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Nov. 8th, 2006
In the afterword to The Atrocity Archives, Charlie Stross mentions how, partway through writing, he heard about Tim Powers' Declare, which also combines spying and the supernatural. Since Stross suggested that anyone who liked Atrocity would probably like it and because I was, in my younger days, a keen reader of John Le Carré, I decided to give it a whirl. Here's how things panned out:
Andrew Hale grows up a lonely child, first in the Cotswolds and later at boarding school. Following the death of his mother, an ex-nun, and the outbreak of the second world war, Hale decides to sign up for military service and quickly finds himself working as a radio operator in occupied Paris. There he meets Elena, a young Spanish communist, learns about strange beings who live in the Heaviside Layer and discovers arcane ways to avoid being observed. On his return to England, he becomes increasingly caught up in a complicated SOE operation called Declare before leaving under something of a cloud to return to education.
Fast forward to 1963, where Hale, now a respectable academic, receives an old SOE activation code which summons him to London. After a meeting with Macmillan, he learns from his old handlers that Operation Declare is still active and that he must go to the Middle East immediately to make contact with an old nemesis: Kim Philby. After reliving the fiasco of the first Declare operation and reminiscing about a mission to Berlin in 1945, Hale eventually crosses paths with both Philby and Elena, learning the secret of his parentage in the process.
Despite the strange coincidences — both novels feature characters called Angleton — Declare and Atrocity are very different books. As Stross says, his book was modeled on the style of Len Deighton, whereas Powers explicitly models himself on John Le Carré. Stross sets his novel in the more-or-less present, Powers sets his in the 1940s and 1960s, making heavy use of the history of the period — and, in particular, details from the life of Kim Philby — to flesh things out.
In the end Declare is a good spy novel with supernatural elements, that cleverly weaves its story around the historical details, making you wonder where fact leaves off and fiction begins: it left me wanting to reread Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy and learn more about the Cambridge spy ring, although this has since worn off — I blame my appallingly short attention span...
Andrew Hale grows up a lonely child, first in the Cotswolds and later at boarding school. Following the death of his mother, an ex-nun, and the outbreak of the second world war, Hale decides to sign up for military service and quickly finds himself working as a radio operator in occupied Paris. There he meets Elena, a young Spanish communist, learns about strange beings who live in the Heaviside Layer and discovers arcane ways to avoid being observed. On his return to England, he becomes increasingly caught up in a complicated SOE operation called Declare before leaving under something of a cloud to return to education.
Fast forward to 1963, where Hale, now a respectable academic, receives an old SOE activation code which summons him to London. After a meeting with Macmillan, he learns from his old handlers that Operation Declare is still active and that he must go to the Middle East immediately to make contact with an old nemesis: Kim Philby. After reliving the fiasco of the first Declare operation and reminiscing about a mission to Berlin in 1945, Hale eventually crosses paths with both Philby and Elena, learning the secret of his parentage in the process.
Despite the strange coincidences — both novels feature characters called Angleton — Declare and Atrocity are very different books. As Stross says, his book was modeled on the style of Len Deighton, whereas Powers explicitly models himself on John Le Carré. Stross sets his novel in the more-or-less present, Powers sets his in the 1940s and 1960s, making heavy use of the history of the period — and, in particular, details from the life of Kim Philby — to flesh things out.
In the end Declare is a good spy novel with supernatural elements, that cleverly weaves its story around the historical details, making you wonder where fact leaves off and fiction begins: it left me wanting to reread Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy and learn more about the Cambridge spy ring, although this has since worn off — I blame my appallingly short attention span...