Down and Out in Purgatory: The Collected Stories of Tim Powers

Anubis Gates #Nobody's Home

by Tim Powers

Twenty tales of science fiction and fantasy from the two-time World Fantasy and Philip K. Dick Award winning author of The Anubis Gates and On Stranger Tides.

POWERS OF THE IMAGINATION!

Twenty-one pulse-pounding, mind-bending tales of science fiction, twisted metaphysics, and supernatural wonder from the two-time World Fantasy and Philip K. Dick Award-winning author of The Anubis Gates and On Stranger Tides.

A complete palette of storytelling colors from Powers, including acclaimed tale “The Bible Repairman,” in which a psychic handyman who supernaturally eliminates troublesome passages of the Bible for paying clients finds the remains of his own broken soul on the line. Time travel takes a savage twist in “Salvage and Demolition,” where the chance discovery of a long-lost manuscript throws a down-and-out book collector back in time to 1950s San Francisco where he must prevent an ancient Sumeric inscription from dooming millions in the future. And obsession and vengeance survive on the other side of death in “Down and Out in Purgatory,” where the soul of a man lusting for revenge attempts to eternally eliminate the killer who murdered the love of his life.

Wide-ranging, wonder-inducing, mind-bending—these and other tales make up the complete shorter works of a modern-day master of science fiction and fantasy. 

Praise for Down and Out in Purgatory:

"Powers creates tales of dark, thought-provoking drama that are just frightening enough to make you keep the lights blazing but not enough to give you nightmares. . . . This is a treat for fans and newbies alike; hand it to readers who enjoy genre-blending authors as varied as Jim Butcher, Dean Koontz and China Mieville."—Booklist

“Powers is a writer whose senses and soul are attuned to a cosmic symphony most of us would not hear without his deft channeling of the music.”—Paul di Filippo, Locus

About Tim Powers:

"Powers writes in a clean, elegant style that illuminates without slowing down the tale. . . . [He] promises marvels and horrors, and delivers them all."—Orson Scott Card

". . .  immensely clever stuff.... Powers' prose is often vivid and arresting . . . All in all, Powers' unique voice in science fiction continues to grow stronger.”—Washington Post Book World

“Powers is at heart a storyteller, and ruthlessly shapes his material into narrative form.”—The Encyclopedia of Science Fiction

“On Stranger Tides . . . immediately hooks you and drags you along in sympathy with one central character's appalling misfortunes on the Spanish Main, [and] escalates from there to closing mega-thrills so determinedly spiced that your palate is left almost jaded."—David Langford

"On Stranger Tides . . . was the inspiration for Monkey Island. If you read this book you can really see where Guybrush and LeChuck were -plagiarized- derived from, plus the heavy influence of voodoo in the game. . . .  [the book] had a lot of what made fantasy interesting . . .”—legendary game designer Ron Gilbert

“Powers's strengths [are] his originality, his action-crammed plots, and his ventures into the mysterious, dark, and supernatural.” Los Angeles Times Book Review

"[Powers’ work delivers] an intense and intimate sense of period or realization of milieu; taut plotting, with human development and destiny . . . and, looming above all, an awareness of history itself as a merciless turning of supernatural wheels. . . . Powers' descriptions . . . are breathtaking, sublimely precise . . . his status as one of fantasy's major stylists can no longer be in doubt.”—SF Site

Genres: Fantasy, Short Stories, Horror, Fiction, Science Fiction

496 pages, Hardcover

First published November 6, 2017

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

[Theo Logos · Rating 4 out of 5]

Welcome! You have discovered the most complete collection of short fiction from the fertile mind of speculative fiction master Tim Powers. These twenty-one tales of uncanny hauntings, time travel, secret histories, Lovecraftian entities, and shadowy cults, each packing an emotional punch, are every bit as brilliant as Powers novels. Each is condensed genius. Brief author’s notes follow each tale.

Salvage and Demolition 5 stars
California Noir, a mystery with time travel, romance, secret cults, and an ancient poem that could annihilate time.

