Times Book Review
"[Powersโ work delivers] an intense and intimate sense of period or realization of milieu; taut plotting, with human development and destiny . . . and, looming above all, an awareness of history itself as a merciless turning of supernatural wheels. . . . Powers' descriptions . . . are breathtaking, sublimely precise . . . his status as one of fantasy's major stylists can no longer be in doubt.โโSF Site
"Powers creates a mystical, magical otherworld superimposed on our own and takes us on a marvelous, guided tour of his vision."โScience Fiction Chronicle
"The fantasy novels of Tim Powers are nothing if not ambitious. . . . Meticulously researched and intellectually adventurous, his novels rarely fail to be strange and wholly original."โSan Francisco Chronicle
Tim Powersย won the World Fantasy Award twice for his critically acclaimed novelsย Last Callย andย Declare.ย Declareย also received the International Horror Guild Award. His novelย On Stranger Tidesย inspired the Monkey Island video game series and was sold to Disney for the movie franchise installmentย Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides. His bookย The Anubis Gatesย won the Philip K. Dick award and is considered a modern science fiction classic and a progenitor of the Steampunk genre. Powers won the Dick award again for straight science fiction post-apocalypse novelย Dinner at Deviantโs Palace. Many of his novels, such asย Last Call, andย Alternate Routes, are so-called โsecret histories,โ which use real historical events in which supernatural and metaphysical elements influence the story in weird and compelling manners. Powers grew up in Southern California and studied English at Cal State Fullerton, where he met frequent collaborators James Blaylock and K. W. Jeter, as well as renowned science fiction author Philip K. Dick, who became a close friend and mentor. Powers is a practicing Catholic who claims โstories are more effective, and more truly represent the writerโs actual convictions, when they manifest themselves without the writerโs conscious assistance. I concern myself with my plots, but I let my subconscious worry about my themes.โ Powers still resides in Southern California with his wife, Serena.