In the end the victim’s conscience is seared and he loses his ability to resist without outside help. A Nephilim (like sin) offers a life of endless sensual excitement that leads to the not-always-anticipated gradual effacement of one’s virility, personality, and responsibility. A Nephilim (like sin) is hard to shake, and once it gets a foot-hold (or should I say, a throat-hold), the prey begins to enjoy his captivity. The themes developed by Powers in The Stress are all related to the potency and seductive appeal of sin. There is only One Way to salvation from these evil forces, and the characters spend the entire novel searching for it. The story chronicles Crawford’s attempts to shed the amorous regard of the Nephilim for himself and his poet friends.Ĭertain techniques offer limited release, brief respites from the stress of the Nephilim’s focused attention, but the bond between the Nephilim and man must be definitively severed if there is ever to be any kind of thorough redemption. These poets trade blood for poetic inspiration, but learn that vampires are very possessive and want more than blood. Crawford is catapulted into the world of Keats, Shelley, and Byron, all poets who excel as artists because of their foul union with the Nephilim (remember the Greek Muses). Without giving too much away, let me give the gist of the beginning of the story and briefly discuss Powers’s theological point. "Complicates" doesn’t quite to justice to the ensuing stress that Crawford must endure as one who is the object of a Nephilim’s relentless regard. They are lamiae (vampires) and as you can imagine, this complicates Mr. That’s right, a Nephilim–one of the descendants of that ancient prediluvian union of fallen angels and men (Genesis 6:4). Michael Crawford, a young obstetrician, the night before his wedding day, inadvertently (but not without blame) marries a Nephilim. The story is set in early nineteenth century England and Italy, in the world of the poets John Keats, Percy Shelley, and Lord Byron. Tim Power’s latest novel is now available in paperback. Tim Powers, The Stress of Her Regard (Ace Books, 1991).
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