Declare

by Tim Powers Narrated by Simon Prebble

Overview

In his eleventh novel, Tim Powers takes his unique brand of speculative fiction into uncharted territory, instilling the old-fashioned espionage novel with a healthy dose of the supernatural.

As a young double agent infiltrating the Soviet spy network in Nazi-occupied Paris, Andrew Hale finds himself caught up in a secret, even more ruthless war. Two decades later, a coded message draws Professor Andrew Hale back into Her Majesty's Secret Service. Elements from his past are gathering in Beirut, including ex-British counterespionage chief and Soviet mole Kim Philby, and a beautiful former Spanish Civil War soldier-turned-intelligence operative, Elena Teresa Ceniza-Bendiga. Soon Hale will be forced to again confront the nightmare that has haunted his adult life: a lethal unfinished operation code-named “Declare.” From the corridors of Whitehall to the Arabian Desert, from post-war Berlin to the streets of Cold War Moscow, Hale's desperate quest draws him into international politics and gritty espionage tradecraft-and inexorably drives Hale, Ceniza-Bendiga, and Philby to a deadly confrontation on the high glaciers of Mount Ararat, in the very shadow of the fabulous and perilous biblical Ark.

Editorial Reviews

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The Barnes & Noble Review
No one writing today fuses history with fantasy as shrewdly -- or as unpredictably -- as Tim Powers. The best, most representative Powers novels (The Anubis Gates, The Stress of Her Regard, Last Call) focus on anomalous occurrences in the lives of actual historical figures (Byron, Shelley, Bugsy Siegel) and use those occurrences as jumping-off points for an extravagantly imagined series of fictions. The latest Powers novel, Declare, once again employs this distinctive, remarkably flexible technique. The result is one of the finest, most idiosyncratic fantasies of the season.

In Declare, Powers edges into John le Carré territory, straddling genre boundaries to create something surprising and new: a supernatural espionage thriller. Two characters -- one fictional, one real -- dominate the narrative. The first is Andrew Hale, a scholar/spy whose career takes him into -- and out of -- the inner circles of the British Secret Service. The second is Kim Philby, the Soviet mole whose career inspired Le Carré's masterpiece Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy.

Declare opens with a brief, enigmatic prologue set in 1948, in the course of which we see an unidentified man fleeing in terror down the slopes of Mount Ararat, pursued -- quite literally -- by demons. The narrative then jumps ahead some 15 years and introduces us to that fleeing figure: Andrew Hale, a former intelligence agent who has built a successful second career as a university lecturer, and who is about to be reinstated in his original profession. When the phone rings on a quiet London afternoon in 1963, a voice from the past reaches into Hale's new life, drawing him back into a clandestine, long-running intelligence initiative called Operation Declare.

Declare tells the full story of that eponymous operation, moving backward in time to the mysteries of Hale's childhood, and forward to the related mysteries hidden on Mount Ararat. The narrative ranges from wartime London to the Middle East, and is alternately a love story, a war story, a spy story, and a romance of the supernatural. It is also a dramatic account of the adversarial relationship between Philby and Hale, two very different men connected by family secrets, by the political realities of the Cold War, and by the malign influence of ancient, inhuman forces.

No summary could possibly convey the richness, intelligence, and sheer virtuosity of this brilliantly executed novel. No one but Tim Powers could have written it, and his characteristic ingenuity is on full display throughout. Like the best of Powers's earlier work, Declare is a vivid, vibrant hybrid that breaks new ground and makes most of its competitors in the overcrowded fantasy field seem thin, derivative, and fatally underdeveloped.

--Bill Sheehan

Bill Sheehan reviews horror, suspense, and science fiction for Cemetery Dance, The New York Review of Science Fiction, and other publications. His book-length critical study of the fiction of Peter Straub, At the Foot of the Story Tree, has been published by Subterranean Press (www.subterraneanpress.com).

Library Journal

As a young man, Alan Hale, working for British Intelligence, failed to stop a mysterious Soviet mission on Mt. Ararat and re-entered civilian life. Twenty years later, he must return to Turkey to accomplish the mission that has haunted him since the end of World War II. Powers (Earthquake Weather), known for his complex fantasy tales, here turns in a classic spy novel with a supernatural twist that ties Lawrence of Arabia to the fall of the Iron Curtain. Fans of John le Carr will appreciate the authentic period detail, meticulous descriptions of the business of espionage, and portraits of actual spies, such as Kim Philby; others will enjoy the suspense and chilling atmosphere of Cold War antics, as well as Powers's intricate chronology and plotting. [The publisher is marketing this as Powers's mainstream breakout novel.--Ed.]--Devon Thomas, Hass Assoc., Ann Arbor, MI Copyright 2000 Cahners Business Information.