The Bible Repair Man 5 stars
A disturbing tale of a ruined low rent sorcerer whose folk magic alters Bibles and ransoms ghosts.

Appointment on Sunset 4 stars
A drunkard’s ghost is projected back through time to the day of his death in an attempt to alter the timeline

The Better Boy (with Jame Blaylock) 3 stars
Gentle, everyday magic; The Old man and the Sea, but with a tomato instead of a marlin

Pat Moore 3 stars
A recent widower and professional gambler finds himself in deadly struggle with a powerful Ghost who shares his name

The Way Down the Hill 5 stars
A reunion of a clan of immortal body snatchers exasperates old rivalries, tensions build to conflict, and a final facing of the music. My favorite story in the collection

Itinerary 3 stars
Inexplicable phone calls, followed by explosions, An atmospheric but confusing tale of ghosts houses and ghostly past that eats its own tale.

A Journey Of Only Two Paces 4 stars
An executor of an old friend’s estate is drawn into a disturbing, eldritch ceremony. Cats, cults, and ghosts.

The Hour of Babel 4 stars
A 50ish man revisits the inexplicable encounter that ruined his life as a young man. Secret government agencies, time travel, and a monstrous, awesome entity in a pizza parlor

Where They Are Hid 4 stars
Twins who have never met, one with the power to reshape the world, and the other an invalid because of his unknown brothers power

We Traverse Afar (w James Blaylock) 3 stars
A despondent, recent widower experiences a Christmas Eve haunting

Through and Through. 4 stars
A jaded priest is haunted in the confessional by a parishioner he failed

Night Moves 3 stars
The Santa Ana wind, blows in strange dreams, a ghostly imaginary playmate, and entrapping illusions

Dispensation 3 stars
An extremely short story that covers a lot of ground - H.P. Lovecraft, Harry Houdini, ghost hunters, the Norse afterlife, and kittens

A Soul In A Bottle 5 stars
Seduction, murder, and a lovely dead poet with unfinished business

Parallel Lines 4 stars
An old woman lost her dominating twin sister, but the sister’s ghost refuses to give up

Fifty Cents (with James Blaylock) 4 stars
Old guy driving in the dessert is caught in twisted time loop around a fateful encounter at a diner.

Nobody’s Home 4 stars
(Anubis Gate story) moving through the underbelly Of Byronic London to exorcise ghosts

A Time To Cast Away Stones 4 stars
(The Stress Of Her Regards) a secret history Lord Byron’s shadowy friend John Trelawny allies with a Greek warlord and encounters the terrible, vampiric Nephelim.

Down And Out In Purgatory 4 stars
Revenge pursued past the grave. California Noir meets Powers ghost world

Sufficient Unto The Day. 5 stars
Dysfunctional, haunted family Thanksgiving gathering, Family fiasco multiplied by a factor of ghosts.

[Little Timmy · Rating 2 out of 5]

Well I loved the 1st book I read by this writer it got 5 stars from me, really didn't like the 2nd so I thought I would try some of his short stories. Many of these had some really interesting concepts and ideas in them but alas the writing and telling of those awesome ideas seems to fall short for me. I am not giving up on this writer and have several more novels of his to try but for me this was a not recommended book.

[Sheryl · Rating 4 out of 5]

You like ghost stories?
Then you'll probably love this collection. But keep in mind---Tim Powers ghost stories are very different from any you've read before.
One of the things I love the most about his ghost stories is that each one has a very well developed system of ghost behavior, and no two are exactly alike. Sometimes ghosts communicate via random keyboards (but only in rhyme); sometimes ghosts are bound to certain books or poems or objects; sometimes they manifest in fishbowls with special "accommodation water." Sometimes they are malevolent, but mostly they just have a project or event that keeps them tethered to this plane.
I find it endlessly fascinating to read each new story and learn the complicated workings of each new ghost world.
There are 21 stories in this book---when I tried to list my favorites, I listed fully half of them.
So I buckled down and narrowed it to four: The Bible Repair Man, Soul In A Bottle, Down and Out In Purgatory, and the final story, which might be my favorite of all---Sufficient Unto The Day. A madcap comedy of a ghost story with creepy underpinnings.
There isn't a bad or boring story in the lot, though a few of the novella length ones got a little bogged down and function better as stand alone volumes. Still, highly recommend to anyone who appreciates a brainy weird and sometimes very funny take on the supernatural.

