Declare [Hardcover]

Tim Powers has written a number of novels on the theme of mystical influences behind the real world, and Declare is no exception. Protagonist Andrew Hale joins the British Secret Intelligence Service during WWII, serving against Germany and then in the infant Cold War, confronting increasingly strange events that culminate in some desperate mission on the slopes of Mount Ararat in 1948, codenamed Declare. Flash forward to 1963, and Hale is reactivated and thrown into another desperate attempt to finish Declare. Powers weaves the two timelines expertly, so we gradually discover some of the truth with the young and naive Hale, while following the older and more cynical man into the heart of the mystery.

Declare carefully takes as many true events as it can, inserting Andrew Hale and the mysterious forces he faces into the unexplained spaces between official accounts. A central figure is Kim Philby, real-life KGB double agent who worked for MI6 for 20 years before exposure. Powers also gives us real-life Soviet spy rings in Paris, machinations in Arabia, and post-war Berlin. He never leans too heavily on his intensive research, and it just flows and merges beautifully. Without Wikipedia you'd never be able to tell what is real and what is imagination. Hale is a character in the tradition of John Le Carre - insecure, frightened, and very human. The book depends totally on the reader engaging with him, and thankfully he is one of Powers' best characters.

Powers has never had the success he deserves, and Declare is a perfect example of why he should, but never will. It could have been a blockbuster-style spy novel with pulp monsters and sold well with a cheesy cover, but instead he crafts a Le Carre tale of tradecraft with enigmatic and subtly terrifying mystical forces. It's a brilliantly judged book, immersing you in the world and pressing you on to the conclusion. For me, it is his most successful book, where his obsessions with mystique and period detail meld to the best effect.

Don't be confused by the year-dates of the other reviews, or that given on the copyright page: the publisher and Amazon haven't accidentially flipped a 'zero' and a 'one' around the wrong way. This book was first released mass-market in the US in 2001. It has taken until 2010 for its UK release. That is NOT a reflection on the worth of the book (indeed it won several awards and got nominated for a bunch more) but it is a searing indictment of corporate UK publishers. A recent example will suffice: despite some success will her early novels, Scarlett Thomas experienced the full force of the conservatism of UK 'big publishers' who balked at her then new novel, 'The End of Mr. Y'. It took the maverick imprint Canongate to realise the book's potential and to take it and its author's subsequent books into the bestseller charts.

For me the best writers are the ones who mix it up: who wants 'a' horror novel, or 'a' science fiction novel, or 'a' crime novel? Nah, let's just throw a bunch of stuff in a pot and see what comes out. And some of the results in recent years have been fantastic, from Neal Stephenson's 'Baroque Cycle' (a HUGE historial fantasy/alternate history grand slam) to Charles Stross's giddy 'Laundry files' (a supernatural detective science fiction series). People like Dan Simmons and Joe R. Lansdale and China Mieville -

- and Tim Powers. This is the guy whose late-'80s novel, 'On Stranger Tides', has been optioned by Disney as the title and story inspiration for the fourth 'Pirates of the Caribbean' movie - featuring the fountain of youth and zombies!

'Declare' is a dazzling supernatural Cold War espionage novel, which takes the real life figure of Kim Philby and brilliant attempts to construct a 'true story' about what really happened to Kim and the other secret agencies he came into contact with. As the author explains in the fascinating afterword, he took many sources, directly and indirectly related to Philby, and 'read between the lines' whilst never straying from actual known events and dates.

The result is a beautifully realised novel, deliciously layered in detail, with the main action taking place in 1963's Beirut and Turkey, with lengthy chapters stretching back to 1948 filling in the back story. The novel takes in Britain, Kuwait, Berlin, Paris, Moscow and others - but never in broad strokes: Powers puts you RIGHT THERE, especially in the exquistely rendered Paris scenes with Elena, with whom the potagonist, Philby somewhat-rival in the British Secret Service Andrew Hale, has an unfulfilled love interest, and whose chance meetings over the years forms a kind of hidden love story and back bone to the novel, accumulating in the superb Moscow epilogue.

You will find no bumbling spies here: the Russian, French, British and American secret agents are all on the ball, out-tricksing each other at every turn whilst quoting scripture and classical poets, as they uncover the mystery atop Mount Ararat and the VERY different power there that the Russians are trying to harness and unleash.

The recent book from the UK indie press PS Publishing, 'Powers: Secret Histories Bibliography' by John Berlyne, features a fascinating collection of notes and outlines for 'Declare' wherein the reader gets a real sense of the magnitude of the task which Powers undertook with this novel. You'll be hard pushed to find a more intricately plotted, researched and absorbing thriller than this. Very highly recommended. (As an aside, Gauntlet Press are going to have to pull something truly remarkable out of the hat if and when they ever get around to releasing the now seven year delayed 'Fingerprints on the Sky: the illusrated Harlan Ellison bibliography' if they hope to compare with the gorgeous propuction and layout of PS Publishing's Tim Powers bibliography.)

As I said above, the best writers - for me at least - are the ones who cut loose and go nuts, although alas as the Scarlett Thomas incident clearly illustrates multinational corporate publishers, like big movie studios, and loathe to take risks. Despite being a post-World War II espionage thriller partly set in Britain it's taken nearly 10 years for this fine novel to grace our shores. But take heart: there are a number of independent publishers out there whose titles are infilrating the high street book chains as well as the supermarket bestseller lists: this one, Corvus, Quercus (publishers of the Sweddish horror sensation 'Let the Right One In' as well as the 'Girl with the Dragon Tattoo' trilogy), Solaris and the recent Corsair, whose forthcoming 'Coldbrook' by Tim Lebbon ought it be earmarked on every reader's 'must have' list. Seriously, if you want books that have that 'out there' quality then these are going to be the guys to look to: everyone else seems content to publish celeb bios and cook books.

I'll leave the last word with the Zeno Agency Ltd, who in October last year made this public press announcement concerning a four-book Tim Powers UK deal with Corvus:

"Following DECLARE will be another first UK publication, this time of THREE DAYS TO NEVER, currently scheduled for a January 2011 release, though subject to change. Corvus will then publish a brand new Powers novel sometime later in that year. THE LIGHTS ALONG THE SHORE is set some years after the events of THE STRESS OF HER REGARD, to which it is a loose sequel. STRESS will also be reissued as part of the deal."

Tim Powers books usually blow me away with both his narrative style and the sheer grandeur of his ideas. In "Declare" the ideas are just as grand, but his choice of writing the book in the style of a Cold War thriller makes the book quite leaden.

The story is about a british agent who makes a discovery about the supernatural world that is being manipulated by the superpowers - most notably by the Soviet Union. Powers cleverly weaves this concept into his novel by juxtaposing two time streams - 1948 and 1963 so that the story skilfully unfolds. He has clearly done his homework - the precision of description of cities and the pen portraits of real people are very well portrayed.

However, the stark style of the cold war thriller slows the book down, which I think is a shame as the concept is an interesting one. The main characters are artfully drawn but none really captured my enthusiasm or my sympathy. The action scenes in the book are short and sharp - and separated by far too much long-winded dialogue.