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Seth Hi there and welcome back to Hugos There 2.0, and this is another regular Guest Pick episode, where my guest chose the title, and this time the book is Declare, by Tim Powers, which was a World Fantasy Award Winner in 2001, and I think it was also a finalist for the 2002 Nebula Award. My guest for this is returning guest Paul Williams, and he'd previously joined me for The City & the City back in the old Hugos There 1.0 days. Seth So Paul, I think the appropriate greeting is, "Are you constant to the Old Covenant?" Paul Ah, oh! "Return, and we return!" Seth Yes, "Keep faith and so will we." So, anyhow, this book involves some spy stuff, and that's a code phrase that's repeated several times in the book, and um, so we'll talk about that. But first, Paul, anything new with you? I think last time we spoke you were working on a doctorate? Paul Yeah, I am at the end of my doctorate. I am, uh, revising my dissertation daily, and I hope to finish fast, because I start a new job at Western Colorado University in August, so better get it done before I move a bit East. Seth Nice, my son and I drove through there recently. Drove from Austin to Oregon by way of Colorado and Utah and Idaho. Paul Okay Seth Well, let's go ahead and dive into, in Hugos There 2.0 I want to be a little lighter on the non-spoilers, meaning like, let's get to the point. So let's talk about in the non-spoiler section, you know why this book? Paul Yeah, uh, so Powers is an author who's really intrigued me for a long time, he's one of only five authors to win the World Fantasy Award for Best Novel twice, so he won first for Last Call in 93 I wanna say, and then Declare, which tied with Galveston, by Sean Stewart, which is a tragically under read novel, in 2001. So a couple years ago, I read the Anubis Gates, which for many people that's the gateway into Tim Powers, pun not intended but still works well. Seth Right? It works with the title. Paul It does. I'm actually one of the few people for who Anubis Gates didn't work very well, um, I felt that it was a lot of cool ideas but I just did not give any number of craps about the main character in the Anubis Gates, but Declare for me was a huge improvement. I really got interested in Declare a few years ago, my best friend was really getting into spy fiction, and I heard about this one, so I got it for him for his birthday, and he's been begging me to read it for about two years now. Seth Okay, so you got it for somebody else just knowing sort of what kind of book it was, but you hadn't read it before. This is a first time read for you? Paul Yes Seth Okay, I don't think I knew that. So let's talk a little about what the book is, because it wears a few different hats, it has the secret history angle to it, I saw someone describe it as "Tradecraft meets Lovecraft," it falls into Weird Fiction a little bit as well, I think? Not maybe as much as something like The City & The City, but yeah, if you wanted to describe this book to someone, how would you do that? How would you sell it to them? Paul Probably on the grounds that I spent the entire time I read this book trying to think of comps, like what are other books like this book, and I cannot think of anything that's like Declare. It has, Secret History is definitely my starting point for this one, maybe because my specialization is historical fictions, mixes with genre, so I'm very interested in that aspect, but it also is, it is spy thriller meets Lovecraft, meets Catholic novel? Weirdly enough? Seth Yeah. Paul I don't know any way to describe this novel, other than crazy awesome, like it's one of those books that manages to be really exciting but also really smart. Seth Yeah, and so I was trying to, I was talking to someone about this year's Hugo nominees, and spoilers for my thoughts on one of the books in particular, Starter Villain, by John Scalzi. Right? I like John Scalzi. I don't feel like his last two Hugo nominees were worthy nominees. I feel like they're just fine popcorn books. And I was trying to explain this, and I was just like, for an award winner, I want something ambitious, and the counterexample I used was, think about Declare. Like, trying and describe what this book is and how it's accomplished. It's so ambitious, and of course, you can have the other side of things, right? You have something super ambitious, not very well executed, and there's one of those on the list this year as well, I'm not gonna spoil that. And I'm not even sure it's not well executed, it's just not for me, but I applaud the ambition. And I'm always gonna rank that over something that was well executed but didn't have much to it. But Declare is one of the ones that's ambitious and executes. Paul Yeah, I would agree. I think in some ways, in my mind when I'm kind of differentiating like you said, one is kind of like, pick a typical MCU film, the first Thor movie for instance. It's a lot of fun, it's great. Seth Yeah, I love that movie. Paul Yeah, everyone should, but then Declare is like The Dark Knight, where it's like, it's a comic book movie, but it's also like one of the greatest movies I've ever seen in my life. Seth Yeah, yeah. Um, so in terms of what the book actually is, it's a World War II, Cold War era spy novel, but the backdrop of the spy novel is that the Great Game going on between the United States and the USSR, or the West and the Soviet Bloc. Paul Britain and the USSR. Seth Yes, ah yes it is Britain. Sorry, America centric I suppose. Is that there's something else behind the scenes driving all of this. I just want to talk about the very beginning of the book, the prologue sets such a good mood for the book, I was like, "Ooh, I'm gonna like this." Um, because it starts with this mysterious thing, something is going on, something has gone really badly, and there's this quote: "He was fairly sure that nine men had fled down the path an hour ago. Desperately he hoped that as many as four of them might be survivors of the SAS group he had led up the gorge, and that they might somehow still be sane." Paul Yeah, super ominous. So back at Christmas time my best friend's brother read Declare, and he was hyping it up. It was his favorite book he read last year. And after he hyped it up and my best friend was hyping it up, for a year or a couple years at that point, uh,. Sometimes when I'm going to bed, I get on Audible and play a sample of a random book, and I played the sample to Declare one night, and it was, it did not help me go to sleep because I was like, I want more. More now, please! Seth And, I mean, I think, the book is told in a nonlinear fashion, and it's very effective, because it kind of keeps you sort of in the dark a little bit, because it jumps from that prologue to like I dunno, 1963 or something, it's been like 20 years, and the main character Andrew Hale who was part of this spy agency, British spy agency, has periodically been soft recalled but then nothing's ever come of it. Paul Yeah Seth And, um, not nothing. He did go out in 1948 after the war, and some interesting stuff happened then, but now it's almost 20 years later, and they're trying to come to the end of this Operation