[Lori L (She Treads Softly) · Rating 4 out of 5]

Down and Out in Purgatory: The Collected Stories of Tim Powers is a highly recommended collection of twenty-one short stories, all with a supernatural element to the plot. Each of the stories is introduced by Powers with additional information about or inspiration for the story. (My review copy has 21 stories, although the description says twenty.)

Contents:
SALVAGE AND DEMOLITION: A book collector discovers a manuscript that results in a time traveling adventure to save the world.
THE BIBLE REPAIRMAN: A psychic handyman, who is currently semi-retired and paid to eliminate troublesome passages of the Bible, is asked to return to the work he used to do and save the kidnapped ghost of another man's daughter.
APPOINTMENT ON SUNSET: A group of men are trying to save another man's life by making him repeat the sequence of events that led to his death in 1964, but trying to change the end results. Saving him is a side effect of what they really want to do.
THE BETTER BOY with James P. Blaylock: "A scaled-down horticultural version of Hemingway’s The Old Man and the Sea, with a tomato instead of a marlin."
PAT MOORE: A chain-mail letter promising good luck after you send it on to ten friends is more sinister than it seems.
THE WAY DOWN THE HILL: A we’d-all-be-better-off-dead story about a family of immortals who jump from one host to another.
ITINERARY: a time traveling ghost story.
A JOURNEY OF ONLY TWO PACES: A man settles an old friend's estate which requires a trip to a strange apartment building.
THE HOUR OF BABEL: A group of men need help time-traveling to June 21,1975, the night when "God vomited on Firehouse Pizza."
WHERE THEY ARE HID: Inspired by the Fritz Leiber novella, "You’re All Alone." A chrono-jumper has undisclosed plans.
WE TRAVERSE AFAR with James P. Blaylock: A grieving man has an encounter during the Christmas season.
THROUGH AND THROUGH: A ghost comes to a confessional and wants absolution from the priest.
NIGHT MOVES: An imaginary playmate tracks down a boy, no matter where he moves.
DISPENSATION: two men encounter kittens and a ghost.
A SOUL IN A BOTTLE: A man meets a ghost - and falls in love with her.
PARALLEL LINES: The surviving elderly sister grieves the loss of her twin, who is trying to communicate with her.
FIFTY CENTS with James P. Blaylock: A man is searching used book stores for a particular book when he encounters some supernatural trouble.
NOBODY’S HOME: A prequel for the character of Jacky Snapp from the novel The Anubis Gates.
A TIME TO CAST AWAY STONES: A story about Edward Trelawny, a real historical figure; "a liar who eventually came to believe his own melodramatic fabulations."
DOWN AND OUT IN PURGATORY: A man vows to kill the man who murdered the woman he worshiped from afar.
SUFFICIENT UNTO THE DAY: A family's Thanksgiving feast takes a dark turn as the invited ghosts of relatives past accidentally draw soul-stealing demons into the family television set.

Disclosure: My review copy was courtesy of the publisher/author.
http://www.shetreadssoftly.com/2017/1...

[Jerry · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is a large collection of short stories ranging from to 1982 to 2017; the final short story, “Sufficient Unto the Day” was written for this collection. It’s a very Powers-like take on the Bradbury idea of a very human inhuman family getting together for a special occasion. Where Bradbury set his on Hallowe’en, Powers sets his on Thanksgiving. The family members are thankful mostly that it only happens once a year.

Most of the stories are followed with notes by Powers about how, why, or where he wrote the story or had the idea for it. Some of them seem to end just as the recollection is getting interesting, such as the ancient apartment building that inspired “A Journey of Only Two Paces”.

The odd place in this story was based on one such apartment building where my wife and I one day found the street-side lobby door unlocked.

And that’s the end. What was inside? Did they choose to go inside? Did they choose not to, and why? There is space left on the page to continue the story!

