The Bible Repairman and Other Stories - Hardcover

Tim Powers

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 1596064536 ISBN 13: 9781596064539

Publisher: Subterranean, 2011

Synopsis

The Bible Repairman is Tim Powers's first new collection since Strange Itineraries appeared in 2005, and it is well worth the wait. In five stories and an ambitious historical novella, it offers one example after another of the author's wit, ingenuity, and sheer imaginative reach.

The title story takes us into the life of a man with a most unusual profession, one that claims a little bit of his soul with every transaction. 'Parallel Lives' and 'A Soul in a Bottle' are thematically linked ghost stories in which the dead attempt, with varying degrees of success, to exert their influence upon the living. In 'The Hour of Babel,' an assortment of damaged people experience, once again, the inexplicable encounter that altered their lives more than thirty years before, while in 'A Journey of Only Two Paces' a simple legal procedure is transformed into a nightmarish Kabbalistic ritual.

But the real centerpiece of this resonant collection is the novella 'A Time to Cast Away Stones,' previously available only in a very limited--and very expensive--edition. Set in the semi-fictional universe first described in The Stress of Her Regard, this beautifully realized narrative centers upon Edward John Trelawny, a contemporary and compatriot of the poets Byron and Shelley, and the momentous decision that faces him. In classic Powers fashion, the story shows us an actual, if little known, historical event reclaimed and transformed by a powerful imagination. The result is a distinctive contribution to modern fantasy and a significant milestone in a unique, constantly evolving career.

About this title

About the Author:

Tim Powers has been compared to Michael Crichton, Neal Stephenson, and Clive Barker and was lauded by Kirkus as the reigning king of adult historical fantasy.” His novel Declare, a supernatural secret history of post-WWII espionage, won the 2001 World Fantasy and the International Horror Guild awards. He is the two-time recipient of the Philip K. Dick Award for The Anubis Gates and Dinner at Deviant’s Palace and a three-time Locus Award winner for Last Call, Expiration Date, and Earthquake Weather. His latest novel, Hide Me Among the Graves, is a sequel to his classic supernatural thriller, The Stress of Her Regard. Powers has taught at the Clarion Science Fiction Writers’ Workshop and has co-taught the Writers of the Future Workshop with Algis Budrys.

Review:

"Powers always goes the distance, never taking easy shortcuts that tempt authors with lesser imaginations."
Manchester Guardian

Powers knows the ways we get haunted by ambition, loss, greed, and heartbreak and you finish reading this handful of beautifully crafted tales wishing he’d tell us more.”
Locus

Mr. Powers makes you doubt the reality of your own [world]. Are there still sin-eaters and ghost-talkers quietly pursuing their trade in tenements and behind weed-infested yards, with regular tariffs and specializations? If there are, what do they know that you don’t? That’s what creates a true frisson.”
Wall Street Journal

Poignant.”
Publishers Weekly

Tim Powers’s first collection of short fiction in over half a decade, The Bible Repairman and Other Stories is a potent six-story collection that plays effortlessly with many of the author’s favorite themes.”
Green Man Review

Powers specializes in hidden histories and all of these stories present a very real exterior and another world inside its cracks.”
Denver Post

Powers’s first new collection since 2005 assembles five stories and a novella, where he exhibits his extraordinary talent as a fantasist and his uncommon imaginative power.”
SF Site

Superb.... Here, in potent, distilled form, you will find Powers’s trademarked secret histories, heroically damaged (or damagedly heroic) losers, creepy supernatural phenomena, and macabre humor.”
Barnes & Noble Review

About this edition

• Publisher: Subterranean
• Publication date: 2011
• ISBN 10: 1596064536
• ISBN 13: 9781596064539
• Binding: Hardcover
• Number of pages: 200
• Illustrator: J. K. Potter