Medusa's Web - Hardcover

Powers, Tim

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0062262459 ISBN 13: 9780062262455

Publisher: William Morrow & Co, 2016

Synopsis

A phantasmagoric, thrilling, mind-bending tale of speculative fiction in which one man must uncover occult secrets of 1920s Hollywood to save his familyIn the wake of their Aunt Amity s suicide, Scott and Madeline Madden are summoned to Caveat, the eerie, decaying mansion in the Hollywood hills in which they were raised. But their decadent and reclusive cousins, the malicious wheelchair-bound Claimayne and beautiful, bitter Ariel, do not welcome Scott and Madeline s return to the childhood home they all once shared. While Scott desperately wants to go back to their south-of-Sunset lives, he cannot pry his sister away from this haunted House of Usher in the Hollywood Hills that is a conduit for the supernatural.Decorated by bits salvaged from old hotels and movie sets, Caveat hides a dark family secret that stretches back to the golden days of Rudolph Valentino and the silent film era. A collection of hypnotic eight-limbed abstract images inked on paper allows the Maddens to briefly fragment and flatten time to transport themselves into the past and future in visions that are puzzling, terrifying, and mesmerizing. Though their cousins know little about these ancient spiders that provoke unpredictable temporal dislocations, Ariel and Claimayne have been using them for years an addiction that has brought Claimayne to the brink of solipsistic destruction.As Madeline falls more completely under Caveat s spell, Scott discovers that to protect her, he must use the dangerous spiders himself. But will he unravel the mystery of the Madden family s history and finally free them from the past . . . or be pulled deeper, perhaps permanently, into the deadly web?Blending real-life historical and fictional characters with the otherworldly, Medusa s Web is a vivid, chilling, fast-paced read that once again demonstrates multiple-award-winning novelist Tim Powers s imaginative brilliance.Critics Hail Tim Powers A writer of extraordinary imaginative powers. Milwaukee Journal Sentinel [

About this title

Review:

"A new Tim Powers novel is always cause for excitement. His latest is a twisted journey through time travel, possession, old Hollywood, addition, and familial violence."--Publishers Weekly

"[A]n atmospheric and complex supernatural thriller, with an old-time Hollywood frame, and it steadily builds to a frenetic climax."--Booklist

"This novel is as weird as anything Powers has written, but he maintains his usual skillful way of making even the most surreal twists compulsively readable."--Library Journal

Book Description:

From the award-winning author of Hide Me Among the Graves, Last Call, Declare, and Three Days to Never, a phantasmagoric, thrilling, mind-bending tale of speculative fiction in which one man must uncover occult secrets of 1920s Hollywood to save his family.

About this edition

• Publisher: William Morrow & Co
• Publication date: 2016
• ISBN 10: 0062262459
• ISBN 13: 9780062262455
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 358