Declare, right? And that's one thing I wanted to talk about was the dual meaning of the title, because you have that operation, as well as you have the kind of card, the gambling game, High or Low, right? Assemble your cards and then you have to declare if you're if you want to play for the best hand or the worst hand. That was interesting. Paul Yeah, there's also the Biblical level, that refers to, you know, pitting mortal will against the divine will, as well. Seth Mm, yeah. Paul So I think there's the epigraph of the whole novel, that has that reference from, uh, the book of Job, about kind of the challenge from God to man about, "If you know more about how the world and the cosmos works, then declare that knowledge and assert that position in the world." And it's very much this, uh, very brisk way of putting it would be know your place, I think that's probably as believers you and I have a much more complicated and nuanced view of that, but I think that a very surface reading would suggest that there's kind of this sense of recognizing man's insignificance in the world. Seth Yeah, it's the cosmic, "Do you know who I am?" Paul Exactly. Seth Yeah, and I definitely do want to talk about the cosmology of this book, but let's save that for spoilers. Paul Agreed Seth Um, in fact, I'm trying to think if there's anything else. I mean, we mentioned it's nonlinear, it's a spy novel, if you like spy novels, this is a terrific spy novel just on its face, right? Paul It is. Yeah. Seth Um, it has the really interesting cosmological/spiritual things going on as well, uh, that can bring in a fantasy fan, so it's a really nice mashup of the two, so if that's something into, then I think you're gonna really enjoy this book. Paul I agree, and just some fascinating games of history, in fact it might be worth talking about really fast, Powers's methodology of storytelling. Seth Yeah, go for it. Paul Um, and this is something that he actually has an endnote in this particular volume, but if you, there are several videos with Powers available on YouTube, and he always shares this that his approach is, he'll come across just an oddity or a gap in history, when he's just reading for fun, and it gets him thinking, so in this case, he found out about all these just odd things in the historical character of Kim Philby, this British intelligence officer who ah was a Soviet spy for ah decades and ah ended up just it really screwed up ah British intelligence for for a long time. In fact, it's ah Philby who outed ah John LeCarre the author of Tinker Taylor Soldiers Spy um and Graham Green actually were both intelligence officers who were outed by Kim Philby um and amongst others. Seth Wow. Paul But he found out that oh it Philby had this Fox this pet Fox that died and he cried for two days ah we he's like we know that Kim Philby was at Mount Ararat on this day. Why we don't know he was there though and so what he does is he just looks at okay here are all these these these weird little nodes in the historical chronicle and he's very clear like ah or he's very rigid I should say that he doesn't change history if if we have a date for it or if we if we know if it was a factual event it happens in his world. Seth Mm, right. Paul But he's trying to find what is a a fantastical super narrative that can thread all these things together and can explain all these things and ah that that's true for others of his novels as well. But this one is I think probably the most is widely considered his most rigorously researched and tightly bound novel in that respect. Seth Yeah, and the other you know connection with Kim Philby is all the other epigraphs that are from Rudyard Kipling's Kim which I have not read Paul Yes, me either. Seth And I wondered if it would enhance this because it's it's very much about the Great Game right. Paul That's my understanding and it's worth noting like another oddity about Powers is here's a guy like again you listen to the interviews on YouTube and he's very um, very much ah a pulp minded individual like he says he doesn't read a lot of fiction these days. Paul But he'll always talk about just the influence of Heinlein, Lovecraft, um authors who not just our genre but have a very specific sensibility of genre and yet ah powers work is always drenched in what people might often consider like capital L highbrow "Literature", I mean we begin with the the prologue has an epigraph from The Prelude by William Wordsworth ah we've got references to the Bible. Ah, one of the faculty in my department he specializes in British ah Lyric poetry, and I asked him as like hey do you know much about J K Stevens who was ah provides another epigraph and he's like I don't I'm like if you don't know much about J K Stevens how on earth does Tim Powers know anything about J K Stevens um Seth Mm, right. Heh. Paul But and characters are always talking in references to to poetry and books and yet you believe it and it's just the weirdest or weirdest. But it's certainly a very unexpected amalgam of things to be found in one book. Seth Yeah, yeah, and the other fun part for me for somebody who grew up you know and and experienced the like the fall of the Soviet Union and you know I I was studying German in high school when the Berlin Wall came down and and my teacher was from Berlin. Paul Oh wow. Seth And and had escaped from from East Berlin right before the wall went up and um and you know where her family was left behind you know and um and so like I'm very connected to that whole era but thinking about the Cold War right? You have? um so many when if you go back to the golden era of science fiction, you have so many things that just extend the status quo into the future and just assume well the Soviet Union's always going to be a thing right? Paul Yeah, yeah, yeah. Seth You even look at 2001: A Space Odyssey right? There's still the Cold War going on in that and I think it was hard for someone to imagine that things would change as drastically as they did and that's what's fun about a book like this, that kind of answers that question. Well how how could this have happened? You know there. There's not a material explanation for it. Of course there are all kinds of economic and and you know Chernobyl and and other things that were happening um that that led to the fall of Soviet Union but I like this as kind of like maybe I can fill in the cracks here and say well, maybe it was this though. Paul Yeah, yeah, that's an excellent point actually. Seth Yeah, yeah, um, okay I think we should just go ahead and get read over into spoilers I Hope we have I I think we've been somewhat vague. Paul Sounds good. Yes. Seth What would you like to start with? I want to talk about the cosmology of the book. But um, we can talk about other stuff as well. Paul Yeah, um, actually let's start with cosmology I think that I think that because the novel is told nonlinearly. It's useful to have a big picture idea. Seth Yeah, yeah, so some of the backdrop of this novel kind of fits into some some work that I've been reading up on recently about stuff like the Divine Council in the in the Hebrew Bible. Paul Okay. Seth Um, the writers of the the Hebrew Bible were not monotheists in