#Tim powers

[burningvelvet]

ATTENTION pirates, pirate lovers, & #piratecore perusers: PLEASE listen to ship in a bottle by fin aka steffan argus - & his whole album lost at sea. i really like the song abandon ship too. thank me later

[apesoformythoughts]

“It may be relevant that I’m Catholic, and so supernatural events are not entirely ruled out. One time I was going to write a book which was sort of ‘The Exorcist in San Bernardino.’ … I got a book by Malachi Martin which was actual transcripts of exorcisms—dialogues between priests and devils—and I thought, ‘Cool! Wow, boy, I’ve got all my research right here. This is great.’ And I opened the book, and on the first page it says, ‘The author and publisher advise that anyone reading this book say the following prayer before and after each chapter.’ And I slammed it shut and thought, ‘Well, I don’t need that. Uh-uh. I ain’t doing that.’”

— Tim Powers

[earhartsease]

what a weird experience

in 1983, the metamythical fantasy writer Tim Powers wrote a book called The Anubis Gates, about time travel and egyptian mythology and a shedload of good drama and memorable phrases - and in the early 90s someone lent us a copy of it and we fell in love with almost all of his books, pre-existing and as they continued to come out

so today we just got the audiobook version of this novel - and it started suddenly a bunch of pages into the book! but the info says "unabridged" so is it possible it was an entirely new later edition and he trued some of it down?

well we have corresponded with him about his books, so we've just emailed him to ask what the deal is, because it's very autistically upsetting to have a favourite book change, but if it was the author's intention then we will feel differently about that

edit: okay well that's embarrassing - turns out Audible (we just cancelled our subscription because fuck gen AI but we're using up our credits) have done the unthinkable and included a "teaser snippet" in the opening credits before the book actually starts - how embarrassing but what an awful practice, we hate that as much as "next time" at the end of tv shows, and that's a lot

[courseyoulovemeyoudontknowme]

Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides (2011, Rob Marshall)

10/05/2024

[bookcoversonly]

Title: Last Call | Author: Tim Powers | Publisher: Gollancz (2013)

[jezunya]

"Ssshut up," Crowley hisses, not bothering to unslump himself from the tabletop. "You're in love with a human, you don't get an opinion."

"Better a human than a loyalist," Sherlock sniffs, and that gets Crowley to jerk his head up.

"Oi! He's not— I mean, he wasn't—"

"He was, then he wasn't, then he was again," Sherlock singsongs, before turning serious. "Once a good little loyal subject of Heaven, always one. Face it, the very fact that he hasn't Fallen means that he will always go back to them."

Crowley cradles his head in his hands, feeling far too drunk for this, or perhaps not nearly drunk enough. "That's not… He wasn't…"

A little tidbit of a scene from a much, much larger AU that I'm honestly not sure will ever get written in earnest, but that has been a project @sheliesshattered and I have circled back to many times over the years

This is post s2 of Good Omens and… somewhere in the BBC Sherlock timeline, probably post s2 but s3 & s4 don't really work with this au. Set in the universe of Tim Powers' novel Declare, though I'm hoping to write this such that you don't have to have read the book (but it certainly helps). Sherlock (and Mycroft, and others) are another form of Fallen Angel who have remained earthbound rather than ever joining Hell, and Sherlock & Crowley are ofc frenemy drinking buddies

More under the cut

For anyone who has read it: After the end of Declare, Andrew & Elena retired somewhere in the UK together, taking on the very common name of Watson. They settled down and had a couple of kids. Twins, in fact. Almost like one person split in two, you might say. Which they try not to be too freaked out about, but also they're really tempting fate when they name the kids Harriet and John, after Harry St John Philby. John (and Harry, to some extent) grows up to follow in his parents' footsteps, including certain secret missions in the mountains of Afghanistan. When he's invalided home, he assumes Declare has no more use for him, until he is contacted once more to be a 'special assistant' on one of their higher-level projects here at home in London, at which point he is assigned to shadow Sherlock & assist him in any way he might need. John doesn't know exactly what Sherlock is, at first, but he's weirdly reminded of some of his parents' stories of 'Our Stepmother' in the USSR, and he's about to learn that Operation Declare is a lot deeper, older, and closer to home than he ever imagined.

