An entertaining well-paced novel set in the 1500's at the seige of Vienna. Powers throws in various mythologies and blends them together into an enjoyable narrative. ( )

The Drawing of the Dark is another spectacular genre-bending book by Tim Powers. If you aren't familiar with this author, I recommend Last Call and Declare. They're all great. And they all take what might be an otherwise fairly good genre–-historical fiction, espionage thriller, gambler novel-–add a healthy dollop of the supernatural or fantastic and let it percolate until you get an amazing story that will keep you glued to its pages and then defy you to try and describe it to your friends. I always have a good time with Powers.

The Drawing of the Dark is one of Powers' first books. In fact, it's been re-released because of the popularity of his later books. The book opens as sultan Suleiman the Magnificent is preparing to conquer the west, and he is moving his armies towards Vienna. The Drawing of the Dark centers on an Irish mercenary in the sixteenth century, named Brian Duffy. When we meet Duffy, he is getting on in years and when an elderly Viennese innkeeper asks him to be the bouncer at his Vienna inn, Duffy thinks it’s the perfect job for the end of his career.

And then things get weird.

As Duffy travels to Vienna, he starts to see creatures out of myth–-demons, gods, trolls–-and some things that never made it into the story. This is where this novel starts to depart what would have been a fairly good work of historical fiction and starts to become something in a whole new genre. As the story goes on, we learn that the coming battle between the Ottoman Empire and the West at Vienna is really a battle to save the West's Fisher King and, with him, all that its good in the West.

This book is a great introduction to Powers' books. In fact, I really recommend that you start with this book before you try Declare, Last Call, or The Anubis Gates. It's not that these books are related to each other, it's that they all share what I've started to see as a hallmark of Powers' writing. Powers really relies on the reader's ability to pick up his very subtle clues about what's going on on the supernatural side of things. He's counting on what you know about myth and the preternatural to explain the background of the book. There's more explaining in The Drawing of the Dark than there is in his later books.

I had a lot of fun with this book. If you can get a hold of a copy, I really recommend this book.

http://www.deathcookie.com/node/444 ( )

Brian Duffy, an Irish soldier of fortune, finds that Venice isn't that healthy for him and when he's offered the job of bouncer for a tavern in Vienna that brews it's own, along with a healthy wage, he jumps at the chance.

Unfortunately for Brian, what he thought would be a retirement turns out to be a war between, not only the physical armies, but also the forces of good and evil and he has a pivotal role in this fight.

Interesting look at the war in Vienna between Austria and Turkey with reincarnated heroes and the people of the time trying to be themselves and resist the overshadowing by the archetypes. Although more mythic than fantastic (that border is kinda fuzzy in my head) I found Ash (by Mary Gentle) better book of this type.
The characters felt very real and were well fleshed out people with motives and problems and their lives got complicated by action or inaction. ( )

A friend once told me to put this to the top of my reading pile. On taking his advice, I quickly saw why. Drawing on Celtic mythology, Powers' natural storytelling ability demonstrates how very much missed a strong, heroic lead character is in today's fantasy writing. ( )