the same way that we are and the ancient israelites were not monotheists in the same way that American Christians are that or that Christians are in general or even that modern Jews are um and instead they believed in this Divine Council where there was this whole not pantheon but there were these lesser deities essentially lesser powers that were all under the authority of Yahweh of of the one God and. Paul Yeah, okay. Seth And so you see stuff like that with like the tower of Babel and and like the need for the Flood and the Nephilim and all of that it all ties in and explains a lot of really weird passages in the Hebrew Bible that if you, most of the time we just go. Um, we look at him and go that's weird. Let's move on right. Paul Yeah. Seth Um, and it's fun, fun to dig into some of that stuff. But but here um, you know you have in in Islam in particular right? You have the idea of Djinn um, or maybe it's just in the middle east I'm not sure if it's specifically from Islam um Paul Yeah. Kind of both is my understanding Seth Yeah, and so this this book kind of ties in that there's these, I think in ah in a New Testament sense we think of them as principalities and powers right in the writings of Paul um, and that and that they have influence in the world and that explains some of the what's going on in terms of who's in power who stays in power especially who stays in power. Paul Yeah, yeah, ah I agree and so here we have this idea right that there's these creatures , Eldritch creatures that get referred to mostly as Djinn throughout the series, or the novel. Um. Seth Right Paul But also might be Angels or something like that. Ah and it it wasn't clear to me of this time through maybe on reread this will become a bit clearer as to whether or not it's like ah it is Ararat just this, like is there is a nexus there that they can come through or ah where exactly they're coming from but they certainly are they they they get linked to physical spaces in ways. Seth Right. Paul And and the Russians have back in the 1880s hijacked one of these and took it back to Russia and and they call it a ah Machikha Nash with I think Seth Mm, right Mistress of Misfortune yeah. Paul I ah yeah, or yeah and um. Which yeah, also you know it sounds like Magica or magic. Um, nice little bit of pun punnage there on Powers's part. Um. Seth Mm, yeah, exactly. Yeah, and then then he uses that to talk about stuff like um it it reminds me a little bit of The Cabin in the Woods I don't if you ever saw that movie. Paul I don't know that one, no. Seth There's an Elder Gods kind of aspect to that, where the tropes of people being slaughtered you know in a slasher movie are to appease these Elder Gods. Um, it's It's very funny. It's It's very meta. Um, it's ah like I don't really love horror movies. But but that one's worth watching. Um, just just for that part of it. It'll remind you of Declare just a little bit because this book talks about how you know, some of the pogroms some of the the worst. Um, you know slaughters of of millions of people under Stalin and and other successors you know? well maybe that was to appease the blood lust of this Mistress of Misfortune, who was keeping them in power. Paul Yeah, and I like the way that it's such a different approach to fantasy in general right? Usually fantasy is deeply ground into the story world and either one Ah, it's very well known and character are acquainted with it. That's like Dungeons & Dragons and things like that or you get. It's very rare like in Lord of the rings like yeah like we know is the thing but there's like five wizards in the whole world. Oh well. Um, or. Seth Mm, yeah. Paul Or like there's like the video game approach where you just got to level up and you master it. But with Powers. He he talks a lot about in his interviews. He he talks about how like he himself doesn't really believe in these things and yet he also kind of does like an example who use is. Um, when he when he was writing last call which deals with the Tarot. He bought a Tarot deck in order to have pictures to reference but he refuses to shuffle it. Um, he says like I just because yeah, he's like I don't believe in it exactly. But I also don't know what's on the other end at the same time and. Seth Right, sure. Paul For him, magic is something that humans don't wield. It is not something to be controlled or manipulated. It is always something exacting and dangerous. Um, which you don't see very often particularly in current fantasy. Seth Yeah, that reminds me of have you watched Ted Lasso? Paul I love Ted Lasso. Seth Yeah, so so when when they you know they think they're ghosts you know that that the treatment room is cursed and and Roy Kent's like "I don't believe it" you know and it's like all right you you and I are going to go in there. No. Paul Oh yeah. Seth Yeah, but no, don't believe it but I'm not going in there. Um, yeah, just a a healthy ah humility. Paul Right. Seth I think um so for anybody I know there are people out there who you know have no idea what's Mount Ararat what what does this have anything to do with and so so for anybody who doesn't know that in in the the Hebrew Bible, that's where the resting place of Noah's ark um and it's fun because he brings that into this book and everybody is just sort of credulously saying well, that's Noah's ark there and then they get there and they find out. Oh no, that's not actually the ark it's something different and that the as the waters receded it would have you know it would have gone down further wouldn't it just stuck on the top of that mountain. Paul Yeah, yeah, yeah, and Hale's relieved by it too. Seth Yeah exactly. Um and I do I definitely want to talk about the the religious aspects of this as well because some of the stuff about you're interacting with this stuff and you're still here an atheist um reminds me of, uh, Indiana Jones a little bit. Um, but but yeah, the the idea that somehow the these principalities and powers that were supposed to be wiped out in the flood um were kind of hookybobbed on the back of the arc you know like wrote a skateboard behind it like Marty Mcfly um and then and then ended up In this this spot on Ararat and this mission, this Declare mission was to go and do something and that's part of the question of what exactly were they trying to do um and then then there's all kinds of other stuff about well if we wanted to destroy these things. How do we do it? Paul Yeah, yeah, and so the ah these Djinn, angels, whatever they are ah the thing that they have the one thing they advantage is to figure out with 20th Century Science and logic is oh these things exist in a certain temporal sense like what they think is active material impact and so if they they believe they exist and they exist and that's kind of their thing as you had to find a way to convince it that it's dead. Seth Right. Yes, yeah, you show it an image of death and it will take that on board and go oh I'm dead now I like to that like it is approached almost like a science where they're like okay we have these? What do they call them shihab meteorites. Paul I think that's it Seth And you know that have fallen in these various places and like destroyed whole