Hide Me Among the Graves: A Novel

Tim Powers has done it again, with an excellent sequel to a 1989 novel of his, "The Stress of Her Regard" (TSOHR). TSOHR told the story of how English physician, Michael Crawford, became entwined with poets Byron, Shelley and Keats and a host of supernatural entities that we have come to know as vampires, but were actually the Nephilim described in the Old Testatament. In the genre-bending, highly literary, historical SF-fantasy mix that is uniquely Tim Powers', in TSOHR we learn about these creatures' origin, nature, motivation, and eventual defeat by an unlikely team of early 19th century historical figures.A novella, "A Time to Cast Away Stones", published in Powers' 2011 anthology "The Bible Repairman and Other Stories", introduced another historical figure, novelist Edward James Trelawny, friend of Byron and Shelley, fighting creatures from TSOHR in Greece shortly after the events in that TSOHR took place. ATTCAS serves as a link between the 1989 novel and the 2012 sequel, "Hide Me Among the Graves". HMATG picks up the story a generation later, with Jack Crawford, son of Michael, and the Rosetti family, descendants of poet John Polidori who had a more or less cameo role in TSOHR, and an ex-lady of the night, Addie McKee, who became "connected" to all of this through a relationship with a client years ago, and who also happened to have had a child by Jack Crawford from a one-night stand after he saved her life seven years earlier.This time around we don't get too much about the nature of the Nephilim, described in great and logical fashion in TSOHR as only Tim Powers can do as a blend of bible history, alternative biology (they are silicon based, hence the sulfur in garlic wreaks havoc with their corporeal existence) and quantum mechanics (they exist, more or less as standing waves, that can be interfered with by mirrors causing their dissipation), but we learn that once one of the "Neffies" has taken a drink or two from you, and makes you theirs, you gain the ability to write wonderful prose and poetry. Thus the monsters are also muses.HMATG focuses on Crawford and McKee's attempt to save their daughter, Johanna, and themselves from the Polidori vampire with the help of the Rosetti family (real historical characters, just like Byron, Shelley, Keats, Polidori, and Swinburne) and Trelawny, all of whom have run afoul of the Polidori ghost-vampire and his 2,000 year old queen.No one writes quite like Powers. He is a most talented wordsmith, and paints beautiful pictures of normal as well as damp, dark creaky web-infested locales. His plotting is great, and there is often very dry, intentional humor counterposed with horror and tension. His trademark use of ghosts, but ghosts whose existence follows seemingly plausible scientific (often physics or chemistry based) logic is completely unique and fascinating.Although this is clearly a sequel to TSOHR and ATTCAS, it is cleverly constructed and written so that it works basically as well as a stand-alone novel as it does as a sequel, so have no fear about starting here, if you've not read TSOHR and/or ATTCAS. On the other hand, if you have read them, you will certainly want to read this one.Highly RecommendedJM Tepper

Tim Powers sets many of his novels of the fantastic amidst historical events and personages and then tells the tale of a secret history of supernatural tragedy supported by the actual words of the writers in letters and poetry that precede each chapter. It is quite a trick and most would be advised not to try this at home, but Powers always succeeds and sometimes he succeeds brilliantly. Hide Me Among the Graves is one of those successes.A very distant sequel to  The Stress of Her Regard , Hide Me Among the Graves follows pre-Raphaelite painter Gabriel Dante Rossetti and poetess Christina Rosetti as they fight the Nephilic vampires banished at such high cost by the Romantic poets Byron and Shelley. Someone re-awoke the Nephilim and Christina invited one of the vampires, in the form of her uncle John Polidori, into her home and person as an unwitting fourteen year old. Now everyone is in danger of not only dying, but of never resting after death and of unimaginable suffering in either state. The Rossetti family is accompanied by an ex-prostitute, Adelaide and her erstwhile lover, the veterinarian John Crawford, who produced a daughter, thought dead but now revealed to be under threat from the Nephilim. All four are connected to the characters in The Stress of Her Regard by descent, with the exception of Adelaide.And so the scene is set for a journey through a supernatural Victorian London never quite depicted before, despite the current fondness for alternate visions of all things Victorian. Hide Me Among the Graves reads like a rocket ship and is well worth the trip. Tim Powers love of complex mixtures of unlikely ingredients and intricate prose have often made the middle of his books over-crowded and over-wrought; this lone weakness is in no way apparant in Graves, all of the pieces and people fit together perfectly and work like clockwork. Powers love of the great poets shines here as it does in many of his works and hopefully will encourage readers to explore the source works. In contrast to Stress, Powers gives us female characters and viewpoints as actors in the drama and this is a wonderful addition. I have always loved the poetry of Christina Rossetti and Powers characterization of Christina is all that I or anyone else could wish. Adelaide, Maria and Johanna are women rather than fantasies too and though the love between the nephilim and the women lacks the cloying, desperate sexuality portrayed in Stress of Her Regard, I believe this to be Powers showing forbearance in an area that could weaken the book rather than a lack.All in all a wonderful read that has more than renewed my admiration for Powers. I fully expect to see Hide Me Among the Graves on many best lists of the year and nominated for the major genre prizes. Highly recommended to fans of Victoriana, fantastic literature and adventure or just in search of a ripping good alternate history yarn.

A really excellent book featuring vampires who are at once scary, pathetic and sometimes verging on the grotesquely comic. One of them is poor Polidori, who becomes involved in with his niece, Christina and nephew Dante Gabriel Rossetti when their father makes a very bad mistake and the nephilim (who first appeared in The Stress of her Regard) re-emerge, along with a vengeful Boudicca, eager to bring down London again. Also involved is the human vet, Michael Crawford and Adelaide McKee, the mother of his child Johanna, a waif about as far from the conventional Victorian heroine as you can get with her fondness for drink, and her worldly knowledge "I know about such things...I was nearly married to a coster boy last year." Adelaide, as well as making her living in the `Hail Mary trade' - the sale of small birds - aves - knows about the strange sorcerous underworld of London, accessed through tuppenny lodging houses, wells and underground passages, whose passwords are preserved in a nursery rhyme: "Origo lemurum, oranges and lemons." They take on the nephilim with a mixture of esoteric knowledge, mirrors, garlic, silver and basic human decency - the scene where Michael is saved by the ghosts of the cats he has rescued and cared for over the years is well worth a sniffle - altogether I loved it and I can thoroughly recommend it. One for the Children of the Night Award here, I think.

I regard Tim Powers as one of THE great fantasy writers, infinitely more original (and clever) than 99% of the hacks clogging up the fantasy booklists, and I've never really disliked anything of his I've read, but I struggled with this. I found I didn't like the characters much (I haven't thought about Dante Gabriel Rossetti since I was a student trying to impress an art-student girlfriend with my - pretty sketchy - knowledge of the Pre-Raphaelites)and more importantly, there was no pace. The plot plodded along for hundreds of pages without much actually happening. As so often with Powers' work you can still see the cleverness in the writing (the way he weaves real historical events into the supernatural elements never gets old, and is the reason it gets up to three stars rather than two it would otherwise deserve), but in this particular case the plotting and characterisation made it difficult to care.

If you haven't read 'The Stress Of Her Regard' this book will be unfathomable. And if you have read it then this book will be unsatisfying, with paper-thin characters who you won't give a damn about. I gave up after getting half way through. Tim - you can do much better (read 'On Stranger Tides' or 'The Anubis Gates' for great stories).

Book was as described and arrived earlier than expected.

Great story, very much in the mould of other Tim Power’s novels. Arrived promptly and well packaged.