The Skies Discrowned

by Tim Powers

Laser Books May 1976. Early Powers novel, he later rewritten as "Forsake the Sky."

Genres: Science Fiction, Fiction, Fantasy, Collections, Adventure

190 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1976

About the author

Timothy Thomas Powers is an American science fiction and fantasy author. Powers has won the World Fantasy Award twice for his critically acclaimed novels Last Call and Declare.

Most of Powers's novels are "secret histories": he uses actual, documented historical events featuring famous people, but shows another view of them in which occult or supernatural factors heavily influence the motivations and actions of the characters.


Powers was born in Buffalo, New York, and grew up in California, where his Roman Catholic family moved in 1959.

He studied English Literature at Cal State Fullerton, where he first met James Blaylock and K.W. Jeter, both of whom remained close friends and occasional collaborators; the trio have half-seriously referred to themselves as "steampunks" in contrast to the prevailing cyberpunk genre of the 1980s. Powers and Blaylock invented the poet William Ashbless while they were at Cal State Fullerton.

Another friend Powers first met during this period was noted science fiction writer Philip K. Dick; the character named "David" in Dick's novel VALIS is based on Powers and Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? (Blade Runner) is dedicated to him.

Powers's first major novel was The Drawing of the Dark (1979), but the novel that earned him wide praise was The Anubis Gates, which won the Philip K. Dick Award, and has since been published in many other languages.

Powers also teaches part-time in his role as Writer in Residence for the Orange County High School of the Arts where his friend, Blaylock, is Director of the Creative Writing Department. Powers and his wife, Serena, currently live in Muscoy, California. He has frequently served as a mentor author as part of the Clarion science fiction/fantasy writer's workshop.

He also taught part time at the University of Redlands.

Excerpted from Wikipedia.

Reviews

[Michael Gardner · Rating 3 out of 5]

I read Powers's first novel after two or three others and wasn't that thrilled with it. But, The Anubis Gates is a hard act to follow when you don't read Powers's books in the chronological order he wrote them.

It is a somewhat naive story, a kinda three musketeers adventure, except without the other two musketeers (or three if you count d'Artagnan) on a science fiction world with a body count Sly or Arnie would envy. But looking back on it, I can see the emergence of Powers's tremendous gift for cooking up magical, coherent worlds from different ingredients. Not his best book by any stretch of the imagination, but not his worst either.

[Jason Pettus · Rating 3 out of 5]

THE‌ ‌GREAT‌ ‌COMPLETIST‌ ‌CHALLENGE:‌ ‌In‌ ‌which‌ ‌I‌ ‌revisit‌ ‌older‌ ‌authors‌ ‌and‌ ‌attempt‌ ‌to‌ ‌read‌ every‌ ‌book‌ ‌they‌ ‌ever‌ ‌wrote‌

Currently‌ ‌in‌ ‌the‌ ‌challenge:‌ ‌Isaac‌ ‌Asimov's‌ ‌Robot/Empire/Foundation‌ |‌ ‌Margaret‌ Atwood‌ |‌ ‌JG‌ ‌Ballard‌ |‌ Clive‌ ‌Barker‌ |‌ Christopher‌ Buckley‌ |‌ ‌Jim Butcher's Dresden Files | ‌Lee Child's Jack Reacher | ‌Philip‌ ‌K‌ ‌Dick‌ |‌ ‌Ian Fleming | William‌ ‌Gibson‌ |‌ ‌Michel‌ Houellebecq‌ |‌ John‌ ‌Irving‌ |‌ ‌Kazuo‌ ‌Ishiguro‌ |‌ Shirley‌ Jackson‌ | ‌John‌ ‌Le‌ ‌Carre‌ |‌ Bernard‌ ‌Malamud‌ |‌ Cormac McCarthy | China‌ ‌Mieville‌ |‌ Toni Morrison | ‌VS‌ Naipaul‌ |‌ Chuck‌ ‌Palahniuk‌ |‌ ‌Tim‌ ‌Powers‌ |‌ ‌Terry‌ ‌Pratchett's‌ ‌Discworld‌ |‌ Philip‌ ‌Roth‌ |‌ Neal‌ Stephenson‌ |‌ ‌Jim‌ ‌Thompson‌ |‌ John‌ ‌Updike‌ |‌ Kurt‌ ‌Vonnegut‌ |‌ Jeanette Winterson | PG‌ ‌Wodehouse‌ ‌

Now that I'm no longer reviewing 200 contemporary novels a year for the CCLaP website, 2018 is giving me the opportunity to become a "completist" of certain authors whose entire ouevres I've always wanted to tear through; and along with other writers like Christopher Buckley, Daphne du Maurier and Shirley Jackson, this has also included Tim Powers, who is revered within science-fiction and urban-fantasy circles for his complex, clever novels that mash up several different genres in order to present something truly unique and original.