cities. Um, and they they find Okay, there's these concavities and these and these are the markers of death right? and then they find out. No, it's not the concave concavity of it. Those marks were made by these Convex structures. Um. Paul Yeah. Yeah. Seth And and so you need you need that you need something egg shaped but with a cross on it. You know and and then then the ankhs and and all the other stuff. It's ah yeah, it's fascinating. That's why I think you know a reread would be really fun kind of knowing what I know now. Paul Well and that does kind of draw us to the to the temporal structure of the novel because I think this was really fascinating impact I don't know how this plays on the audio. But for me, there was always this element of either a something. It's mentioned. Okay, so backing up so you're vacillating throughout the whole novel between ah 1943, 1945, '48, '63 like those are kind of the four times we are waffling betwixt Seth Yes. Paul A huge chunk of it is in 43 and a smaller chunk of it is in 48 and then a lot of it's in 63 and then 45 is mildly there and something will get mentioned as like wait a second that wasn't where did that I don't know we're talking about there. And then usually either the end of the chapter or the next chapter it gets. Ah, it's very much very much a sense of you are told the conclusion of it before the before the actual event which I do want Maybe that's supposed to kind of emulate the way the djinn experience time I don't know. Seth Yeah I mean I'm I'm thinking is that um emblematic of something like the I can't I think it was the shihab meteorites right? Where they talk about the stone that they hauled up to to Ararat in 43 um and they they had plans for it. They were going to I think blow it up and. Paul Yes. Seth And and that that was going to take care of those principalities and and there's there's almost um, a metaphor here for like mutually assured destruction right? we're we're going to blow this up so that the Russians can't get it. Um and and you know we're not going to use it to our own ends. We just want to to take it out of play. Um. Paul Yeah, yeah, and so but it was just fascinating to me how the novel kind of disrupts its own surprises and yet they're still surprising when they happen. Ah like like that and I think that's part of why this is ah I love a story that it doesn't matter if you know beforehand what it's about because there is something about the experience of the text Seth Yeah. Paul And this novel does this to you over and over again where it tells you over an end result and then leads you through it and because you've gone through that process, that end result takes on a meaning that it could not have if it you were just told about it beforehand. Seth Yeah, yeah, and it kind of tells in retells stuff too right? It further contextualizes stuff about relationships because we haven't even talked about most of the characters right? we mentioned Kim Philby we mentioned Andrew Hale we have not talked about Elena and I don't have her a full name written down but it's pretty impressive. Yes. Paul Yes, Elena Ceniza-Bendiga which so this is ah ah so so in Anubis gates. Well no sorry, go back I need to go back farther than that. So when Tim powers and James Blalock were friends in grad school. Ah they felt that the campus literary journal was publishing dumb crap and so they sat down together and they took turns they would one of them would write a line of a poem and the goal was to be as pretentious as possible. And then the next one would write a line and they just went back and forth and they felt you know this sounds it sounds florid and pretentious enough. Why not and they they kept getting it published and so they invented the name of a poet William Ashbless um and then. Seth Ah. And that's her name means something like that right? Paul Her name means ah ashes of blessing basically um and so in the Anubis Gates he ah Powers has a there's some time travel go out to there. Go back to the early nineteenth century and. Ah, he just to meet the poet William Ashbless and that's a big thing in the Anubis Gates. Um, and then it turns out that Blalock also mentions William Ashbless or has William Ashbless a appear in his novel that they were submitted to the same editor the same year. And the editor was like do you guys know each other. Yeah we do? Oh we'll change it. No no, no, no, keep it and they're like but one book is set in 1810, and one set in the 1950s well you guys can figure that out and ah as a result. Um. Powers has said that every novel since Anubis Gates he tries to fit some sort of reference to Ashbless as he says a good luck charm. Seth Um, that's fun. Paul Yeah, so that's where Elena Ciniza-Bendiga comes from. Seth Okay, excellent. And and she's kind of the the femme fatale and you and you go through like all the stuff with Hale where he has to have a cover and and like a cover of his cover because he's he's kind of working as a double agent right? He's they're trying to make it plausible that he is going to go to the other side and so yeah, get arrested going to a communist meeting um establish your your bona fides for that, and yeah, we'll we'll you know, we'll paper over everything so you can still have a career after this. Paul Yeah, we'll arrest you first. But. Yeah Seth Exactly right? But there's there's also you know that like the how committed are you right? They would you kill your brother right? and which of course that's like the main thing that that book really deals with. And on a reread I'd really like to dig into some of that stuff because I I felt like some of the the not quite twins thing that was going on. There didn't totally sink in. Um and I I think I could get that on a reread. Um, but you have um. That you know that's how he comes across Elena at first and then he keeps encountering her over time. Paul Yeah, and she initially is like mentor to Hale ah and she you know the things that she mostly teaches him are the trade craft of of being a spy. But the thing that she most wants to teach him is how to be a good communist because she's she's a very orthodox communist. Ah she was a child during the Franco Revolution in Spain and ah so so she has great animosity towards, ah, fascism definitely in the failures of Western democracy to protect itself and so for her communism is the solution right? Seth Right. Paul Um, but of course she undergoes her own character arc with that regard throughout. Seth Right because she's she's also quite burned by Catholicism right? She feels like like it was Catholics who who killed her parents. Yeah. Paul And ah, yeah, so so so she's very frustrated with with everything western and so she embraces communism but then she finds that oh communism can't really be trusted and I think what's interesting about Hale and Elena specifically is the way that. Think there's a lot of of the sense of arriving at a sort of transcendental self-knowledge of the divine for both of them Seth Right. Paul Like Elena it's she ah you know she out of absolute unquestionably unquestionable and unwavering loyalty returns to Moscow you know, "Return to Moscow" is the ah the one of the code terms for basically go