He mostly comes across as too private to be writing such things, but occasionally does, such as in his explanation for why he wrote the story about a priest who didn’t believe in sin; his inspiration was a real priest who didn’t, and Powers’s response was “Well I meant it to be a sin when I did it.”

Some of the stories are collaborations with James Blaylock. Most are set in California.

All of the stories are interesting, and some are amazing, such as “Salvage and Demolition”, about a man finding the poetry of a long-gone poet and so getting caught in a decades-long magical conspiracy. “A Soul in a Bottle” is a similar story, but in this case it’s a decades-long family squabble.

“This is 1957,” she said patiently. “You said 2012 was pretty much the same, except everybody has little computers that nobody does math on, but I know they’ll have flying cars and colonies on the moon by then.”

Or “Itinerary”, in which I’m still not sure who and what was real. And “Where They Are Hid”, a convoluted time-travel story about twins who don’t know they’re opposed to each other.

One of the stories is an Anubis Gates prequel, “Nobody’s Home”, focused on Jacky Snapp, and how she ended up where she was in The Anubis Gates. There’s also a nice homage to Lovecraft and cats, “Dispensation”.

[Dragan Nanic · Rating 3 out of 5]

I really wanted to give this book more stars. I am a big fan of Powers since I first read The Anubis Gates and reading a book of collected stories felt like a fantastic treat. Yet some collections work for the better and some for the worse.

Powers is a unique experience in the way he just drops you into the world that is so different, sometimes not much in the appearance as in the sense of ordinary things exuding displacement, and leaving you without explaining all the details. That displacement is the best part of his writing. And it works well in most of these stories. What started to bother me is that, in such close proximity, the stories started resembling each other. After a while, there is so much time travelling one can take without feeling repetitive.

There are really fantastic stories in here, title one included, yet I could not appreciate them enough after just finishing another one in the similar vein. These stories need room to breathe. By any means, read them separately and not one after the other.

[Carl · Rating 5 out of 5]

A master fantasist, Magical realist on steroids,at the top of his game.

Mainly noted for his magnificent novels, Powers has from time to time stretched out in the short story/Novelette/Novella oeuvre. The results are uniformly fantastic.

Powers's raison d'etre in novels and stories, is to start as real as possible, truly mimetic fiction that turns progressively weirder and weirder. Ellison once said that the best speculative fiction should be treated as realistic fiction with one or two gradients of the odd and fantastic. Powers does this but in few magnitudes higher and stranger with the most beautiful lean prose.
The entire 712 page collection is excellent but some standouts are:
Salvage and Demolition
A journey of Only Two Paces
The Way Down the Hill
Appointment on Sunset
Down and Out in Purgatory.

[Elle · Rating 4 out of 5]

Oh man I love Powers' short stories as much as his novels. He actually seems to do better character building in his shorter works for whatever reason and the characters are super relatable, memorable, and mostly sympathetic. The stories are a combination of horror, fantasy, and occult-powered science fiction and they're all so much fun. Definitely recommend for fans of speculative fiction

[Patrick Hayes · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is a fantastic collection of short stories. I've read several of Powers's novels, but not his short fiction. He is as talented with the short story as he is with the longer form. Several of these stories are MUST reads for fans of stories that go down a VERY different path; I've labelled them as MUST READ. Three of the tales are co-written with James P. Blaylock.

Four of the stories didn't work for me, however there was so much strength in the others, with several sucking me and not letting me go--staying in my mind hours and days after I read them, I have to give this book five stars. Like any collection of short stories, some are great and others are not. It depends on each reader to determine what makes something enjoyable. This collection proves that Powers is a writer that demands to be read.

