The Stress of Her Regard
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Like many men in their last hours of bachelorhood, Dr. Michael Crawford — the 19th-century British protagonist of Tim Powers’ THE STRESS OF HER REGARD — spends his with his pals, drinking and partying. At least he does so semi-responsibly, by putting the ring for his intended bride on the finger of a female statue, because he’s afraid he’ll lose it otherwise in the storm outside.
He kind of does anyway, because when he goes back to retrieve it, the statue’s hand has closed! Forced to buy a new one, he makes his wedding on time, but more trouble’s around the corner: When he wakes up the morning after their wedding night, his wife has been … well, flattened. She’s dead, and somehow, he slept right through it.
Even though Michael has no idea what happened, he knows he’s not to blame. Of course, no one else agrees, and he has to flee with his life toward Switzerland on a horse and with the help of a friend, but not before his wedding-ring finger is shot clean off, leaving a bloody stump.
On his travels, he also gets help from aspiring poet John Keats, and later the team of Lord Byron and Percy Shelley (who also appear in the prologue, and during that FRANKENSTEIN summer, no less). He’s going to need it, because he’s forever followed by a free-form, shapeshifting, female phantasm. It’s a snake, it’s a eyeless beast with a snout, it’s about a million things, most of which aren’t all too easy to picture. There’s a whole vampire thing going on whose rules are laid out, yet done so so quickly that it’s hard to follow.
Powers penned STRESS in 1989, but it’s been out of print for quite a while, until this new edition from Tachyon Publications. As much as there is going on, the novel is essentially an extended chase, and one that simply wore me out. It’s well-written and overflowing with imagination, but would benefit from tightening. By a quarter of the way in, I felt as though I should have been at least halfway through it. I admire Powers’ melding of several genres — fantasy, historical, Gothic, horror — but there is such a thing as too many ingredients. —Rod Lott
OTHER BOOKGASM REVIEWS OF THIS AUTHOR:
• THREE DAYS TO NEVER by Tim Powers
This is my favorite of all of Tim Powers’ novels, and one of my favorite books, period. I love the notion of a lamia/vampire serving as the artistic muse of all these Romantic poets, and the antagonist of the novel’s hero. This is a book where Powers’ whole “secret history” really fits in with the known facts and is pretty convincing.
The Stress of Her Regard is a god book. It not my favorite of Power’s book. I agree with Rod’s review. My favorite of Powers books would be Anubus Gate and The Drawing of the Dark.
I’m with Craig, definitely. Powers is an Ideas man first and foremost, not a Plot-driven writer. His concepts are always incredibly rich and varied he should absolutely be given free reign to roam at will across his imaginary landscape. Calls for “tightening” are mis-placed and say far more about the reader’s attention span than they do about Powers’ work (sorry Rod, but you might as well ask a classical composer to cut back on the symphonies and write a three-minute pop song for a change…)
Yeah, Rod, you’ve got the attention span of a guy who reads, what, 200 books a year? You probably won’t even get to the end of this post before getting bored. No focus, man.
Why can’t people get all worked up over good books, like BIG APPLE TAKEDOWN?
http://www.bookgasm.com/reviews/thrillers/big-apple-takedown/
Actually, I’ve never read a Powers book, even though I’ve been meaning to for years. I’ve read the plot summaries at Amazon, but none of them ever hooked me and made me buy the books, so I just keep saying someday I’ll read a Tim Powers book. Which is the best one to start with?
I’d go with something like The Anubis Gates or On Stranger Tides, though once you get hooked (assuming you do), you’ll probably want to read everything. Last Call is a great book, too, but it is just the start of a three-book treatment of The Fisher King myth (continued in Expiration Date and Earthquake Weather). Declare is a great mix of fantasy with John le Carre-style espionage. I was a bit disappointed by his most recent book, Three Days to Never, which seemed like Powers-lite, but I’ve never read a Tim Powers book I didn’t like.
My personal faves are The Drawing of the Dark (magic, mythology, beer!), On Stranger Tides (magic, mythology, pirates!), The Anubis Gates (magic, mythology, time travel!) and, yes, The Stress of Her Regard (magic, mythology, vampiric-lamia-succubi!) but yeah, you can pretty much take your pick for a starting point, especially from his earlier works.
Check out John Berlyne’s rather superb http://www.theworksoftimpowers.com for loads more info.