Fourth “Pirates of the Caribbean” looked good, says “On Stranger Tides” author Tim Powers

Author Tim Powers, who’s coming to Oklahoma City’s SoonerCon in June, said he enjoyed the fourth “Pirates of the Caribbean” film – but he admits to a bias.

“It looked good to me,” he said.  “You know, I’m partial.”

“My wife and I went to the premiere at Disneyland,”  Powers said. “We got to walk up the ‘black carpet’ … and saw Johnny Depp, and Keith Richards, and Jodie Foster somehow.”

The movie features Blackbeard and the Fountain of Youth, which are featured in the “On Stranger Tides” novel, but Powers says much of the rest was changed for the “Pirates” film.

“Given that it was the fourth installment of a fairly complicated series, there was no way it could have a lot to do with my book, so I wasn’t expecting much overlap.  But even when people make movies specifically of books, I don’t think they’re under any obligation to follow the book very closely.  Whole different form and all.”

Fans of adventure fiction with a supernatural twist will find much to enjoy in Powers’ “On Stranger Tides,” which features a former puppeteer drawn into a world of the supernatural when he’s pressed into service on a pirate ship.  Powers said he extensively researches the real world events and settings in his books so that when fantastic elements are introduced, they seem believable.

“I want it to be not too big of a speed bump when the supernatural stuff begins to intrude,” Powers said.  “I really am always aware that the supernatural stuff is plain bogus, and we’ve moved from reality into just imaginary.  And I don’t want that shift to jolt or jar the reader, I want them to sort of go along.”