What follows is a brief, non-spoiler review of each tale:

"Salvage and Demolition": A fantastic time travel story to the recent past that may have been done before. MUST READ.
"The Bible Repairman": A man makes changes to the iconic tome for a customer's desire.
"Appointment on Sunset": An uninvited passenger joins a car ride to destiny.
"The Better Boy": An incident on the street provides the entry point to a garden battle.
"Pat Moore": A fantastic story of the supernatural.
"The Way Down the Hill": A gathering of acquaintances that's not occurred in some time. MUST READ.
"Itinerary": A phone call leads to an interesting journey.
"A Journey of Only Two Paces": A marvelous tale of a request that takes a turn. MUST READ.
"The Hour of Babel": Is this time travel, or something else? MUST READ.
"Where They are Hid": Another time travel tale, but this one didn't work for me.
"We Traverse Afar": Not a fantasy tale and another that didn't work for me.
"Through and Through": Someone asks for absolution from a priest who has concerns. MUST READ.
"Night Moves": Someone follows another. This didn't work for me.
"Dispensation": An author gets a ride. MUST READ.
"A Soul in a Bottle": Supernatural noir. MUST READ.
"Parallel Lines": Two individuals bring a third into their issues.
"Fifty Cents": A road trip becomes complicated. MUST READ.
"Nobody's Home": This is a side story to Powers's novel The Anubis Gates. No reading of that novel is necessary to enjoy this piece which succeeds on its own merits. MUST READ.
"A Time to Cast Away Stones": The secret life of a writer is revealed. This didn't work for me, as it seemed Powers was caught up in the history and not his original tale.
"Down and Out in Purgatory": Twists and turns as someone tries to discover the truth. MUST READ.
"Sufficient Unto the Day": A family gathering unlike any other. MUST READ.

[Lou · Rating 3 out of 5]

I'm not sure why, as Powers is one of my favorite authors, but I really couldn't get into any of these stories. They're all GOOD, of course, but at the end of each, I just found I didn't care. Could be that it usually takes me a while to get involved in the worlds Powers creates, and these short stories simply weren't long enough to get me there. But whatever the case, this was not one of my favorites.

[Eric Layton · Rating 4 out of 5]

WOW! This collection of short stories from Powers was a lot of FUN! I particularly liked his explanatory comments after each story. If you like Powers, read his short stories. It takes some serious talent to write short stories. The space is limited. It's a mark of true talent when a writer of long, drawn out fiction can manage outstanding plot and character development in the short ones, too.

[Charl · Rating 4 out of 5]

Excellent collection of stories by one of my preferred authors (not quite a favorite, but I'll read anything he's written).

Reading these was a lot like watching the original "The Twilight Zone". Kind of semi-horror, some of them had "you better watch out" endings, others had "just what he deserved".

Well worth reading.

[Cristiano · Rating 2 out of 5]

All things considered this collection of stories is a mixed bag; some stories are great (Salvage and Demolition, A Time To Cast Away Stones) but the rest alternate from good (Appointment On Sunset), to confusing (Down And Out In Purgatory) and bad (The Better Boy), ending with forgettable (nearly all the rest).

[Morgan · Rating 3 out of 5]

Most of these stories are ghost stories, Tim Powers version of ghosts from Fault Lines. Most of the stories were ok, but I only really liked about 5 of them. Some of the writing was a bit uneven for me, I sometimes got lost on the first few pages of a story due to lack of information and forced myself to read more to get more context. Not a great writing technique if you ask me.

[Christian · Rating 4 out of 5]

A really good book of fun supernatural short stories. Several really good ones, only one clunker, and unfortunately it's the longest story in the book - a pointless one about some kind of 19th century guy trying to avoid being turned immortal or something. Otherwise, a really solid collection.

[Benjamin Kahn · Rating 3 out of 5]

As with most collections of stories, this was an uneven assortment. Some good, some bad, and some that felt they suffered from the format - some stories work better at a greater length. In general, I think I prefer Tim Powers's novels to his short stories. Decent, but hardly essential.

[Emmalyn Renato · Rating 4 out of 5]

The collected short fiction of Tim Powers (at least up to 2017). Twenty one pieces ranging in length from short stories to novellas, and dating from 1982 to 2017, four of which had been nominated for various awards.

[John]

Powers is one of the best stylists of late 20th / early 21st century sci-fi, but a rapid-fire burst of his short fiction, back to back to back, gets a little same-y. That's not a slight on him.