Kirkus Reviews

Powers, for more than 20 years the reigning king of adult historical fantasy (Earthquake Weather, 1997, etc.), surpasses himself—and enters richly promising new territory—with this intricate, inventive tale of Cold War skullduggery and close encounters with malevolent supernatural entities. The increasingly Byzantine action begins in 1963, when a telephone message delivered in code draws Oxford lecturer (and"retired" secret agent) Andrew Hale back into an intrigue that dates from his wartime service. The narrative thereafter shifts among that present time and several past sequences—the most crucial being a 1948 disaster on Mount Ararat, when men under Hale's command were slaughtered by enemy forces not of this earth. As Hale reenters the duplicitous world of international espionage, Powers gradually reveals the hidden meanings of his former relationships with sinister"contacts" (such as his superior at Whitehall, double-talking James Theodora, and wily Armenian powerbroker Hakob Mammalian); femme fatale Elena Cezina-Bendiga, a Spanish Civil War heroine and passionate Communist ("The Soviet State is my husband, and I am a devoted, obedient wife"); and the historical Kim Philby, the notorious double agent, whose career and personal history eerily parallel Andrew Hale's. T.E. Lawrence also figures here, as do the biblical Ark and various personages and (shifting)"shapes" from The Arabian Nights, as the story careens across Europe and the Middle East, with illuminating side trips to Berlin, Paris, and London during WW II. All this is expertly linked to Operation Declare, designed by British Intelligence to subvert"the Soviet attempt to awaken what slept uneasilyonthetop of Mount Ararat" and unleash its destructive powers. Echoes of Pynchon's V and Gravity's Rainbow (there are many) aside, this is an exciting work, of great originality—and its force is heightened by the skill with which the elusive Philby is characterized and Hale and Elena both made believably complex and potentially tragic figures. There's never been a novel quite like Declare (though comparisons to Neal Stephenson's recent Cryptonomicon will doubtless be made): one of the protean Powers's most absorbing and rewarding creations. Author tour

From the Publisher

Dazzling . . . a tour de force, a brilliant blend of John le Carre spy fiction with the otherworldly.” — Dean Koontz

“There’s never been a novel quite like DECLARE…one of the protean Powers’s most absorbing and rewarding creations.” — Kirkus Starred Review

“Highly ingenious . . . No one else writes like Powers, and Declare finds him at the top of his game.” — San Francisco Chronicle

“DECLARE is classic Tim Powers, his best novel since Last Call, and possibly his best to date.” — Locus Magazine

“Tim Powers is a brilliant writer. Declare’s occult subtext for the deeper Cold War is wonderfully original and brilliantly imagined.” — William Gibson

San Francisco Chronicle

Highly ingenious . . . No one else writes like Powers, and Declare finds him at the top of his game.

William Gibson

Tim Powers is a brilliant writer. Declare’s occult subtext for the deeper Cold War is wonderfully original and brilliantly imagined.

Locus Magazine

DECLARE is classic Tim Powers, his best novel since Last Call, and possibly his best to date.

Dean Koontz

Dazzling . . . a tour de force, a brilliant blend of John le Carre spy fiction with the otherworldly.

San Francisco Chronicle

Highly ingenious . . . No one else writes like Powers, and Declare finds him at the top of his game.

APRIL 2011 - AudioFile

This fine spy novel covering WWII and beyond has great action, great characters (including well-known real-life personages such as British turncoat Kim Philby), and a captivating dash of science fiction/fantasy. What lies on Mount Ararat, where Noah’s Ark went to ground as the flood receded? Whatever it is has been fatal to visitors. Simon Prebble provides various British accents and uses his vast skill to enliven fascinating characters from many locales, particularly the Middle East. In particular, he knows how to inject tension and urgency into the plot. D.R.W. © AudioFile 2011, Portland, Maine

Product Details

BN ID:	2940169834031
Publisher:	Blackstone Audio, Inc.
Publication date:	12/22/2010
Edition description:	Unabridged
Sales rank:	1,240,550

Read an Excerpt

Chapter One

London, 1963

Of my Base Metal may be filed a Key,
That shall unlock the Door he howls without.

—Omar Klayyam, The Rubaiyat, Edward J. FitzGerald translation

From the telephone a man's accentless voice said, "Here's a list: Chaucer ... Malory. . ."

Hale's face was suddenly chilly.

The voice went on. "Wyatt ... Spenser . . .

