''Declare'' (

2000 File:2000 Events Collage.png, From left, clockwise: Protests against Bush v. Gore after the 2000 United States presidential election; Heads of state meet for the Millennium Summit; The International Space Station in its infant form as seen from S ...

) is a

supernatural Supernatural refers to phenomena or entities that are beyond the laws of nature. The term is derived from Medieval Latin , from Latin (above, beyond, or outside of) + (nature) Though the corollary term "nature", has had multiple meanings si ...

spy novel by American author

Tim Powers Timothy Thomas Powers (born February 29, 1952) is an American science fiction and fantasy author. Powers has won the World Fantasy Award twice for his critically acclaimed novels '' Last Call'' and ''Declare''. His 1987 novel ''On Stranger Tide ...

. The novel presents a

secret history A secret history (or shadow history) is a revisionist interpretation of either fictional or real history which is claimed to have been deliberately suppressed, forgotten, or ignored by established scholars. "Secret history" is also used to desc ...

of the

Cold War The Cold War is a term commonly used to refer to a period of geopolitical tension between the United States and the Soviet Union and their respective allies, the Western Bloc and the Eastern Bloc. The term '' cold war'' is used because t ...

, and earned several major fantasy fiction awards.

Plot summary

The non-linear plot, shifting back and forth in time from the 1940s to the 1960s, mainly concerns Andrew Hale, a scholar and occasional operative for a secret

British British may refer to: Peoples, culture, and language * British people, nationals or natives of the United Kingdom, British Overseas Territories, and Crown Dependencies. ** Britishness, the British identity and common culture * British English, ...

spy organization. Early in

World War II World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the World War II by country, vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great power ...

, Hale is recruited as part of Operation Declare, an investigation of the true nature of several mysterious beings living on

Mount Ararat Mount Ararat or , ''Ararat''; or is a snow-capped and dormant compound volcano in the extreme east of Turkey. It consists of two major volcanic cones: Greater Ararat and Little Ararat. Greater Ararat is the highest peak in Turkey and th ...

, and how the

Soviet Union The Soviet Union,. officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. (USSR),. was a transcontinental country that spanned much of Eurasia from 1922 to 1991. A flagship communist state, it was nominally a federal union of fifteen nationa ...

has attempted to harness their vast supernatural powers. In this effort he is opposed by real-life

communist Communism (from Latin la, communis, lit=common, universal, label=none) is a far-left sociopolitical, philosophical, and economic ideology and current within the socialist movement whose goal is the establishment of a communist society, ...

traitor

Kim Philby Harold Adrian Russell "Kim" Philby (1 January 191211 May 1988) was a British intelligence officer and a double agent for the Soviet Union. In 1963 he was revealed to be a member of the Cambridge Five, a spy ring which had divulged British s ...

, a supporting character in the novel, who did travel extensively in the region. The novel proposes that

the Great Game The Great Game is the name for a set of political, diplomatic and military confrontations that occurred through most of the 19th century and the beginning of the 20th century – involving the rivalry of the British Empire and the Russian Empi ...

, the prolonged geopolitical conflict between the

and Russian empires in the 19th century over domination of Central Asia, was actually part of Operation Declare. The

Okhrana The Department for Protecting the Public Security and Order (russian: Отделение по охранению общественной безопасности и порядка), usually called Guard Department ( rus, Охранное отд ...

, or Tsarist secret police, are cast as the Russian counterpart to Operation Declare. A sub-plot concerns Hale's on-off romance with Spaniard Elena Teresa Ceniza-Bendiga. A devoted

Comintern The Communist International (Comintern), also known as the Third International, was a Soviet-controlled international organization founded in 1919 that advocated world communism. The Comintern resolved at its Second Congress to "struggle by ...

agent and

lapsed Catholic A lapsed Catholic is a Catholic who is non-practicing. Such a person may still identify as a Catholic, and remains one according to canon law. Excommunication or an act of defection only separate a person from the sacraments. Nothing can terminate ...

when she first meets Hale, Ceniza-Bendiga eventually rejects communism. While imprisoned in Moscow's notorious

Lubyanka prison The Lubyanka ( rus, Лубянка, p=lʊˈbʲankə) is the popular name for the building which contains the headquarters of the FSB, and its affiliated prison, on Lubyanka Square in the Meshchansky District of Moscow, Russia. It is a large Ne ...

