John Berlyne has been nominated for a World Fantasy Award. His illustrated bibliography of Tim's work, Powers: Secret Histories, was published by PS Publishing. You can see the ballot at the
Locus web site.

Translated Book

• Titán, Ben Bova (La Factoría de Ideas)
• Diáspora, Greg Egan (AJEC)
• El corcel (The Mount), Carol Emshwiller (Alamut)
• El nombre del viento (The Name of the Wind), Patrick Rothfuss (Plaza & Janés)
• El reparador de biblias (The Bible Repairman), Tim Powers (Gigamesh)
• Visión ciega (Blindsight), Peter Watts (Bibliópolis)

Translated Story

• "Un alma embotellada" ("A soul in a bottle"), Tim Powers (El reparador de biblias (The Bible Repairman), Gigamesh)
• "El camino de bajada" ("The low road"), Tim Powers (El reparador de biblias (The Bible Repairman), Gigamesh)
• "Dondequiera que se oculten" ("Wherever it hides"), Tim Powers (El reparador de biblias (The Bible Repairman), Gigamesh)
• "El reparador de biblias" ("The Bible repairman"), Tim Powers (El reparador de biblias (The Bible Repairman), Gigamesh)

It's a book proposal I sent to Lester del Rey in 1979, right after he bought The Drawing of the Dark, and, since I didn't know any better in those days, it's three chapters and an insanely detailed outline. Del Rey rejected it, of course, and twenty years ago I gave the manuscript to Joe Stefko, and he recently dug it out and decided that the (my rough guess) 20,000 word outline was so insanely detailed that it adequately continued and finished the story begun in the first three chapters. Altogether the thing is probably about 35,000 words.

Serena and I might get to visit the set of the Pirates of the Caribbean 4: On Stranger Tides on Tuesday, the 17th of August. If it works out, I'll describe here what went on.

News is starting to surface on the filming of Pirates of the Caribbean 4: On Stranger Tides. Several people emailed me with links and I thought you'd like to see what they found.

• Dailymotion has posted the official Pirates of the Caribbean 4: On Stranger Tides Trailer
• RadarOnline.com has posted video and photos from the Maui, Hawaii set of the cast of the Pirates of the Caribbean 4: On Stranger Tides
• Cominsoon.net reports on the RadarOnline.com details of Pirates of the Caribbean 4: On Stranger Tides

Don Glover sent us a link of a video that he did with Tim taken at this year's Westercon.

I'm the fellow who does work at SF Site. My title there is Publisher/Managing Editor but only because it looks good on the letterhead. I also work on a handful of other sites like those for Charles de Lint and Stephen Jones.

I first met Tim Powers back in 1984. I was a co-chair of the World Fantasy Convention held in my home town. It had been a hectic weekend. For example, The Talisman by Stephen King and Peter Straub had just been released and just about everyone wanted to get their book signed and spend a moment with the authors. Both of them were gracious in wanting to accommodate everybody.

On Sunday after the banquet, the planned events were wrapping up and I had just left the head table and undid my tie when I was approached by Tim and James Blaylock who stopped me to introduce themselves. I just about swooned. Two of my then and still favourite authors were in town. They thanked me for the grand time they were having and gave me a copy of Offering The Bicentennial Edition of The Complete Twelve Hours of the Night.

I've been re-introduced to Tim Powers many times since. I still buy all of his books and read them immediately and read them again some time later. I'm still a fan and he is still one of my favourite authors. I only hope I can keep up the quality of information and detail that John has gathered and posted. If not, I imagine he'll let me know.

This is not to say there has been nothing to report either! Ironically the last year or so has contained some fantastically newsworthy Powers related stuff - not least the announcement of Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides, Tim being announced as Guest of Honour at the 2011 Worldcon in Reno, the publication of quite a few new editions all over the world, the publication and acclaimed for Secret Histories, Tim and Serena's first visit to the UK and a bunch of other stuff.

Hopefully we'll be able to bring you some detail on all these stories in due course as we're making some admin changes here at the site that are aimed to get things moving once again. More soon!

Recently PS Publishing very kindly agreed to produce advanced reading copies - forty were printed up a few weeks ago, in glorious, rich full colour and on glossy 130gsm stock and, even though I say so myself, they look quite stunning. They've now been distributed to the trade and review community and we can only sit back and await the verdict.

Of course, now this thing is actually "out there" as it were, I'm officially crapping it! But, if this first review is anything to go by, it's just possible that I may not have just wasted the last eight years of my life!

Jonathan Strahan Reviews Secret Histories on his blog, Notes from the Other Side of the World.