Two Science Fiction Adventures: The Skies Discrowned and An Epitaph in Rust

At the start of his celebrated career—before his widespread acclamation as one of the most original contemporary fantasists in America—Tim Powers published a pair of exciting science fiction adventures. Long considered lost classics, these two novels were early indications that a true master had arrived on the science fiction/fantasy scene.

In The Skies Discrowned, a young artist and swordsman becomes a political criminal, marked for death after witnessing an assassination. Francisco Rovzar’s strange odyssey through his planet’s lawless underworld and his transformation from naïve young boy to hardened freedom fighter is an intriguing adventure with action on every page.

An Epitaph in Rust unfolds in a grim future Los Angeles, following a young man who escapes a bleak life of servitude in a monastery. Hunted for a seemingly insignificant transgression in a city driven mad by the mayor’s explosive destruction and the subsequent murderous rampage of the android police, young Thomas finds refuge with a troupe of actors who have more than Shakespeare on their minds.