back for voluntary execution and instead she's tortured and ah it's this whole horrifying thing. She's one who who kind of finds the details about this this djinn this angel whatever it is that the Russians have and yet um in that moment is what where she just digs into herself and she finds this sense of faith this dedication to god or or rather to the Virgin Mary honestly Seth Right Paul And Hale, kind of it comes along a similar trajectory and like there's something really powerful about the moment when and in the epilogue when Hale ah beats well he plays he plays the cards with Philby and he just kind of walks away and is that very like just strong self-comp composed thing, and in both of them I think ah because one of the motifs throughout is the um, the walking pattern that Elena teaches him in Paris um that so there's this way that they that Elena teaches him to walk in which I always kept thinking about the sand walking in Dune every time. Seth Exactly yeah me too. Paul Um, but it's this way of ah walking that just apparently is supposed to make you seem innocuous and it's you know back to the idea of of how these these djinn angels principalities. Whatever they are work is the sense of attunement to a metaphysical dimension. Right? Like getting getting attuned to something that is outside of typical material experience but actually impacts that at the same time and ah and so like in this way Faith is less about a conviction and more a sense of being as it were. Seth Mm, and you have um other times where there's there's that horrifying scene in in the Ahora Gorge Um, where, this is kind of when I think this is in 48 where they're going back to Mount Mount Ararat to complete the mission right? Paul Yeah Seth And it all goes very poorly um and and Hale tries to pull out his his ankh to to like diffuse the situation just gets ripped out of his hand. Um, and to keep himself from being consumed. He starts he starts tapping out a pattern right? and it reminds me of the walking right? and and and something about that pattern disrupts things. But then it finds he finds himself in almost sympathetic harmony with the djinn as they're consuming the rest of the people who have gone up there with them. Paul Yeah that that's exactly it. Yeah, it's he he he taps. Um you he's using the trigger of his gun to tap out the this the same rhythm as the walking thing is and that aligns him or brings him in sympathy with the Jinn. And so he start he kind of like merges into this kind of collective consciousness of the jinn but the cost of that is that Not only does he get Survivor's guilt but he gets to experience what it's like to devour his cohort through the jinn's mouth. Seth Right yeah yeah I just I I I was literally rereading that one right before I came up um, just because it was it was chilling. Paul Yeah, it was one. It's so sudden a another thing about powers right? is he he doesn't do the typical and now we're going to do the the quest thing. Oh no, the quest thing has gone wrong here's how it's gone wrong. It's just oh no, it's only going wrong. What the heck happened? Oh it's right because Kim Philby betrayed them. They told us that back in chapter 3 but I forgot they they said that. Seth Yeah, yeah, yeah, that's the effective thing of the shifting time right? You like what happened in 48 um you know and and like how how did you get to that point. Um, yeah, yeah, interesting. Paul It it. Yeah, really impressive stuff. Seth And then that's that's offset with of course the the ultimate kind of fulfillment of the mission in 63 where where there's more than one side of this where where like there's all of it kind of gelled together the the supernatural stuff and the actual cold war expediency of the the spycraft where okay, you need to shoot Kim Phililby in the back with this, you know with bird shot from a 410 which I don't know if you've ever shot a four ten it's a tiny little um it looks like a toy um and and and like I think one time. Ah, we went to my my in-laws place down in Southern Oregon with some friends who he had a whole bunch of guns and he brought them all along and um, he was also he also worked in I t and so the other thing he brought were targets and what they were were hard drive plates. Um, so they they just look like these shiny discs that we put up on the hillside to shoot. And we want a point blank range with it with a 410 and shot one of the hard drive plates which are metal but the bird shot just barely dented the metal like it just tickled it. Not that it's not dangerous. Don't don't play with the 410. It's it's you know it's called bird shot. It can't kill a bird. Um, but but not the kind of stuff that's going to be necessarily a life life threatening to to a human um, but the idea sorry that was a bit of a digression is to to shoot Kim with that and then he goes back to the Soviet Union dies as a hero is buried and in him now he has these pellets that have that marker of death on them so that the. Mistress of what mistress of mayhem misfortune um will see those and and die right and the Soviet Union will collapse. Paul Yeah, really just amazing. How wide the net of this novel is and yet how tightly it pulls. And it doesn't feel like it I remember where I was reading. Ah, it's one of the you know it's it's the last chapter before we begin the the the climax as it were and basically it's the final exposition dump and it's the one time. It's when it's you know Hartzig? We never met this guy before but suddenly he's like ah, this wealth of exposition and tells us everything and I was hanging on to every word of that chapter. It's and it's like you know by the way Kim Philby is your brother wait. What? like. Seth Right? Haha Paul Normally I would be really incredulous about that because I'd be like no no, you did not sit but no here I totally believed it ah because there's the there's the one faint early when when they when they first recommission Hale in chapter I Want to say three or something like that and, um, one of them mentions that he looks like Lawrence T E Lawrence and as like okay that's too obvious. Obviously the whole heritage thing is going to be important but it never occurred to me to consider that Andrew Hale might be Kim Philby's long lost brother. Paul Let alone the implications of so Kim Philby was actually born in a certain circumstance. That means that he actually has that he can like split himself like an X-Men character. But then when you were born as Kim Philby's half brother ah you kind of replaced his duplicate self and you're now linked together like naturally. Seth Um, okay yeah, as one does. Paul Of course I swear this would make a great Christopher Nolan film like I I kept thinking that's why I would want to to adapt this novelist Christopher Nolan it has the exact same nonlinearity that he loves to do and the ability to just yeah, just going to exposit really suddenly. Carry on. Seth Yeah, yeah, um, there's the other side of the what is it called the ah I've got it written down here someplace. Oh yeah. The amomon root um that it's something that sprouts in you know wherever the jinn dies then these roots spring up and they can confer some kind of immortality and and that