Raise Your Glass!
The Drawing of the Dark
By Tim Powers
9 Oct, 2016
Because My Tears Are Delicious To You
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Every year, Kitchener descends into the beer-fueled riot that is Oktoberfest. Usually I kvetch at the multitude of inconvenient incidents precipitated by one million drunken tourists. (Kitchenerites, of course, can handle their beer.) This year I decided to embrace the abyss. I will review a book about beer. Which one? Tim Power’s 1979 standalone fantasy, The Drawing of the Dark.
Things are looking grim for the West. One by one, Christendom’s strongholds have fallen to S uleiman the Magnificent’s armies. Irish mercenary Brian Duffy, having narrowly surviving the Battle of Mohács, has turned his back on war and settled in Venice. Years later, it seems that Venice too is threatened. When Duffy is offered a job as bouncer in distant Vienna, he is quick to accept.
Duffy’s timing is a bit off. The year is 1529. Vienna is the next stop on Suleiman’s European tour. Even as Duffy makes his way across the Alps, Suleiman and Grand Vizier Ibrahim are even now considering how to conquer the city of Vienna.