Three Days to Never - Tim Powers

The premise of science fiction/fantasy is that there is so much more to reality than what meets the eye and is subsequently interpreted by the brain. Once you get that, the genre can go on to have all the fun and games that it likes, as long as it’s consistent and credible. If there’s a stimulating conversation going on with your unconscious, the storyline can be anything at all.
 
In Tim Powers’ novels, the particular premise is that events have a far more fascinating explanation that we imagine. In Three Days to Never, historical figures such as Chaplin and Philby lead the same lives, but there is another dimension to them of which we knew nothing.
 
Of his equally brilliant Declare, Powers said: “I made it an ironclad rule that I could not change or disregard any of the recorded facts, nor rearrange any days of the calendar—and then I tried to figure out what momentous but unrecorded fact could explain them all.”
 
The same principle is at work in this book set in 1980s California. I love the grittiness in Tim Powers’ books, that sense of dirt and oil which lets you know that we are in the real world, and where the supernatural is so called simply because we haven’t noticed or woken up to it. It brought to mind Soviet Russia’s serious research into telekinesis at this time and I thought how the pragmatic militaries of the superpowers would unhesitatingly add any such proven abilities—and magic, too—to their armament as one more useful element. Take the talent and weaponize it.
 
Historical events are unchanged and respected, but the causes now acquire a supernatural depth. The story, though, is about vulnerable individuals. We care about Frank and his daughter, Daphne, and the danger they face seems very real.
 
Powers’ writing has a wacky seriousness that I delight in. The supernatural can be induced or triggered by a VHS tape or a device in a garden shed; Charlie Chaplin is linked with Einstein in strange, mystical subterfuge; and Mossad—as no-nonsense a secret service as you can get—drive around with a semi-alive head in the back of their van that they use as a kabbalistic antenna.