That's the starting point of Part 1 of this AU.

For those who haven't read Declare: Sherlock (and Mycroft, and others) are a different sort of Fallen Angel, who never joined Hell after falling from Heaven, but rather made a home wherever they could on Earth, becoming known as nature spirits, fae, djinn, etc. (Djinn is the most commonly used term in the universe of Declare, so that's the terminology John uses, and they are explicitly stated to be fallen angels.) They've been neutral in the Heaven vs Hell war, tho Heaven definitely views them as enemies and Hell views them as… frenemies? Enemy of my enemy? Not worth bothering with? They are largely free agents, with some different powers & limitations compared to angels and demons, since they don't have the power concentration/strength in numbers of either Heaven or Hell behind them, and their own schisms and internal power struggles, separate from anything to do with Heaven and Hell.

Part 2 of the au would be after Crowley and Aziraphale fend off the apocalypse in GO s1 and become free agents themselves. Suddenly, Sherlock has a couple of rogue agents, formerly of Heaven and Hell, in his city, where before they were Officially Posted There, so he (mostly) would avoid them, though he and Crowley have definitely crossed paths before. Those two are very much frenemies, especially since the Notpocalypse. (John, for his part, has largely come to terms with the whole djinn thing. He is not happy to learn about angels and demons in the truer sense, though.)

And this scene here? IDK, Part 3, I guess, but maybe just a little aside for Crowley angst after GO s2, maybe not a whole fic, until/unless there's some interesting fodder for this au in GO s3, thwarting the second coming with Sherlock & John in tow maybe… (and Crowley and Aziraphale having to figure out their relationship while the other supernatural entity/ies around them already have their shit together)

[heartofhubris]

warming away the numbness and chill contracted by sixteen hours’ exposure to the rawness of an October day

Gravity Falls - | - Agent Powers/Jeff Trigger - | - Explicit - | - 5.3K

There hadn't been a lot of readings on their devices recently. That was, there weren't a lot of specific readings, just an ambient level of oddity pertaining to the entire town. Upon getting permission to leave some meatheads at the hotel, the two took a few hours to relax. 

[jiskblr]

"For respectable reasons, I find it useful to approach writing in a provisional state of paranoid schizophrenia - to be a paranoid schizophrenic from nine to five, and then take off the funny hat and go have dinner and behave like a normal person. It’s nice to visit and not have to live there, so I commute to paranoia every morning and come home at night, and I feel free to take days off and not go in at all, I don’t gel my mail there. But for the purposes of my work, especially plotting it, and outlining it, it’s real valuable to think: ‘Nothing is a coincidence. Everything contains a message. There arc no random events, no coincidences. And whatever someone really means, it's not what they just said.'"

-- Tim Powers, In Praise of Paranoia, Locus #446, 1998

[peterrsthomas]

On Stranger Tides

One of the biggest influences on my writing has been On Stranger Tides by Tim Powers. The book is a historical fantasy novel that includes real historical figures, and involves the search for the Fountain of Youth. It is rich with magic, drawing on the ‘voodoo’ of Creole Caribbean culture. For me, one of my favourite parts of the novel is the unusual protagonist—John Chandagnac is a puppeteer, an occupation that is drawn on in a creative and entertaining way towards the end of the novel.

The book draws on classical elements of pirate lore, such as zombies, sea battles, sword fights, and, of course, voodoo, and interweaves these in an entertaining and original narrative. The voodoo is, as far as I understand it, researched well and in keeping with traditional conceptions of the spirits (e.g., the Loa). 