becomes important for for the final kind of confrontation between. Kim and and Andrew Paul yeah um yeah I confess like I did not catch on the amomon roots until the epilogue Seth Me neither yeah, not at all I had to go back and I searched on my Kindle I searched for that word and went back and looked and like okay they did set this up I just missed it. Paul Yeah I remember them talking about it but I never grasped onto what their significance was as like that's just sort of those things I I take on faith and hopefully it makes sense later on um and and it does like it. It works like oh that's where they come from and that's the effect and yeah, ah the way that that the novel does resolve with the question about um, assured immortality versus the prospect of love and but then and I am not a Catholic I actually have a a friend who's a a devout Catholic and so I I was constantly texting him throughout this book like you explain this to me explain this to me as well. Um, which ah he asks me about Mormonism for as he reads our Orson Scott Card and so we're even now Seth Oh nice. Paul But as I understand that you know, Catholicism like there is this element. Yeah I mean the argument he made for how love is the thing that makes eternal life worthwhile and ah, you know if if God is love and if God is the is the source of eternal life then everything else you know this kinda makes the amomon roots a tower of Babel thing right? It's a man may or it's a man harnessed effort to achieve godhood without doing things God's way yeah, make that issue of declare from Job right? like know your place like there is a There's a pathway for you but you got to do it my way got played by my rules here. Seth Um, yeah, yeah, it reminds me of the apples in the garden in the Magician's Nephew if you remember from the the Chronicles of Narnia where the the White Queen goes there and you know if if you take an apple from there licitly then it will you know provide healing and and even immortality. The Queen climbs over the wall and gets them and and you know the the children say to Aslan. Well you know it won't work right and he says no all things work as they're intended but she'll find that immortality is bitter. Um, and that's that's kind of what. What I think Kim is looking at and additionally with the shot that he still has under his skin is going to to nullify essentially the effect of those roots. Paul Yeah, yeah, it also kind of you know, ah brings us to the point that ah one of the repeated phrases in the novel is from Genesis about I was I heard thy voice and hid myself because I was naked. Um, which is what Adam says to to God. In the garden of Eden after he's part taken of the of the of the free fruit of the tree of knowledge a good and evil and so there might also be something like I'm realizing just in this moment. There might be a connection to between the this ah ah contrived immortality and the constant repetition of that particular phrase. Seth Mm, well I think it absolutely ties into the stuff that you have with the the king of Wahab I can yeah where where you know he is. He's like says he's a son of a fallen angel and a woman right? and and says you know I I will not face judgment because I'm immortal you know it's it's only mortals who face judgment and Kim has or Philby has has kind of maintained an atheism in the face of all this obvious supernatural stuff. Um, and. And his thinking kind of seems to be you know? well as long as long as I'm immortal that you know I don't have to face that where both both Andrew and Elena have have come back to their faith through all of this. Paul Yeah, that's a good point. Um, and don't have anything clever to add to that. Seth Yeah, um, and you know it reminds me a little bit of Indiana Jones where yeah you're like how are you not a believer now. At this point you know you saw the Ark of the Covenant. You healed your father with the Holy Grail um seems like maybe you I mean maybe he'd still be like oh it's It's probably aliens. Paul Yeah, well I think that's ah you know part of that ambiguity. Ah in this novel is that right? It's that the characters suggest Maybe these are angels the fallen Angels of some sort but we don't know. And you know we're gonna call him jinn I mean Jinn are mentioned in the Quran as a creation of god okay, cool. Um, but you know it's like everything requires ah this entire cosmology is very dependent upon a. Ah. Plural Textual explanation like it's okay, we've got there's certainly some biblical stuff here but we were also we were also including Arabian Knights we're including um, just raw history. We're including all ah some Quantum theory as well. Like there's all kinds of things being layered in there and not one, no single um epistemology can account for everything. Ah. Seth Mm, yeah, um, the I mean I guess we've kind of been. We've been talking about the faith aspect of it anything else. You want to talk about about that. Paul I think I So another thing one more thing I kept thinking about in regard to maybe less about the faith but more so this idea of of just angels in a text that certainly isn't devotional. Um another. Ah. What if we were ah, one novel I thought of as a potential comp but in a very weird way for this one is The Translator by John Crowley um which is not as exciting but really wonderful novel I'm I'm a big John Crowley fan um but In that novel so that that is also a cold war set novel. It's about a poet a russian poet who ah modeled off of Brosky who flees to the United States becomes a college professor. Um, and ah. This guy Phelan gets involved with a student who becomes his translator and ah the relationship isn't really sexual. It's very intellectual and romantic and without the sex part but then by the end there's a ah it draws upon. I can remember there was a a early 20th century Russian philosopher who's proposed this this model that every nation has 2 guardian angels a greater angel which is like military power and the lesser angel which is cultural power and those 2 forces being things that nations put against each other and just the way that it's and and the translator was published in 2002 so you have 2 novels very close to to each other made me think about some scholarship that talks about um. Like just that the the role of Angels in American fiction of the 1990s Seth Um, it it actually reminds me a little bit of the Space Trilogy by CS Lewis where there's like almost an angelic force that guards over each world. Um, and where where on some of the worlds. They've been basically chased out and ah yeah, that's the Space Trilogy is on my list to revisit for the podcast. So one of these times I'm going to have to to dig those out again and and reread them. Paul Oh interesting. Um, and yeah, those are those are I don't have the stomach for Narnia but ah, those are on my list. Seth Um, yeah, yeah, um, let's see so I did want to talk a little bit more about the spy part as well because right right at the top We we talked about some of the code phrases and the job the the book does such a good job Powers does such a good job of initiating you into the spycraft of it a little bit where he says you know bless me right? and and that means