The Drawing of the Dark Book

Tim Powers is a mad genius.

The siege of Vienna, Vikings, and the Fisher King. Oh, and Merlin, of course. I'm tired, and lazy as hell, so that's about all the plot summary I can muster. On one level this is a book about beer, as might be inferred (playfully) from the title. It's the secret history of what the Ottomans were really after when they marched on Vienna, and a forgotten chapter of Arthurian Legend.

This is one of Powers's early novels, and I found it a little more concise than some of his later works. The later books sometimes get a teensy bit saggy or unfocused in the middle (I say that as an ardent fan). Having read most of his work in random order, rather than the order in which it was written, I enjoyed coming to this late because it meant I could watch his first explorations of certain ideas that have become important recurring themes in his later work. The Fisher King, in particular, reappears in several of his other works, including (most notably) Last Call and Earthquake Weather. I think I might have also spotted an embryonic form of the "Jacks" from Last Call.

In Powers's later works, the Fisher King loses some of the more overt trappings of Arthuriana, and becomes a more unique Powers construct. His sense of magic becomes much more refined and subtle with each book, but the seeds of his characteristic style are all here. (I say it all the time, but seriously: if magic were real, it would work like it does in a Tim Powers novel.)

One of the things I enjoy most about Powers's secret histories is that I always come away wondering just which parts were fictional and which parts really happened. Did a Viking longship really show up on the Danube just before the Siege of Vienna? I'm not sure, but if Powers says so, I'm willing to buy it.