I started a few months ago with his 1983 The Anubis Gates, the Philip K. Dick Award winner that miraculously mixes together time travel, the Early Romantic writers of Great Britain, and Aleister-Crowley-type worship of the occult elements of Egyptian mythology; then for my second read I thought I'd go all the way back to the beginning of Powers' career, with his 1976 debut novel The Skies Discrowned. I had been told in advance that it's nothing great, a straightforward space opera tale that most people would deem only mediocre at best; and sure enough, that's exactly what it turned out to be, a sort of bald ripoff of E.E. "Doc" Smith that wallows in the expected tropes of science-fiction instead of elevating itself above them. I specifically wanted to read it so that I'd even better understand just how much better he got as a writer by the time his celebrated novels from the '90s and '00s came around; but unless you're doing a similar full-career look at Powers, I'd recommend skipping his underwhelming debut altogether, and instead go straight to the books I'll be reading next, his "Fault Lines" trilogy from the '90s (including 1992's Last Call, 1996's Expiration Date, and 1997's Earthquake Weather), considered by most to be the best books of his career, in which he creates out of whole cloth a secret magical history for contemporary Los Angeles, and delves into the "hidden in plain sight" battle for who will control this magical realm's throne.

Tim Powers books covered in this review series: The Skies Discrowned (1976) | An Epitaph in Rust (1976) | The Drawing of the Dark (1979) | The Anubis Gates (1983) | Dinner at Deviant's Palace (1985) | On Stranger Tides (1987) | The Stress of Her Regard (1989) | Last Call (1992) | Expiration Date (1996) | Earthquake Weather (1997) | Declare (2001) | Three Days to Never (2006) | Hide Me Among the Graves (2012) | Medusa's Web (2016) | Alternate Routes (2018) | More Walls Broken (2019) | Forced Perspectives (2020)

[Marisa · Rating 2 out of 5]

This was Tim Powers' first book, and it shows: both that it's a very early work but also that it's by Powers. The writing's good, and the plot's ok, but everything is rougher than one would normally expect from him. It's a fairly generic sci-fi on a world with low technology as intra-stellar space travel breaks down across the galaxy.

Good for the Powers completeist, but probably not worth it for anyone else.

[iSamwise · Rating 3 out of 5]

3.5 Stars
So this is Tim Powers first book and honestly that shows… in a couple ways. First, it’s obvious that Powers wrote it. A lot of similar DNA from his later books shows up here. (There’s a couple of similar ideas that show up in Anubis Gates) It’s sprinkled with your classic romantic poet references, Shakespeare nods maybe a couple to Milton and of course the obligatory nod to William Ashbless. (Perhaps the greatest of the romantic poets?) It’s also very “Powers-esque” to have a scifi novel where all the tech is underdeveloped and people mostly fight with fencing rapiers and muzzle loaders. It was very swashbuckling and the only thing I can compare it to is Bancroft’s Senlin Ascends. The book is never boring, has many wild ideas and always keeps you turning the page.

However. This book is also very much a cheap paperback scifi romp. Many of the characters are pretty bare bones, and the plot moves at a breakneck pace with explosions, sword fights, double crossings and plot twists on literally every other page. Many major plot points will get set up and presented only to be paid off and conveniently resolved a few pages later. There’s also a lot of plot points that only work because of conveniences or characters unrealistically getting away with something.

Never was it boring, never did I want to put it down. Just not very deep and unless the setting of Three Musketeers inspired scifi novel sounds gripping to you, there are much much better Powers novels to read instead. I like the book a lot, but it’s not Powers strongest. I should note that apparently Powers first two books had very strict word count limitations on them, so it’s impressive that he pulls this off with so few pages but still, the best is yet to come.

[Jonathan Ammon · Rating 4 out of 5]

I enjoyed this first Powers novel much more than I thought I would. Yes, it's rough around the edges, and much of what Powers does here, he will do better in later books. But I am a sucker for page-turning swashbucklers, and a short, page-turning novel that still features Powers packing many different interesting things into a dystopian criminal underworld is fine with me.

[Simon Mcleish · Rating 3 out of 5]

Fun to read swashbuckling adventure, with some engaging characters, but not much depth or originality. Definitely first novel standard stuff.

[Jerry · Rating 3 out of 5]

There is a very short afterword by Tim Powers where he tells us that this was his first published book, and that it was inspired by Dumas, by Heinlein’s Red Planet, and by Raphael Sabatini. It’s definitely a nice combination of The Three Musketeers and sword & planet. Powers takes what would have been—honestly, is—a collection of sci-fi adventure clichés and gives them an interesting and sometimes humorous spin. On the one hand, you’ll probably be able to predict most of the developments, and there are quite a few grossly unlikely coincidences necessary for Frank to succeed. On the other hand, there are neat scenes such as Frank’s first fight with multiple enemies, and the arc of his relationship with the love interest.