things are not what they see you know, pay attention. Um, and and all these other things about you know now now we're into total evasion procedures right? We've we've hit that moment and and we're doing that and um. Paul Mm, yeah. Seth Just such a good job with the repetition throughout the different time periods where by the end of the novel somebody says bless me and you're like oh what's going on something. Something's not what it seems. Yeah. Paul Yeah, yeah, yeah, you jump? No Yeah I agree and he he really teaches you How to how to be suspicious of the characters. But to also be trusting the text at the same time because he like that he is. He's very clever or Clever. He's very mindful to use repetition because I always hate it when a text had drops something one time and you're just expected to hold on to that knowledge. Seth Mm, right. Paul And in a book that's going to yank you around in time as much as this one does. It's very generous of him to ah to use repetition like that. Um, but in the process he's teaching you to watch out for these things. And they train you to create to have responses to it. Um, and sometimes you're also kind of kind of you want to poke the care and say hey come on see the thing say it say it now which is a lot of fun. Um. Seth Exactly Yeah, um, yeah, um, and you know some of that stuff I feel like we talked about like with the roots right? or the or the um. The rafiq diamond right? There's some things that are dropped kind of once or twice and then you have to go have We talked about this before and it's just it was lost um in in a sea of other things right? and so so I feel like it's more successful with with a lot of the spycraft stuff and maybe a little less successful with the others. Paul Yeah, yeah. Seth Um, but you know I'm I'm not really going to ding the book for that because it is the kind of stuff where it makes you want to go back and and like oh I guess I need to reread that chapter. Paul Now. Yeah, absolutely are. Seth Um, some of the other just uses of phrases like establishing the truth about someone um means essentially eliminating them. Paul Yeah, yeah, then I think there's there's a lot of interesting wordplay I think throughout. Um some of it's very deceptive like you just get per blasted with so many different. Um, organization. Ah, ah, acronyms is just like okay SCS and SIS and SEO, I think we're on the SIS side of things right now. So sure. Um, and that kind of you know, that helps you kind of ah respect Hale's ability to keep track of things and yet I never felt really completely's like in some ways somewhat like like NKVD like that was like oh yeah, so I I know that I'm in an earlier timeframe of the story because NKVD is defunct after a certain point. Um. Seth Right? right? now into the K G B Era yeah. Paul Or I yeah I really loved um the ways that he used Kim Philby's stutter in humorous ways. My favorite one is I couldn't hope to find it right now. But it's ah it's the one chapter from Kim Philby's perspective and it says something like ah. He he tells a woman. He's like I need you to pretend that we're having a um, a Mary martial marital affair and I like that he he is. He's not just he's not just creating an effect. He's having some fun with it. Seth Yeah, yeah, the so the um I did this partly in print I started it in print and then I kind of switched over to audio you know while I was doing some stuff um like mowing my lawn or driving to work that kind of stuff. Um and then would pick it back up in print and and just kind of shift read it. That's what I what I call doing that. Um, and the the audiobook narrator did a really nice job with the the stuttering there. There was one strange choice that happened and I can't remember the name of the character. It's one of the ones. Um, one of the American characters that that dies at Ararat in 1948 it's like Flannery or it's it's an Irish name and for some reason he did an Irish accent and I'm like but you just said he was American. Paul Um, K K that is weird. Seth So yeah, yeah, thought I thought that was that was a weird choice. Another thing was there's a lot of descriptions of or naming of different calibers of guns and I don't feel like people who talk about guns would say a point four five you know they'd just say a 45 right um or a point four 4 1 oh it. It's just a 410 Um, but it's the kind of stuff where I just feel like maybe that audio book narrator. Well, he wasn't American so probably doesn't know much about guns. Unfortunately, we do. Paul That makes sense. Yeah, that's fair, he probably pronounces it a St John Philby doesn't he? Seth Yeah, he does Paul yeah I had to get halfway through a PhD before I knew that Sinjin meant StJohn yeah Seth Um, oh really I learned that back back watching an Airwolf as a kid because the main main character's brother who is like lost in Vietnam was named St. John. Yeah. Seth Um, I also like some of the just kind of throwing out more things that that we liked about the book. Um, some of the early stuff the the interactions with um oh I've lost his name like the the main contact at SIS. Paul Uh, Theodora. Seth Theodora that's right Um, where he he talks Andrew Hale remembers Theodora from when he was a child um and interacting with him and being asked, "Tell me about your dreams on the new year" and and it just does a good job of kind of establishing oh is there something special about Andrew because for a lot of the rest of the novel. He's not quite in every man you know because he is quite competent in his in his spycraft and and everything and and you know he's not bumbling by any means. Paul Yeah Seth But you know the the life that he went back into was you know, kind of a humble college professor Humble Lecturer um and ah and so but but having those seeds there that okay, there's something special about this guy. What is it and you don't find out until later that it's the whole. Kind of separated twins thing. Paul Yeah, well and that was I was I was constantly guessing because I first I was like okay so maybe it's just like some deal that his mom made to get herself out of Palestine with with a newborn. As as a it was this kind of like a a Samuel the boy Prophet Thing was like I mean I'm just going to pledge my child to service to the crown. Um, and then it's like okay, what about your dreams. It's like all right? Well that could mean anything couldn't it and then it's you know you look just like TE Lawrence. That's a red herring it turns out ah and then you just kind of forget for a while is it just seems to be I Guess well they've invested in this guy and they've trained him and he has been to Ararat so we're going to do it. But yeah, then it's once you start to find out those things like oh so Hale is special. I Mean mostly I was just glad he was such an improvement over just what a lose her the ah the protagonist of Anubis Gates is other people love that novel many people love that novel and I do like it but it did not impress me the way it the way it is other people and a lot of it I blame at the feet of the protag and so I was that I was at ah, a literature conference a few months ago and I picked up Powers novel Stress Of Her Regard which has Nephilim