Declare

If you like Fleming or LeCarre, you'll find the pacing, settings and characters of this book to be your cup of tea. The text is divided into three "books."Book 1 deals firmly with the characters and introduces a few supernatural elements - nothing to distract you from a ripping WW2 spy yarn interspersed with past and future time segments. Some might find this narrative style annoying. The patient reader will find they support the story and introduce the principles.Book 2 veers unmistakably into the occult, revealing the long term, arcane plot known as Project Declare. I won't spoil anything here.Book 3 brings all the elements together to a fast-paced conclusion. It's a satisfying if slightly unlikely ending - strangely enough the only part of the narrative that stretched my suspension of disbelief. The ending doesn't spoil the story, it's just slightly "untrue" to the author's stated influences.Overall, it was a vivid, exciting book that didn't bog itself down in too many details. You get enough to hold your interest without a hint of excessive, self-indulgent prose. Pacing almost never slackens. This was totally my kind of read. I would heartily recommend it.

I have enjoyed other works by this author so I know he is capable of producing a good read. Unfortunately, I did not enjoy this book at all. It is verbose providing meaningless details on items that are not relevant to the story. Then when the action starts it comes up short. The book also jumps back and forth in time constantly for no apparent reason. It just gets tedious to read. It's like the author dropped the pages and then put them back together out of order and then simply put the date on them so you know where you are in the timeline. At 50% on my Kindle, I was ready to move on to something else. I trudged on to 82% and then just started skimming to end the misery. Glad it's over now. YMMV.

"Where was thou when I laid the foundations of the Earth -- Declare if thou hast understanding." Job 38:4I have a handful of books I can re-read, and get something new out of them each time. Declare is one of those remarkable stories, the foundations so layered and dense that some subtleties of character and theme appear only after the first read. It seems silly to say that Declare crosses genres. It's fantastic espionage fiction, (like Fleming's 007 or O'Donnell's Modesty Blaise), but deeper and wider of scope, with historical and supernatural elements.Main character Andrew Hale is the son of a former Catholic nun and unknown father. He grows up shuttling between religions, subject to strange dreams. As an adult he becomes a member of a rather special branch of British Intelligence. His story travels from the 1940s to the 1960s, encompassing Kim Philby, Middle East spy networks, double double agents, lasting love for a communist agent, supernatural happenings on Mount Ararat, and the story of Russia's special protector.Be prepared to take your time, let Powers ease you into the story. Give the characters a chance to form and acquire substance. Declare is a read worth a little extra patience before you get to the action bits!* I also highly recommend the audio version of Declare.

Tim Powers' 2001 novel "Declare" is another of those books that are better than OK but not quite good enough for Very Good. So, even though I'm formally rating it at a Very Good 4 stars out of 5, I'd really like to make that a 3-1/2 star rating. Of course, it's interesting that I say that since the book won both the 2001 World Fantasy Award for Best Novel and the 2001 International Horror Guild Award for Best Novel. If you've read any Powers before, you've got a good idea what to expect: he takes some historical facts (in this case, a lot of World War II/Cold War stuff mostly driven by the life of Kim Philby -- so I highly recommend you read the Wikipedia article on him (material on his father, St. John Philby, and T.E. Lawrence might be useful, too)) and intersperses them with weird things for a different interpretation. The writing is good, though it does suffer quite a bit by the pacing issue most of his "historical fiction" is prone to. Also, in this book, he tells the tale in non-chronological order and we find out a lot of things near the beginning that happen near the end but have no idea what they mean until we weave our way there. It's an interesting way to present the story, but it is a bit frustrating and confusing. Personally, I'd have preferred a much more linear telling. Still, it's a very good book and he ties everything up very neatly at the end.

My title says it all, I have read all of his books and loved them ALL. This is his take on a "Spy Novel". If you wish to find out how badly Disney/Hollywood can #$%@&-up a great story read his "On Stranger Tides" which was "Raped" for it's title, that was used on a crappyPOC* movie. It was also a great book, but I repeat myself, as it is by:Tim Powers!* Pirates of the Caribbean