Hale had automatically started counting, and Spenser made four. "I imagine so," he said, hastily and at random. "Uh, 'which being dead many years, shall after revive,' is the bit you're thinking of. It's Shakespeare, actually, Mr.-" He nearly said Mr Goudie, which was the name of the Common Room porter who had summoned him to the telephone and who was still rocking on his heels by the door of the registrar clerk's unlocked office, and then he nearly said Mr Philby; "-Fonebone," he finished lamely, trying to mumble the made-up name. He clenched his fist around the receiver to hold it steady, and with his free hand he shakily pushed a stray lock of sandy-blond hair back out of his eyes.

"Shakespeare," said the man's careful voice, and Hale realized that he should have phrased his response for more apparent continuity "Oh well. Five pounds, was it? I can pay you at lunch."

For a moment neither of them spoke.

"Lunch," Hale said with no inflection. What is it supposed to be now, he thought, a contrary and then a parallel or example. "Better than fasting, a—uh—sandwich would be." Good Lord.

"It might be a picnic lunch, the fools," the bland voice went on, "arid here we are barely in January-so dobring a raincoat, right?"

Repeat it back, Hale remembered. "Raincoat, I follow you." He kept himself from asking, uselessly, Picnic, certainly-raincoat, right-but will anyone even be there, this time? Are we going to be doing this charade every tenth winter for the rest of my life? I'll be fifty next time.

The caller hung up then, and after a few seconds Hale realized that he'd been holding his breath and started breathing again. Goudie was still standing in the doorway, probably listening, so Hale added, "If I mentioned it in the lectures, you must assume it's liable to be in the exam." He exhaled unhappily at the end of the sentence. Play-acting into a dead telephone now, he thought; you're scoring idiot-goals all round. To cover the blunder, he said, "Hello? Hello?" as if he hadn't realized the other man had rung off, and then he replaced the receiver. Not too bad a job, he told himself, all these years later. He stepped back from the desk arid forced himself not to pull out his handkerchief to wipe his face.

Raincoat. Well, they had said that ten years ago too, and nothing had happened at all, then or since.

"Thank you, Goudie," he said to the porter, and then walked past him, back across the dark old Common Room carpet to the cup of tea that was still steaming in the lamplight beside the humming typewriter. Irrationally, it seemed odd to him that the tea should still be hot, after this. He didn't resume his seat, but picked up his sheaf of handwritten test questions and stared at the ink lines.

Ten years ago. Eventually he would cast his mind further back, and think of the war-surplus corrugated-steel bomb shelter on the marshy plain below Ararat on the Turkish-Soviet border, and then of a night in Berlin before that; but right now, defensively, he was thinking of that somewhat more recent, and local, summons-just to pace the snowy lanes of Green Park in London for an hour, as it had happened, alone and with at least diminishing anxiety, and of the subsequent forty hours of useless walks and cab rides from one old fallback location to another, down the slushy streets and across the bridges of London, cursing the confusing new buildings and intersections. There had been no telephone numbers or addresses that he would have dared to try, and in any case they would almost certainly all have been obsolete by that time. He had eventually given it up and taken the train back to Oxford, having incidentally missed a job interview; a fair calamity, in those days.

At least there was no real work to do today, and none tomorrow either. He had only come over to the college so early this morning to use fresh carbon paper and one of the electric typewriters.

Between the tall curtains to his left he could see clouds like hammered tin over the library's mansard roof, and bare young oak branches waving in the wind that rattled the casement latches. He would probably be wanting a raincoat, a literal one. God knew where he'd wind up having lunch. Not at a picnic, certainly.

He folded the papers and tucked them into his coat pocket, then ratcheted the half-typed sheets out of the typewriter, and switched the machine off.

He hoped it would still be working right, and not have got gummed up by some undergraduate teaching assistant, when he got backwhich would be, he was confident, in at most a couple of days. The con fidence was real, and he knew that it should have buoyed him up.

He sighed and patted the pockets of his trousers for his car keys.

The wooded hills above the River Wey were overhung in wet fog, and he drove most of the way home from the college in second gear, with the side-lamps on. When at last he steered his old Vauxhall into Morlan Lane, he tossed his cigarette out the window and shifted down to first gear, and he lifted his foot from the accelerator as the front corner of his white bungalow came dimly into view.

When he had first got the job as assistant lecturer back in 1953, he had rented a room right in Weybridge, and he remembered now bicycling back to the old landlady's house after classes in those long-ago late afternoons, from old habit favoring alleys too narrow for motor vehicles and watching for unfamiliar vans parked or driving past on the birchshaded lanes-tensing at any absence of birdcalls in the trees, coasting close by the old red-iron V.R. post-box and darting a glance at it to look for any hasty scratches around the keyhole-and alert too for any agitation among the dogs in the yards he passed, especially if their barking should ever be simultaneous with a gust of wind or several humans shouting at once.

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