in it apparently um, back to that issue of like primordial entities. Um. Paul But I someone else saw me within that. It's like oh that and Declare are my 2 favorites, Anubis Gates, screw it. But that one and and and Declare as like well I'm I'm I'm reading Declare in a month or 2 and ah, they're like oh you're so lucky and yes, so I'm looking forward to Stress Of Her Regards. Um, it seems that a lot of my previous apprehensions with Powers. Go back to just Doyle just that character Doyle is just such a lame lame protagonist Seth Um, are you not selling me that book. So. Paul I'm I'm being too hard on it I really am and I need to reread it honestly? um. Seth And yet there's so many books out there to read? Paul Well, it's ah it's a philip k dick award winner. So I think that's on your list isn't it. Seth Oh it is on the list. Yeah, all right? Well somebody else out there who wants to pick it up. Let me know. Paul Yeah that yeah I think it's the I think it was the first Philip K Dick winner actually Powers himself was actually friends with Philip K Dick lived in neighboring apartments. Seth Mm, interesting. Um I don't know I've kind of run out of my notes I I told you beforehand my notes are in almost complete disarray I like. Before we got on I I went through and quickly tried to categorize Stuff. You know like this is under the faith stuff and that's under the spy and then um, you know cosmology I tried to group it but I've kind of run out I think of of things I'd written down. Paul Yeah. Yeah I think I think the only thing I would add just circling back. Is you know the way the novel. Yeah, that idea of of um, the sort of like cosmic harmonious resonance thing. Ah. The the novel kind of does that because the novel is so fragmented and yet it it lures you into understanding its whole shape by the end and you you don't know it inside and out all the intricacies but you have a good sense of it that. I Honestly look forward to to rereading Declare in the not too distant future. Seth yeah yeah I I did want to mention too the the relationship between Hale and Elena you know is kind of sweet and and and innocent in some ways right? because I like at some point they're like oh yeah, we are married aren't we somebody married us and so it's okay that we're sleeping together. You know. Paul Are yeah. Um, yeah, yeah. Seth and and and I definitely do appreciate too that the um, the author you know they they do share a bed a couple of times but Powers has no interest in describing anything that goes on. It's just mentioned that this happened um and I appreciate that? yeah. Paul Yeah, yeah I would agree and you know it's interesting because um I mean you know this is from ah this is written at a time when so the the market still generally didn't expect male authors to work very hard at female characters and I think there are some I think there there are some recognizable tropes at work in Elena and yet there's something about Elena that feels very realized and to your point about kind of the sweetness of it like I remember the part when when Hale just tells her straight up. My name is Andrew Hale he completely casts off all the tradecraft for a minute and I believe it that he does feel about her this way. Seth Yeah, yeah, well and and 2 with the with the high low bet. The declare bet you know at the at the end right? Well I would have gone to her either way like that's that's really all I care about because I know I know what her birthday is and now you know she made a promise to be in this particular place and I want to find her. Paul Yeah, yeah Seth If I can um and yeah I I thought that was very sweet. Um and and she does fit roughly into the femme fatale kind of mold. Paul She does Yeah but I mean my experience femme fatales right? is that they're usually pretty fully realized and the fact that Elena has to figure herself out throughout the novel even in ah less we we see less of it then, um and other characters and I guess ah again back to the idea of how cat powers plays with history I think know Elena the the scene the part when she's in Russia and they're ah the way that he he invokes. You know we have this cosmology at work and we have this sense of um, well here's like actual tradecraft and and spy work and stuff like that. We're also going to kind of throw on this some very interesting things like we're going to invent this very bizarre hypnosis thing that I'm willing to bet probably isn't act was a. At least a theory that spy networks were trying to exercise at the time where she that she has to like sit in a chair and they hypnotize her into believing that the person across from her is who she is and then they shoot that person so that way she thinks that she is dead and it's kind of this like. Seth Mm, right. Paul Grotesque Perverse baptism as it were and you know, ah the death of the old and the rebirth and as as a true vessel of communism and I I don't even know how I would research this but I'm willing to bet that is that that was at least something that Russian spies believed that they could do if they just tried hard enough. Um, yeah, ah everything interesting in this novel usually comes down to actual reality which is the weirdest thing. Seth Yeah, and it's it's definitely worthwhile checking out the afterword in the book where where he talks about you know here here are the guardrails I put on myself to do this? Um, and and yeah I'm I'm very impressed with with it as a novel and and just as a piece of fiction. Um. Paul Yeah, yeah. Seth In general right? As ah as a science fiction or fantasy it works Well that way it works well as a spy novel. Yeah yeah, very cool. Paul Both. I Would agree all around really impressive novel and I would heartily recommend it to everyone. Seth Nice, Nice. Yeah I mean to and and it's I mean like you said when you were trying to come up with comps right? That nope, I haven't read anything like this and so um, so I want to thank you for for recommending it because it it really was a ah unique one. Paul Yeah I hope that you I mean there's several other Powers. You know you'll have to get to Anubis Gates, you'll have to get to Deviant's Palace and you'll have to do Last Call at the very least because those are all award winners on your list. So yeah. Seth Um, okay oh excellent, all right? Well more more Tim Powers in in the future for me and you know based on this one I look forward to it. Um, so I think that'll probably suffice for final thoughts. Um can people find you anywhere. Paul Yeah, yeah, I guess if you wait about a month you can find me on the Western Colorado University faculty stuff though there's 2 Paul there so ah make sure you email the more handsome one who is ah in the English department. Not the computer science guy. Seth Nice sounds good. Well you know we've had we've had computer science guys on the podcast before so it's It's nice to have somebody who knows what they're talking about from ah from a literature literature standpoint I'm just a hobbyist. Paul Hey you do very well you do a good job, Seth Seth Well Paul thanks again and I'm you know I'm sure we'll interact down the line and congratulations on your soon to be doctorate. Paul Thank you. Seth All right, bye