The Stress of Her Regard (original 1989; edition 1989)

by Tim Powers

Series: Romantic Poets and Nephilim (1)

Members	Reviews	Popularity	Average rating	Mentions
1,240	34	15,616	(3.88)	81
World Fantasy Award Winner Michael Crawford is forced to flee when discovers his bride brutally murdered in their wedding bed. Yet it is not the revengeful townspeople he fears but the deadly embrace of the malignant spirit that is claiming him as her bridegroom. Crawford will not travel alone; soon he is aided by his fellow victims, the greatest poets of his day--Byron, Keats, and Shelley. Together they embark upon a desperate journey, crisscrossing Europe and battling the vampiric fiend who seeks her ultimate pleasure in their ravaged bodies and imperiled souls. Telling a secret history of passion and terror, Tim Powers (The Anubis Gates, Declare, Three Days to Never) masterfully recasts the tragic lives of the Romantics into a uniquely frightening tale. Back in print for the first time since 1994, this newly revised edition of The Stress of Her Regard will thrill both Powers fans and newcomers to this gripping Gothic tour de force.… (more)

▾Book information

Member:	alcottacre777
Title:	The Stress of Her Regard
Authors:	Tim Powers
Info:	Ace Hardcover (1989), Edition: 1st, Hardcover, 392 pages
Collections:	Read but unowned
Rating:
Tags:	Fantasy

Work Information

The Stress of Her Regard by Tim Powers (1989)

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20
A Fatal Likeness by Lynn Shepherd (fyrefly98)
fyrefly98: Both are fictional attempts to fill in some of the historical gaps regarding what was really going on in the lives of the Romantic poets - particularly Percy Shelley - although the two books come to very, very different answers (A Fatal Likeness is a historical mystery, while The Stress of Her Regard goes a more supernatural route).… (more)
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▾Member reviews

English (32) Spanish (1) French (1) All languages (34)

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Showing 1-5 of 32 (next | show all)

_The Stress of Her Regard_ is (still) pretty much my favorite Tim Powers book. It is exactly what you expect from Powers: an in-depth exploration of some literary ideas, poets, or authors, based on historical facts, but with ribbons of supernatural mystery winding through the gaps. (

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cmc | Oct 26, 2023 |

The first of Powers' novels I ever read, and still my favorite. My wife and I brought our scruffy, dog-eared paperback copy along to a convention where he was signing, and the way his face lit up when we sheepishly presented it is something we will never forget. He was delighted to sign a copy that had so obviously been read over and over, versus all the pristine books he'd been signing for people who simply collected them.

I would really like to see this re-released for Kindle, simply for the portability. (

)

Mike_Hungerford | Jan 2, 2023 |

This fantasy/sort-of horror (but it's not scary at all) novel employs the likes of Shelley, Lord Byron, and Keats as characters and explains their real-life eccentricities as symptoms of their various involvement with a species here called the Nephilim and which includes what people have termed lamia, vampires, and the like. It's an absolute hoot and I love the way Powers entwines the poets into the story. Think Pride & Prejudice & Zombies before it was cool. (And take that statement with a grain of salt because I fully admit that I've never read P&P&Z). At any rate, if you like this sort of thing, you'll love this. It's very well paced and nicely written, and again, the plot is imaginative and cool. Also, the audio was read by Simon Vance, so you know it's great. (

)

electrascaife | Dec 23, 2021 |

Powers nails it like he always goes, once again building up a world just a splinter away from our own. This time his jumping off point is the lives and poetry of Lord Byron, Percy Shelley, and John Keats. Each chapter begins with an epigraph from a poem or letter (sometimes including Swinburne, Milton, Housman, or another) that very strongly hints at the fantastic events that follow. Masterful stuff. (

)

JohnNienart | Jul 11, 2021 |

I abandoned this one for some dumb reason back in the day and restarted it. Tim Powers takes his historical fantasy lens to the Romantic poets and comes up with quite the tale about lamia, statuary, and the relevance of atomic bonds to the Riddle of the Sphinx. It's also probably the scariest of his novels - more than once I jumped when someone walked into the room while I was reading. Worth a read (especially now that you can actually find it in bookstores again). (

)

skolastic | Feb 2, 2021 |

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Author name	Role	Type of author	Work?	Status
Powers, Tim	—	primary author	all editions	confirmed
Blaylock, James P.	Afterword	secondary author	some editions	confirmed
Gurney, James	Cover artist	secondary author	some editions	confirmed
Salwowski, Mark	Cover artist	secondary author	some editions	confirmed
Solé, Albert	Translator	secondary author	some editions	confirmed
Vance, Simon	Narrator	secondary author	some editions	confirmed

▾Series and work relationships

Belongs to Series

Romantic Poets and Nephilim (1)

▾Awards and Honors

Awards

Gigamesh Award (novela de fantasía 1993)

Ignotus Award (Winner – Novela extranjera 1992)

Locus Award (Nominee – Fantasy Novel – 1990)

Mythopoeic Awards (Winner – Fantasy Literature – 1990)

World Fantasy Award (Nominee – Novel – 1990)

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Canonical title

Original title

The Stress of Her Regard

Alternative titles

Original publication date

1989

People/Characters

Important places

Sussex, England, UK

London, England, UK

Venice, Veneto, Italy

Switzerland

Important events

Related movies

Epigraph

...yet thought must see
That eve of time when man no longer yearns,
Grown deaf before Life's Sphinx, whose lips are barred;
When from the spaces of Eternity,
Silence, a rigorous Medusa, turns
On the lost world the stress of her regard.
- Clark Ashton Smith, Sphinx and Medusa

Dedication

For Dean and Gerda Koontz,
for thirty years of
cheerful, hospitable and tolerant friendship
-
And with thanks to
Gregory Santo Arena and Gloria Batsford and
Gregory Benford and Will Griffin and
Dana Holm Howard and Meri Howard and
K.W. Jeter and Jeff Levin and Monique Logan and
Kate Powers and Serena Powers and
Joe Stefko and Brian M. Thomsen and Tom Whitmore
-
And to Paul Mohney, for that conversation, many years ago
over beers at the Tinder Box, about Percy Shelley

First words

Until the squall struck, Lake Leman was so still that the two men talking in the bow of the open sailboat could safely set their wine glasses on the thwarts.

Quotations

Last words

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Disambiguation notice

Publisher's editors

Blurbers

Brin, David

Original language

English

Canonical DDC/MDS

Canonical LCC

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Wikipedia in English (1)

The Stress of Her Regard

▾Book descriptions

World Fantasy Award Winner Michael Crawford is forced to flee when discovers his bride brutally murdered in their wedding bed. Yet it is not the revengeful townspeople he fears but the deadly embrace of the malignant spirit that is claiming him as her bridegroom. Crawford will not travel alone; soon he is aided by his fellow victims, the greatest poets of his day--Byron, Keats, and Shelley. Together they embark upon a desperate journey, crisscrossing Europe and battling the vampiric fiend who seeks her ultimate pleasure in their ravaged bodies and imperiled souls. Telling a secret history of passion and terror, Tim Powers (The Anubis Gates, Declare, Three Days to Never) masterfully recasts the tragic lives of the Romantics into a uniquely frightening tale. Back in print for the first time since 1994, this newly revised edition of The Stress of Her Regard will thrill both Powers fans and newcomers to this gripping Gothic tour de force.

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