Fantasy Masterwork of the Week: LAST CALL

October is here, and with it, the re-launch of the Fantasy Masterworks in their stunning (if we do say so ourselves) new cover style! We’ll be featuring each of the launch titles on the blog over the coming weeks and to get the ball rolling, we’re delighted to present Tim Powers’ World Fantasy Award-winning first volume in the Fault Lines trilogy, Last Call.

If you can’t conceive of fantasy that doesn’t involve magic swords, rings of power, perilous quests and farm-boys-with-a-destiny, then look away now; Tim Powers doesn’t do elves or dwarves that read like they’ve just stepped out of a D&D players’ manual. However, if you want myths and legends updated for the modern age and woven seamlessly into a contemporary setting, if you want to lift the curtain and peek behind the scenes into the secret history of the world, if you want to read fantasy written with power and insight and a complete command of the written word, then step right up, good people – have we got a book for you!

The World Fantasy Award-winning novel from the author of The Anubis Gates and Declare.

Twenty years ago Scott Crane abandoned his career as a professional poker player and went into hiding, after a weird high-stakes game played with Tarot cards. But now the cards – and the supernatural powers behind them – have found him again.

Crane’s father killed gangster Bugsy Siegel in 1948 to become the Fisher King, and to keep that power he is determined to kill his son. Now Scott Crane must cross the Mojave Desert to his father’s Perilous Chapel in Las Vegas, and take up the cards again for one last poker duel. And the stakes are the highest he’s ever played for . . . his soul.

Last Call is available as a Fantasy Masterworks paperback and an SF Gateway eBook. You can find more of Tim Powers’ eBooks at his author page on the SF Gateway website, and read about him in his entry in The Encyclopedia of Science Fiction.

AND YOU CAN MEET TIM POWERS, AND MANY OTHER FINE AUTHORS, IN JUST A FEW DAYS!

Tim is visiting for the World Fantasy Convention, which takes place in Brighton this year, and before he heads to the seaside, he will be doing some London-based events:

Saturday 26th October: Tim Powers will be signing at Forbidden Planet on Shaftesbury Avenue, from 1:00 – 2:00pm with fellow fathers of steampunk James P. Blaylock and K.W. Jeter.

Monday 28th October: Join Tim Powers, Kate Griffin and Lavie Tidhar at Blackwells, Charing Cross Road, from 6:30 – 8:00pm for a discussion of their work and the sometimes permeable boundary between fact and fiction.

Thursday 31st October – Sunday 3rd November: World Fantasy Convention!