I bought it because it has a cool cover, a great title (which applies more to the civilization than to the adventure story; rather than a long-since declined space empire, this is one in the process of declining), and an interesting blurb—and of course because it was written by Tim Powers. Ultimately, this is a fun read, but nowhere near as good as Powers’s later work.

[Phil Zimmerman · Rating 3 out of 5]

I realized about 50 pages into this book that I had read it before. I think I read the "Skies Discrowned" version though. This is a fun read that shows off the first published novel of Tim Powers. It shares little in common with his later work, but it is entertaining enough.

Absent are the fantastical historical fiction one would expect from powers. This is a standard low-tech sci-fi adventure.

[Felicity · Rating 2 out of 5]

Tim Powers first book, before he finished ironing a lot of adolescent hooey out of himself: Girls scary! Hit things with swords! Girls inexplicable! More swords! Many dead! Oh well so what I saved the planet. So, yeah, only for people who, like me, really love Tim Powers. Or who are teenage boys.

[John Hunter · Rating 3 out of 5]

Despite its short length, The Skies Discrowned sets up an expansive future in which spacecraft and swordsman coexist, faced with familiar foibles. Told through an endearing protagonist thrown into the midst of a political coup, The Skies Discrowned is a solid old-school science fiction novel that addresses how a multi-planet civilization could fall to the same kinds of wars and disputes that plague our, at present, singular one. It contrasts these esoteric themes with an adventurer's tale of grand swordplay, political navigation, and intimate friendship and heartbreak.


The story begins with Rovzar as a painter's apprentice and sees him move through roles as an escaped convict, thief, art forger, assassin, revolutionary, sword master, and leader at the quick pace of someone trying to survive during a tumultuous time. Due to its uncomplicated plot, more time is better spent on establishing the motivations of its characters in the context of the Transport Company, the instigator to every notable event in this novel. Although sometimes predictable, this development orients the story. It draws inspiration from the scaling down of historical fantasy, society-building nature of science fiction, and politicizing revolutionist genres to make for a unique fiction containing the sort of fiendish, daring escapades of a swashbuckler from any time.

[Nick · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is an odd piece of SF history, being the first novel written by the now-better-known Tim Powers, writing here as "Timothy."
The story is a swashbuckler of sorts, with an artist and fencer changing the world on which he lives, in a setting which was very interesting. The writing seemed rushed, though, as Powers crammed a bigger story into less than 200 pages, possibly to fit within the Laser Books format.
The version of future humanity in which the story takes place is an interesting one. I had a little trouble believing in it at first, but then thought of ways in which the setup could occur, as a single commercial shipper gains more and more power through various means. Imagine a company like Amazon deciding to take over a small country and move its headquarters there, and it's a little like that.
If anything, the part hard to swallow was the odd combination of personal characteristics of the main character, but if you read the book as a swashbuckler, then it works pretty well. Any character that would have needed an Erroll Flynn-type to play him always had more skills than made sense, anyway.
Not his best work, but worth reading for the history involved.

[Joshua Hair · Rating 4 out of 5]

Pardon me; I'm going to brag for a brief moment about recently finding an original signed copy of this. It was exciting because, though I've been a fan of Mister Powers for quite some time, I had never read his first novel. To find it signed with a joking little note about how silly and young he was back then made it a star of my signed books collection.

But enough patting myself on the back. This is about the contents of the book, not the physical book itself. As other reviewers have made clear, Forsake the Sky is not a great book. It is still a highly enjoyable one, but do not buy it thinking it to be as well-written as Anubis Gate or Declare. Mister Powers simply wasn't at that level yet. Remember, he wrote this when he was only eighteen years old! That said, it's still a magnificently entertaining, albeit somewhat dry at times, yarn. Oh, and if you know nothing of fencing before reading...well, you'll feel like a champion of the sport by the end.

[Pete · Rating 3 out of 5]

A pleasant planetary romance that might have been better as a straight fantasy. The hero, Frank, is caught in the middle of a coup in which his father is murdered, he and escapes to the Munson Underground--an underground city of thieves, criminals and refugees. Frank joins the underground thieves guild which makes him an indentured servant to a crime lord that actually befriends and mentors him. Franks pursues several careers including art forger, art thief and fencing instructor, becoming quite successful. After the murder of his friend and mentor, Frank challenges the new king of the guild and wins the title. He then starts to organize a movement with the aim of overthrowing the new duke and installing an heir that is sympathetic to the guild The undercity and thieves guild are well realized, and the book reminds me a bit of both Leiber and Vance. A good first novel, but Powers would do much better.

