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Although mainly a prolific, very brilliant novelist, Tim Powers occasionally tries his hand at the short story. The Bible Repairman and Other Stories -- Powers' first new collection since 2005 -- assembles five stories and a novella, where he exhibits his extraordinary talent as a fantasist and his uncommon imaginative power.

The title story is an enticing, offbeat tale featuring a jack-of-all-trades whose most peculiar talent is saving ghosts and lost souls in return for his tainted, murderer's blood. The story is endowed with the magical atmosphere of a dark fairy tale apt to take the reader in a fantastic, spellbinding world.

In "The Hour of Babel," a weird piece with a distinct SF taste, the lethal appearance (and fall) of an angel in a pizza parlour area is reenacted thirty-one years later with devastating effects.

The brilliant, superbly told "Parallel Lines" depicts a twin sister's desperate attempts to come back from beyond the grave, while the outstanding "A Soul in a Bottle" is a beautiful, tender ghost story describing the odd encounter between a dead female writer and a lonely book collector.

To me, the weakest story is "A Journey of Only Two Paces," a rather improbable piece where the executor of a friend's will gets caught in a strange, unfathomable situation full of literary quotations and Kabbalistic rites. For those who enjoyed Powers' novel The Stress of Her Regard, in which the romantic poets Byron and Shelley have to face evil Greek vampires, the present volume includes an unexpected, quite enjoyable sequel, the novella "A Time to Cast Away Stones," set in Greece between 1824 and 1825, whose main character is the poets' associate Edward John Trelawny who becomes an ally of the Greek rebels and forced to fight against the power of supernatural evil.

Both fans of historical fantasy and dark fiction enthusiasts are bound to greatly appreciate this fascinating collection.

Mario Guslandi lives in Milan, Italy, and is a long-time fan of dark fiction. His book reviews have appeared on a number of genre websites such as The Alien Online, Infinity Plus, Necropsy, The Agony Column and Horrorwold.