it's dark in the dark

If you’re a regular reader here, you probably know that I’m something of a Tim Powers fan. See reviews here, here, and here. I’m getting near to having read his entire output. Imagine my delight when some members of my rat army showed up with a mint first edition copy of Powers’ 1979 The Drawing of the Dark. What I do when I get a collectible book is I make a paper book cover out of a paper bag and do my best to gentle on the spine. My goal is to leave the book looking like I never read it. Making brown paper bag covers for books always makes me think that anyone seeing me read the book might suspect that I was reading pornography or a romance novel. Luckily I’m a proud book geek and I have to assure you that I’ve read plenty from both those genres and probably will again before it’s all done with. For that matter, the copy of Jim Thompson’s Savage Night that I own has a ridiculous, lurid cover that would really need to be hidden in public. Not that I ever go out in public, considering that I’m a MONSTER and people would try to KILL ME. What was I talking about?

Powers researches real events and produces stories that are as historically accurate as possible, and then puts a major twist on them, and sort of tells a “secret history” of the event. The event being re-framed in The Drawing is the 1529 siege of Vienna by the Ottomans. If you have read and liked The Anubis Gates, the good news is that this book has something of the same flavor. It’s about adventure and strange underworld goings-on in 16th Century Europe. Powers also explores his interest in the Fisher King, which also figured into the plot of his later book Last Call (1993). To give you a summary, The Drawing of the Dark is about an aging mercenary who is hired by a wizard to be a bouncer at a brewery in Vienna. On his way to his assignment from Venice, things start getting weird. Different groups of people try to kill him. Supernatural beings, including a troop of dwarfs, come to his aid at strange times. Once he gets to Vienna he gets pulled deeper and deeper into a struggle between near-mythological forces. He feels like an ordinary mercenary, but it becomes obvious that larger forces are at work.

There is fighting, romance, adventure, and plenty of weird magical realism. The fighting is painful, the romance is complicated and maybe a little sad, the adventure is imaginative and interesting, and the magic is strangely plausible. This book also has a humorous edge to it. Sadly, for me the book really got bogged down about halfway through. Although some of the characters still don’t get what’s going on, the reader will have it figured out, and that tends to water down the tension of the narrative. Also, the ending ended up being a little anti-climactic.

Let’s see those numbers.

Creepy Factor: 2 out of 5
Suspense Factor: 3 out of 5
Weird Erotic Tension Factor: 0 out of 5
Funny and/or Strange Factor: 3 out of 5

Final result: If you’re already a Powers fan and are working your way through his books, you’ll probably like this book. If you’re curious about Powers, I would instead recommend Three Days to Never (2006), or the oft-mentioned-here, Anubis Gates (1983). If you are interested in the One Thousand and One Nights (a.k.a. 1001 Arabian Nights), you will probably find Declare (2001) to be an amazing read. I thought it was really mind-blowing, but a friend of mine couldn’t get through it.

The Drawing of the Dark by Tim Powers – Del Ray – 1979
Buy The Drawing of the Dark on Amazon

Thanks for reading another one of my book reviews. See you next time!