I have an affection for fantasy, born from The Lord of the Rings and fostered through the years, and an affection for historical fiction, born from many thousands of pages (hundreds of books, likely) in my youth. I’m not much for spy novels, more from lack of opportunity than anything. The book at hand, though, is all three, and if you have any interest in either fantasy, historical fiction, or spy novels, particularly in combination, Declare might just be for you; hopefully this review will help you decide

Before we really get started, two bits of book-keeping. First, I’ll be avoiding significant spoilers as much as I can. Certain plot points may be spoiled, but I’ll be keeping it to the ones which aren’t particularly surprising, ones I had deduced or been told by the time three or four chapters were up. If you’re really and truly worried, feel free to skip any italicized sentences. Second, this book, as much as I like it, is not for everyone. I would not recommend this book to my sister; she would not enjoy it. She’d probably rather dislike it, actually. Thus, I hope in this review to provide not a universal recommendation but to provide a general feel for the book, along with a commendation of quality, in order to allow you to assess your own interest.

Declare, by veteran novelist Tim Powers, is a fantasy spy novel set in 1940s and 1960s, and clocks in at 584 pages (plus afterword and extra material) softcover; it can be found here if you wish to purchase it. The writing is excellent, with skillful use of foreshadowing, imagery, character foils, thematic interweaving, natural worldbuilding explanation, and simultaneously understandable and intricate plot. If it seems to your taste, I highly recommend it; if you’re unsure but have no particular antipathy to its tone or content, you’d be well advised to give it a shot.

Powers manifestly wrote Declare for a mature audience. Even apart from the complexity of the two temporally separated narratives and multiple perspectives running in parallel, the tone and content of the story are not light reading. The main character spends the vast majority of the story aware that his employers are quite willing to ‘verify’ (kill) him, that the Crown he possesses near iron-clad loyalty to would dispose of him in an instant if it proved advantageous, without motivating concern for morality or mercy. The rest of the world is worse, by virtue of being either hostile or, worse, both uncomprehended and uncaring. Even the few characters Hale (the protagonist and majority viewpoint character) has a positive relationship with will inevitably be alienated from him for much of their time on page by virtue of their and his occupation, espionage, and his actions, necessitated as they are by an overweening purpose. The setting too is perpetually hostile, in its human and supernatural elements alike. Hale is a spy, and he’s a spy in a world which contains threats not merely mundane but supernatural, creatures who even when not malicious are incomprehensible and liable to extinguish man’s mind by their mere uncaring presence, creatures who find meaning in most men only when they have been torn to bits and incorporated into new inhuman arrays. This world is one where a hardened Communist official advises a relative neophyte to remain somewhat drunk at all times she’s not asleep, a piece of advice he evidently follows.

This setting element, of course, plays into the mature content. While less sexually explicit than, say, the book of Judges, the story contains what might be termed ‘horror’ elements, including cannibalism and inhuman beings which can crush a man without care and operate under alien rules; the second in particular is an essential element of the setting (and causative of the first). Violence is, furthermore, a common, if not overwhelming (gore not being a significant focus of the descriptions), part of the story.

Theologically too the story grapples with issues of significant import and complexity. The question of physical immortality versus salvation forms a backbone of multiple plot points and character interactions; the problem of conflicting loyalties, the lust for the occult, and the question of where a man’s ultimate rest lies all play an essential role. The theology, unfortunately, does have certain flaws, primarily the clearly Roman Catholic understanding of absolution, the sacraments, original sin, justification, and ecclesiology. The angelology of the story, furthermore, is unrealistic, accepting the possibility of moral neutrality, of a state neither truly for or truly against God¹. To tell the truth, though, I accept it as part of the world, particularly as it’s a result, I think, of incorporating Medieval mythology (Islamic and Christian) into the worldbuilding; besides, the theological core of the story hardly rests on it. Indeed, the so-called neutral parties act without variance either in apathy or immorality and always under a divine curse, which much mitigates the potential impact of the flawed theology.