[Karen · Rating 2 out of 5]

Maybe more of 2.5 but I did not enjoy these nearly as much as I thought I would, found it all a bit of a slog.

[Garick Cooke · Rating 5 out of 5]

This collection was something of a revelation to me. At one time, in the 80s and early 90s, Tim Powers was one of my favorite authors. After Last Call (1992), however, I gradually lost interest in his writing. I did read Strange Itineraries, which at the time was the definitive collection of his short fiction, and was not overly impressed. I had him pegged as a pretty good (sometimes great) novelist, but nothing special as a short story writer--which is better than vice versa, I suppose. By the time he published his first short story, "The Way Down the Hill" (1982), he already had three novels under his belt. (Incidentally, "The Way Down the Hill" seems to be a prequel to The Anubis Gates, inasmuch as it contains references to DIRE.) Little did I know, while I was losing interest in his novels, Powers continued to hone his short fiction skills. Not all of the stories herein are good (the titular novelet is a dud as far as I'm concerned), but many of them are, and some are great. And at 712 pages, this mass market paperback provides plenty of bang for the buck. The short commentaries by Powers himself are a welcome bonus. Almost all of the stories deal with themes of time travel, ghosts, siblings (sometimes twins), or some combination thereof. Some highlights:

"The Hour of Babel" (2008) Simply the best story in a very strong field. This is a rarity, a true SF story dealing with theological issues and the nature of evil (and time travel, of course). 5/5 stars.

"A Soul in a Bottle" (2006) The premise of a loner falling in love with a ghost has been done before, but never so well as Powers does it here. If not for the presence of "Babel," this would be the highlight of the collection. 5/5 stars.

"Night Moves" (1986) I liked this one considerably more on second reading. Powers deliberately sets out to make his main characters unlikable. Further, I think the cast is too crowded for a 23-page story--it perhaps should have been trimmed a bit (or better yet, expanded into a novella). This was written, apparently, in between Dinner at Deviant's Palace and On Stranger Tides. It's fascinating to see how it echoes the former and presages the latter. 4/5 stars.

"Salvage and Demolition" (2013) A longer time travel puzzle with romance and a sinister conspiracy. I did find the relationship at the center of this story somewhat implausible, but the time travel elements are very well done. 4/5 stars.

"A Time to Cast Away Stones" (2008) This seems to take place in the same universe as The Stress of Her Regard. That was the first novel by Powers that I didn't like, so this one was not especially interesting to me, either. However, it is impeccably written, as usual. 3/5 stars.

Others are sure to find their own favorites. On the whole, a highly recommended anthology!

[Doug · Rating 4 out of 5]

Since I own the earlier story collections by Powers (Strange Itineraries and The Bible Repairman and Other Stories) as well as standalone copies of some of his novellas, it was at least my second or third time through many of these stories. "Sufficient Unto the Day," one of the new ones to this collection, was great fun.

On the one hand, Powers' short fiction has a lot of the trademark elements of his novels (ghosts, historical oddities, an appreciation for Los Angeles). There's a line in the story Pat Moore which says, "it occurred to him that he believed her," which sums up a moment that I feel certain occurs to every principal character in every one of Powers' stories. His fictional version of our world is replete with unwritten rules, characters who know those rules, and others who must learn those rules. Roughly 98% of these rules have to do with dealing with ghosts.

On the other hand, unlike his novels, none of the stories really give you enough time to immerse yourself in the world or to let the characters develop. I feel like his short fiction is best recommended for fans who need a quick fix.

[Andrew · Rating 4 out of 5]

I often see short-story collections discussed in terms of looking at each individual story on its own. However, I prefer to view the collection as a whole, because that's how I read it, rather than picking and choosing. In the case of this collection of short works by Tim Powers, there is a clear thematic through-line: one way or another, these are all ghost stories.

