The Quarter Century Project - Declare by Tim Powers
Delayed by Stuff lets resume the Quarter Century project!
What is this?
I’m always conscious I did not read too much when I got to around my 20s at the turn of the century and this year I turn 50. So, this simplish project is I’d like to sample the award winners of each year to see what sticks or does not. I’m choosing The British Fantasy Society’s Best Fantasy Novel, The British Science Fiction Society’s Best Novel, The Clarke Award and the World fantasy Award for Best Novel.
I’ve resumed this year and to round off a disappointing 2001 (I was not a fan of Chasm City and have decided not to read Perido Street Station fr a variety of reasons) My last is the other tie winner with Galveston for the World Fantasy and I attempted read Declare by Tim Powers.
Gentle Reader, I loathed it and after a quarter of a read I gave up.
This project is personal I do not need to finish each book just try them and my busy shelves say I have other things to read. I’m a fast reader. If I really wanted to, I’d finish this book in about six hours but I refuse to spend my life reading something when a) I do not have to b) that means, there are six hours of reading I could do for better books and c) it would teach me nothing I did not know. I don’t owe a review on this book I paid money for. It is quite liberating and I thoroughly recommend it
Declare is a secret history book where Powers is using real history to tell a fantasy story. Andrew Hale who has a mysterious family history has come to the attention of the British Secret service and when WW2 comes enters into spying and infiltrates the communist spy rings in occupied France. These events will have an impact for Hale as an older man in the 1960s at the time of the Cold War and he is re-enlisted into the agency.
That’s probably all I can say. Its clear Hale has some ability to sense the supernatural and he is linked to the notorious double agent Kim Philby in some way. I had several people I respect tell me this is a great story. This is a reminder all reviews and opinions are subjective but for me after an initial chapter or two of interest the story fell apart and I lost all interest.
a) I loathe badly delivered infodumps and I’ve not read a book so bad at them for some time. Characters in the nicest possible way spiel lots of facts and information. The sense I get is Powers did lots and lost of research but for me this story read like someone who wants to tell you ALL of it from radio waves to political moves and often you can sense this si for the reader’s benefit not the cast’s. The characters all sound the same doing this and for me sucked all life from the story.
b) There is an insta-love element as our hero falls quickly for his communist gent handler. Boring
c) I very consciously try not to compare books with other books in a review. I much prefer my reviews to focus on the book’s merits alone. You may not have read a book I have, our experiences of a book may differ. I I say this reminds me of x there is a good chance some of you will hate x and I think you’d be missing out giving this book a chance. But for this project I can as we can see break my rules. And its hard tot to think of Le Carre’s spy novels which are gloriously subtle and swift pieces of storytelling. Declare unfortunately is a melodramatic potboiler and I’ve read far more skilled thrillers even without fantasy elements to know this isn’t for me
So after two years of winners finally my totally accurate ranking of the winning books
1 – Ash A Secret History by Mary gentle
2 – Indigo by Graham Joyce
Not for me
Thraxas by Martin Scot
Chasm City by Alastair Reynolds
Galveston by Sean Stewart
Declare by Tim Powers
Will not be reading for my own reasons
Perido Street Station by China Mieville
Have I missed out? On the evidence so far no! I read Ash at the time, but I was very glad to get back to it and still a personal favourite
Next up – The Night of the Triffids by Simon Clark