The plot runs along two interwoven lines, primarily in Hale’s perspective though two others get sections and chapters to themselves, somewhere between a fifth and a sixth of the total page count by my estimate. The first-presented2 and primary plot line follows Hale in the 1960s as he reenters the supernatural world and pursues Operation Declare; the second line is a series of lengthy flashbacks, including multiple full chapters, running briefly through Hale’s youth and spending most of its time on the 1940s, his first introduction to the supernatural. The two narratives are alternated at irregular intervals, with the information and narrative of the second (and temporally previous) one providing context and stakes for the first (in terms not only of worldbuilding but of plot and character), which eventually takes over altogether. I’ll leave the characters, except as relevant to the other sections, to your discovery.

Tim Powers is a writer of true and polished skill. Four particular aspects stood out to me on my second read-through, though other strengths remain to be expounded beyond them: his use of parallels (foils), his skill in foreshadowing, his descriptions, and his reveal of the story’s world.

Three parallels in the narrative structure stand out. In both time-sections of the narrative, Hale is brought into the supernatural world, discovering truths both tempting and horrifying, moving inexorably towards the climax of Declare (book and operation). The failure, then, of the first introduction (the flashbacks) provides the basis for the tension and foundation of the second introduction; the second interaction with the supernatural, meanwhile, provides commentary and understanding, perspective even, on the first. The other two parallels were a character interaction and a competition of loyalties (one which interacted with the character interaction particularly sharply); unfortunately, I can’t really get into either without spoiling some incredible parts of the climax.

As for the foreshadowing, the skill therein really makes the re-read worth it. Powers weaves in foreshadowing and clues as to future revelations with truly impressive regularity and subtlety, enough to make you know something is there but not enough to betray it too early. On re-reading, too, I noticed a myriad of other bits and bobs my first read-through missed, hints at realities of world or plot I recognized because I’d already read their fulfillments, up to his used of an incidental literary reference. This book is twisty, with reveals and plot twists that really and truly work, but it’s the foreshadowing, the undergirding structure of the twists, that really amazes me.

Powers also possesses skill in choosing not only how to describe but what. He might not exhaustively detail all the parts of a scene, might not shove your face into every bit of the surroundings and provide a meticulous understanding of each character’s precise appearance, but he does something much better. He chooses details and means of describing those details which lend character to the locale and the person. This applies not just to the inanimate setting but to the behavior of background characters and the little bits of knowledge that create a strong sense of verisimilitude when he’s describing the Kurds, the Bedu, or the people of Moscow, natural and unnatural. Overall, Powers takes advantage of the novel’s peculiar strengths. Unlike a movie, the novel cannot provide a near-complete set of details for the scenery; what it can do, though, is take a few small details, spin them just right, and give you a deeper-than-knowledge sense of the life surrounding the story.

On a grander scale, the process by which the world is revealed to the reader is really worthy of admiration. Powers weaves together the two time periods to consistently reveal more and more bits of the world and its mysteries, foreshadowing important elements long before he uses them and letting the reader piece together all but the final piece of each mystery if he is careful enough. The atmosphere of the world too is calibrated well, allowing the reader to experience both Hale’s fear of the unknown and his fear of the known, to experience the uncanny and slowly uncover its depths and how they do not make the situation any better.

In the final summation, if you’re looking for a well-written, mature fantasy-spy novel, I highly recommend reading Declare, even re-reading it (it only got better on my second read-through). If you’re squeamish or find paranoia unpleasantly catching, it’s probably not your cup of tea. I love this book, personally; while it might not be the first novel I’d think to recommend to somebody³, it’s absolutely a novel I would recommend the instant I thought of it, after stuffing my absolute favorites⁴ down the other guy’s throat. It’s definitely much better written than this review.

God bless.

Footnotes

1 – Hopefully I’ll write something explaining this someday. For now, consider whether __ allows for this possibility.

2 – Excepting the Prologue, which takes place near the end of the second plotline.

3 – And yes, I know that’s ironic, given this is the first review I’ve posted (or written, so be nice please). I just happened to be re-reading it when I realized I needed something to write about for my blog, and that I could actually write a review of it. If I’d gotten serious about the idea a month earlier, you’d be looking at a review of The Anubis Gate, also by Tim Powers, and also excellent.

4 – The Lord of the Rings, The Flying Inn, That Hideous Strength, The Hobbit, and Towards the Gleam, if you’re interested. I may even review one of the lesser known ones on that list someday, who knows!