Disappointing: After seeing the positive reviews on Amazon, combined with what appeared to be a very intriguing premise, I was very excited to read Powers' "The Drawing of the Dark." I finished reading it earlier today, and as the 2-star review indicates, was not much impressed with the book and am surprised at the praise this novel has garnered. It has a few significant flaws.

First, the dialogue is very generic and flat. It does nothing to make the reader feel like he (or she) is in 16th century Vienna--where the main action takes place--to say nothing of evoking Sigmund, King Arthur or any of the various other mythical figures and far-away peoples who are involved in the story. It could really be from any fantasy novel, in any setting and does nothing to distinguish the novel, the characters, or the setting from any other fantasy novel.

Second, the characters do not show much depth and appear to have been taken directly from a vault of fantasy novel cliches. There's a wise old wizard who makes a grand show of not revealing what he knows, an evil wizard from the East, and a reluctant hero. None show any significant character depth and all appear to be pretty much typecast. I didn't find anything that connected me emotionally to any character.

Third, the plot does not make much sense. As the Amazon and other reviews state, the story is based around the Ottoman Empire's siege of Vienna in 1529, which is portrayed as the decisive battle between the East and West (the West, predictably, are the good guys). However, by overlaying a fantasy story involving long-ago and frequently pagan heroes and myths on this historical battle, the real political, military and religious factors that led to the Siege of Vienna are mooted. For example, the reader can hardly believe that Odin shows up to defend Christendom or cares about the Holy Roman Empire. So why are the East and West fighting? This is never explained. In fact, this whole dynamic is made even more confusing by the fact that a group of Vikings show up to defend Vienna against Surter and the armies of Muspelheim, which in Norse mythology is located in the South not the East!

The book does has some good points. It moves at a good pace, has some nice moments of humor, and I have to admit that the premise is a pretty neat idea. Had I read it as a teen--before I really new what good fantasy writing was like--I probably would have liked it. But the novel's overall execution is not very good, and it pales in comparison to the better fantasy novels that are available. I would recommend spending your hard earned money on other, better books: Earthsea, Neverwhere, Lud-in-the-Mist, and so on. Perhaps Powers' other books are better.

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. ( )