, she returns to her faith upon discovering the horrible motivation behind the deliberate mass starvation and violent political purges of Stalinist Russia: the placation of an entity called Zat al-Dawahi ("Mistress of Misfortunes") or Machikha Nash ("our stepmother"), a demonic being who demanded

human sacrifice Human sacrifice is the act of killing one or more humans as part of a ritual, which is usually intended to please or appease gods, a human ruler, an authoritative/priestly figure or spirits of dead ancestors or as a retainer sacrifice, wherei ...

in exchange for protecting the nation from foreign invasion.

Writing

In a brief afterword, Powers discusses some of his sources and writing methods. Philby's father,

St. John Philby Harry St John Bridger Philby, CIE (3 April 1885 – 30 September 1960), also known as Jack Philby or Sheikh Abdullah ( ar, الشيخ عبدالله), was a British Arabist, adviser, explorer, writer, and Colonial Office intelligence officer. ...

, was a noted

Arabist An Arabist is someone, often but not always from outside the Arab world, who specialises in the study of the Arabic language and culture (usually including Arabic literature). Origins Arabists began in medieval Muslim Spain, which lay on th ...

whose book ''The Empty Quarter'' (on the desert region ''

Rub' al Khali The Rub' al KhaliOther standardized transliterations include: / . The ' is the assimilated Arabic definite article, ', which can also be transliterated as '. (; ar, ٱلرُّبْع ٱلْخَالِي (), the "Empty Quarter") is the sand des ...

'') was extensively used as source material for the novel.

Rudyard Kipling Joseph Rudyard Kipling ( ; 30 December 1865 – 18 January 1936)'' The Times'', (London) 18 January 1936, p. 12. was an English novelist, short-story writer, poet, and journalist. He was born in British India, which inspired much of his work. ...

's 1901 novel ''

Kim Kim or KIM may refer to: Names * Kim (given name) * Kim (surname) ** Kim (Korean surname) *** Kim family (disambiguation), several dynasties **** Kim family (North Korea), the rulers of North Korea since Kim Il-sung in 1948 ** Kim, Vietnamese f ...

'', about the Great Game, also supplied inspiration and epigraphs. Powers's self-imposed rules prohibited him from disregarding established historical facts and timelines, instead finding alternate explanations for events (e.g., a real-life 1883 earthquake near Mount Ararat is part of the novel's backstory; and a peripheral comment attributed to British Army officer T. E. Lawrence by playwright

George Bernard Shaw George Bernard Shaw (26 July 1856 – 2 November 1950), known at his insistence simply as Bernard Shaw, was an Irish playwright, critic, polemicist and political activist. His influence on Western theatre, culture and politics extended from ...

is interpreted as proof of Lawrence's involvement in Operation Declare.)

Reception

In 2001 ''Declare'' won both the

World Fantasy Award The World Fantasy Awards are a set of awards given each year for the best fantasy fiction published during the previous calendar year. Organized and overseen by the World Fantasy Convention, the awards are given each year at the eponymous ann ...

for Best Novel and the

International Horror Guild Award The International Horror Guild Award (also known as the IHG Award) was an accolade recognizing excellence in the field of horror/dark fantasy, presented by the International Horror Guild (IHG) from 1995 to 2008. The IHG Awards were determined by ...

for Best Novel, and was nominated for a Locus Award. It also appeared on the final ballot for the

Nebula Award The Nebula Awards annually recognize the best works of science fiction or fantasy published in the United States. The awards are organized and awarded by the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America (SFWA), a nonprofit association of prof ...

, however it was later determined to be ineligible because of the limited edition that appeared the year prior to the trade edition. It was published in the UK for the first time in 2010 and subsequently shortlisted for the 2011

Arthur C. Clarke Award The Arthur C. Clarke Award is a British award given for the best science fiction novel first published in the United Kingdom during the previous year. It is named after British author Arthur C. Clarke, who gave a grant to establish the award i ...

for best science fiction novel.

References

External links

*
The Works of Tim Powers
the author's authorized website, has a
interview
focusing on ''Declare'', and an extensiv
publishing history
of the book with images from and of the various editions. *Power

on the genesis of the book in an interview in the March 1998 issue of '' Locus''. *H
comments
on its relationship to actual history and

Roman Catholicism The Catholic Church, also known as the Roman Catholic Church, is the largest Christian church, with 1.3 billion baptized Catholics worldwide . It is among the world's oldest and largest international institutions, and has played a ...

in an interview in the February 2002 ''Locus''. {{World Fantasy Award Best Novel 2000-2009 2000 American novels 2000s fantasy novels Novels set in the 1940s Novels set in the 1960s American fantasy novels Novels by Tim Powers Cold War spy novels Novels about The Great Game Secret histories Jinn in popular culture World Fantasy Award for Best Novel-winning works Nonlinear narrative novels Mount Ararat