The Bible Repairman and Other Stories
Tim Powers
Language: English
Pages: 170
ISBN: 1616960477
Format: PDF / Kindle (mobi) / ePub
In his first new collection since 2005, Tim Powers, the master of the secret history, delves into the mysteries of souls, whether they are sacrificed on the pinnacle of Mount Parnassus or lodged in a television cable box.
With two new stories and short fiction only previously available in limited editions, the cornerstone of the collection is a postscript to his harrowing novel of the haunting of the Romantic poets, The Stress of Her Regard. After Byron and Shelley break free of the succubus that claimed them, their associate, Trelawny, forges an alliance with Greek rebels to reestablish the deadly connection between man and the nephilim.
Meanwhile, in a Kabbalistic story of transformation, the executor of an old friend’s will is duped into housing his soul, but for the grace of the family cat. A rare-book collector replaces pennies stolen from Jean Harlow’s square in the Hollywood Walk of Fame—and discovers a literary mystery with supernatural consequences. In a tale of time travel between 2015 and 1975, a tragedy sparked by an angel falling onto a pizza shop is reenacted—and the event is barely, but fatally, altered.
moments later she was back on the phone. “Okay, what about it?” “How does the sestet go?” “It says, ‘But when the daylight of the future shows / The forms freed by erosion from their cages, / It will be mine that quickens, gladly grows, / And lives; and you can rest through all the ages / Under a stone that bears the cherished name / You thought should make the two of us the same.’ Bitter poem!” Those were the familiar lines – the way the poem was supposed to go. “Why,” asked Christine, “is
behind it. Still dizzy from the stun-gun shock – or freshly drunk – Hollis walked carefully across the littered floor, past the spot at the bar where Felise had always sat when he didn’t know her name, and stepped behind the bar to the cash register. He punched in “No Sale,” and tore off the receipt. The date on it was June 21, 1975. On the shelf below the register was the paperback copy of J. P. Donleavy’s The Ginger Man that Hollis had been reading at the time. He had never bothered to pick
were his old friend,” she said. “He always told me that you’re entertaining.” She smiled at him expectantly. She had been a widow for about ten years, Kohler recalled – and she must have married young. In her sunglasses and broad Panama hat she only seemed to be about twenty now. Kohler, though, felt far older than his thirty-five years. “He was easily entertained, Mrs. Halloway,” he said slowly. “I’m pretty … lackluster, really.” A young man on the other side of the railing overheard him and
to about five miles an hour, and they slowly rumbled past several old Spanish-style houses with white stucco walls and red roof-tiles and tiny garages with green-painted doors, the whole landscape as apparently empty of people as a street in a de Chirico painting. Campion had lit another cigarette, and Kohler cranked down the driver’s-side window, and even though it was hot he was grateful for the sage and honeysuckle breeze. “It’s on the right,” she said, tapping the windshield with a
with long fluffy tails. “Campion!” A tanned young man in a Polo shirt and khaki shorts had walked into the lobby through the French doors on the far side, and Kohler glimpsed an atrium behind him – huge shiny green leaves and orchid blossoms motionless in the still air. “You bitch,” the man said cheerfully, “did you lose your phone? Couldn’t at least honk while you were driving up? ‘’Tis just like a summer birdcage in a garden.’” “Mr. Bump,” said Campion, “I’ve brought James Kohler for the,