While Powers is perhaps best known for his alternate- or weird-history fantasy novels, most of these stories are contemporary (or contemporary with when they were written). Most take place in Southern California, and I would argue that he fits squarely in with the California Sorcery tradition established by writers like Ray Bradbury, Charles Beaumont, Harlan Ellison, Richard Matheson, William F. Nolan, et al, while also showing a strong influence by his mentor, Philip K Dick. Powers' stories are weird and bit unsettling, and don't always lay everything out directly for the reader. There's a sense of whimsy, but also some seriously dark overtones. I would recommend this book to anyone looking for (mostly) urban fantasy that's a little left of center, that isn't necessarily about quippy characters fighting demons and vampires, and who like a little creepy horror with their fantasy.

[Nigel · Rating 5 out of 5]

It turns out a number of these stories were also in Strange Itineries which I read last year, but rereading them was hardly a chore and that was a library book and this one is mine all mine. Powers deploys time loops and ghosts and ghost loops and looping time ghosts over and over again and each time there is something new and original about them. I daresay it'd be facile to credit his Catholicism for his facility at deploying the almost ritualistic logic of dealing with ghosts and time travel, but as a raised Catholic myself, it seems that there's something he just gets right about them, moves them out of the fantasy/horror cliches of robed figures in darkened woods or mud-smeared shaman-types and into the everyday manipulation of ourselves and the things around us in patterns and repetitions or carefully ordered sequences used to create deeper meanings and find the power to shift things that aren't bound by the physical laws we understand. Making magic mundane, like the roads and boulevards of his beloved Los Angeles revealing stranger things underneath to marvel at.

[James · Rating 2 out of 5]

Most of these shorts have appeared in other collections, and while many are an good read once, I wasn't up to rereading some of them. Being a SoCal native many of the locations are familiar to me, Powers does capture some of the oddities and atmosphere of LA thirty or forty year or so years ago. If you've never read any of Tim Powers' short works, this is a decent selection.

As for longer works, I enjoy the The Anubis Gates the most, his later works are more atmosphere and less action along with being too serious.

[Ron · Rating 4 out of 5]

Baen has collected previously published short stories of Tim Powers in one volume. Most of the stories exist in their own universe, but "Nobody's Home" is a prequel of sorts for Anubus Gate and "A Time to Cast Away Stones" is in the same universe as The Stress of Her Regard. Every
Tim Powers story or novel has its own rhythm that the reader needs to tune into for the full effect. If you like Tim Powers, you are likely to enjoy this collection. If you have not read him before, here is your chance to experience a whole range of his stories in one place.

[john aaron · Rating 4 out of 5]

Even when Tim Powers's narratives get dragged down in their prose style (which happens in about half the stories here, to one extent or another), the ideas behind them are always great. There's probably one too many stories about time-travelling writers, but his time-travel stories are universally top-notch, so that's not much of a major complaint. A lot of it is an absolute blast, and occasionally he's capable of some real emotional power. The title story is an especially amazing piece of work.

[Chris Branch · Rating 4 out of 5]

I’m not a big fan of short stories, but I am a big fan of Tim Powers, so I had read most of these before; only Appointment on Sunset and Dispensation were new to me, and this second one was particularly cool and unexpected, if extremely short. I also took the opportunity to re-read Nobody’s Home, Parallel Lines, and The Hour of Babel. Of the others, I highly recommend Where They Are Hid, A Soul in a Bottle, A Journey of Only Two Paces, and Salvage and Demolition.

[Michael Norwitz · Rating 3 out of 5]

Anthology of weird fiction/horror by author of The Anubis Gate. I enjoyed a couple of these and others left me flat. I always feel like I'm missing something (perhaps due to a lack of some important insight) when I read Powers' books.

[Emily · Rating 4 out of 5]

This collection overlaps with a lot of other Powers collections, so I had intended to just read the new to me tales. As I actually made my way through I found myself rereading them instead. I love most of his novels, but Powers' short story craft is solid and engaging.

[Kylan Comeault · Rating 4 out of 5]

Honestly it's just densely populated with tight good short stories and it was a lot of fun. The highlights were

Salvage and Demolition, the bible repairman, the way down the hill, the hour of Babel, dispensation, and Down and out in Purgatory.
Lot of ghost stories though.