It has, of course, had an immense impact on popular culture, famously the Monkey Island video game and The Pirates of the Caribbean franchise (though the less said about that film, the better). The mixture of magic and history has directly influenced my own creative writing, and it’s something I’ve explicitly drawn upon or paid homage to in my work. Fans of pirate adventures could do worse than find themselves On Stranger Tides.

[windsweptinred]

I'm currently reading 'The Stress of Her Regard' by Tim Powers. I never knew the Romantic Poets vs Vampires was what I was missing from my life... But it really was.

Nine chapters in and loving their different approaches.

Keats: I shall study their ways in the hopes of one day besting them.

Shelley: I shall skilfully out-manover them.

Byron: Everyone get in my Napoleon cosplay carriage. (Leans out the window) Come at me you f*#&!**!!

[joncronshawauthor]

A Voyage Through the Best Nautical Fantasy Novels

Ah, the salty spray of the sea, the mysterious allure of the unknown depths, the thrill of a chase across the high seas—nothing quite captures the imagination like a nautical adventure. And when you blend this with the magic and mystery of fantasy, well, you’re in for quite a journey. Let’s set sail and navigate through some of the best nautical fantasies ever penned. The Liveship Traders…

[apesoformythoughts]

‘The young man looked then across the street at the shot-scarred faces of the nearer buildings. "They're…Christians, arent they?" he asked. "The Janissaries?"

"Well, they were," Duffy said. "The Turks conscript them from Christian families inside the Ottoman Empire, but they take them before the age of seven. Then they bring them up as the most fanatical Moslems and highest-favored soldiers of the Sultan. They've been baptized, yes, but you couldn't call them Christians any longer."

The lad shrugged. "It's like the old stories of draugs or changelings. To take our own people away, and change them, and then send them back to destroy the place they can no longer even recognize as their fatherland."

"True," agreed Duffy. "The men we'll be shooting at this afternoon could well be the sons of the men who fought beside the knights at Belgrade."’

— The Drawing of the Dark

[dudedidujust]

The daily planet runs a front page article calling superman the light of mankind

Cue the batfam launching a counter campaign in support of Signal,  the real Light of Mankind.

It starts as a joke but quickly derails into an all out war.

[courseyoulovemeyoudontknowme]

Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides (2011, Rob Marshall)

25/06/2024

[sonrium]

DP × DC The Power of Names Coffee Shop AU

Coffee shops are notorious for misspelling peoples names to the point that it's a running joke and basically a forgone conclusion everywhere. Everywhere except this tiny coffee shop near Crime Alley. The new hire there, Danny, spells everybody's name correctly without having to ask. Whether it's "Carly" or "Karly," he always gets it right the first time. Heck, people give him their names in Chinese and Arabic, and he swaps to the correct alphabet, no problem (because Danny, being king of the dead, can speak all languages dead and living, so might as well be respectful).

It becomes a bit of a running joke in the community to give Danny the craziest names they can find to see if he can get them right. Some of the Bats even hear rumors about him and give it a go for fun. They make a game out of it to see who can find a language or alphabet that Danny can't get. That is until, while massively sleep deprived from a case involving cults and magic and getting nowhere, Tim accidently says one of the words that he'd been hearing in the cultist chants when he orders. Danny gives him an odd look but shrugs and writes something on the cup. It isn't until Tim has already left the shop that he realizes that the symbol written on his cup is one shown in the cultists scrolls he couldn't decipher.

Tim almost dropped his coffee. Danny wasn't just a human who knew a ton of languages, he must have been a meta with the ability to understand EVERY language. And the Bats desperately needed his help to crack this one before the cultist finished summoning whatever demon or disaster they had planned. But how to get the kid's help? From idle chatter while ordering, the Bats learned that Danny wanted nothing to do with the Gotham vigilantes. And Tim had already given his connection to this case away by spewing that word written on his cup...

(I like to imagine the name Tim gave was something like "corn field" and that's why Danny looked at him funny and not because it's one of the languages of the dead)