[David · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is mostly a pulpy action/adventure - the kind that of it were being written today, rather than in the 70s, would serve as the basis for a trilogy. The writing is sparse, some of the characters feel underdeveloped, and the world building is done with quick sketches rather than much detail. Worst, the hero is not terribly likable.

However, it has a few moments of genre escape. As examples, when the leading lady realizes her earlier foolishness and wants to get back with our hero, he rejects her. More tellingly, the whole enterprise of leading the rebellion leaves our hero as unfit to be in any society and he withdraws from the legitimate place he has just recaptured.

This bit of dialogue stands out:

“It is a very bad idea,” Hodges insisted.
“Most good ideas look like bad ones at first,” Frank informed him.

All in all, it was a quick and fun read. Recommended.

[Janice · Rating 3 out of 5]

The afterword to this book says it was the first book Powers sold, and that it owes much to Heinlein, Rafael Sabatini, and Dumas. I can certainly see the influences, particularly Sabatini. It's very different from every other one of Power's books that I've read. Not bad by any means; an entertaining, if rather short, book. But there's nothing of the creepy, supernatural elements that I so enjoy in his work.

[Simon · Rating 4 out of 5]

Recent Reads: The Skies Discrowned. Tim Powers' first novel is a strange ruritanian SF, as much the low fantasy of Ellen Kushner's Tremontaine with added spaceships as anything. Witness to an assassination, Frank literally goes underground, becoming thief, teacher, and leader.

Early work, with signs of what was to come. And yes, there is an Ashbless reference.

[Kate Sherrod · Rating 3 out of 5]

Its first novel bones are showing, and the protagonist is a bit of a Mary Sue, but this is still an interesting read. So many elements of what Powers does best are already present here, including interesting world building and a fascination with the criminal underground. Not bad!

[Chris · Rating 2 out of 5]

Fun to read something by an author who never wrote another book (I think) but no this was not very good

[Garick Cooke · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is a revision of Powers' first novel, The Skies Discrowned, which was originally published in 1976. Besides changing the title (which was taken from a line of poetry by A. C. Swinburne reprinted in the frontispiece of the original, and excised from the 1986 edition--I suppose Powers thought this too pretentious; he was probably right), Powers has added a brief (2-page) but enjoyable afterword, as well as some additional opening scenes to better set up later events. Though full of improbable plot twists and sometimes perfunctory prose, even in 1976 this writer had the knack of telling an engaging story. I have read this three times over the years and never found it boring.

[Alan · Rating 3 out of 5]

This was Tim Powers' first book. Published in 1975 and republished in 1985 after a little editing. The writing is very good but is definitely not a mature work. Frank Rovzar sees his portrait painter father killed during the assassination of the old duke. The new duke has Frank condemned to be taken off planet to the uranium mines. Frank escapes and hides out in the undercity with the criminals. Mixes science-fiction with good, old fashioned, Rafael Sabatini swordplay. You can definitely see the promise of future great writing.

[Kathi · Rating 4 out of 5]

9/10
I know this is the first book piblished by Tim Powers, and many say it shows the weaknesses of a first book. But I found it to be a marvelous, if rather bloody, adventure story with an engaging hero. Yes, Frank adjusts to the changes in his circumstances a bit too easily, yet he does so in ways that are always plausible. The science fiction aspects of this story are almost irrelevant except as framework for the setting and circumstances of the planet Octavio.

[The · Rating 3 out of 5]

Okay

This was the author’s first published work and it is very different from his later books.
It is very simple and verges on the simplistic. It could easily be a Young Adult’s or even Children’s book.

It is quite short and it is readable. However it is nothing special and because it is occasionally amusing I will give it a generous three stars.

[Jacob Wilson · Rating 4 out of 5]

While this is Power's first novel and likely not his most polished, his writing talent really shines through in the world building of an underground city and the snappy sci-fi that's never too simple or too convoluted. He even makes sword fights a treat to experience line by line. The characters could have used some more depth, but overall this was a fast paced and engrossing read.

[Patty Blaney · Rating 5 out of 5]

I am a HUGE fan of Tim Powers. This was his very first book published and has now moved to my most favorite Tim Powers book. His characters are so well developed and you sympathize with them. I love the underworld political themes in this one.

[Jason · Rating 4 out of 5]

Simpler and pulpier than later, "real" Tim Powers books, this was still a lot of well-written fun. I'll be adding a line from it to my quotations page, so that's something.

[Doug · Rating 3 out of 5]

Fun, but ultimately not much to write home about.