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Tim Powers -- Expiration Date
Aug. 15th, 2005 07:55 amAfter I finished Last Call I decided to dive into the next book in the trilogy, 1996's Expiration Date.
I don't think I've read Expiration Date since it was new; I know I've read Last Call at least twice before. I didn't remember much of Expiration Date beyond a few broad strokes. This is a book that portrays some of the denizens of a Lost Angeles drug subculture unlike anything I've ever seen before. their drug of choice: ghosts, which they snort up through clove cigarettes or straws!
The novel kisck off when an 11-year-old boy with the unlikely name of Koot Hoomie Parganas decides he's had enough of his parent's strange ways and destroys the bust of Dante on the mantel, and dsicovers a small glass brick inside the bust. The glass brick actually contains a powerful ghost, whose release from the "masking" bust sets the city of Los Angeles alight with ectoplasmic energy.
It also draws the attention of a number of unsavory characters; small-time TV producer Loretta deLarava, her former employee Pete Sullivan (and his sister Sukie), one-armed enigma Sherman Oaks, a disgraced psychonanlyst, a former TV child star who has been missing for 17 years, and a huge number of ghosts.
Powers draws them into a pulse-pounding thriller unlike anything else I've ever read. It's extravagant imagining that doesn't work for everyone. Powers's fans tend to be fanatical; those that like his stuff REALLY like his stuff.
I'd describe Powers work as a kind of magic realism; as if Garcia Marquez had chosen to write thrillers (set in Orange County, CA... and in English.) Powers might very well be the best fantasy writer working in English.
The first time I read this, I didn't catch the many subtle connections to Last Call. In the third volume, Earthquake Weather, most of the surviving characters from both earlier books are dragged back onstage. On re-reading Expiration Date, I caught a cameo by Arky Mavranos's blue Suburban early in the book, and at least one other character from Last Call. Clearly Powers knew where he was going with this trilogy, and set up a number of "easter eggs" that will pay off in the concluding volume.
I don't think I've read Expiration Date since it was new; I know I've read Last Call at least twice before. I didn't remember much of Expiration Date beyond a few broad strokes. This is a book that portrays some of the denizens of a Lost Angeles drug subculture unlike anything I've ever seen before. their drug of choice: ghosts, which they snort up through clove cigarettes or straws!
The novel kisck off when an 11-year-old boy with the unlikely name of Koot Hoomie Parganas decides he's had enough of his parent's strange ways and destroys the bust of Dante on the mantel, and dsicovers a small glass brick inside the bust. The glass brick actually contains a powerful ghost, whose release from the "masking" bust sets the city of Los Angeles alight with ectoplasmic energy.
It also draws the attention of a number of unsavory characters; small-time TV producer Loretta deLarava, her former employee Pete Sullivan (and his sister Sukie), one-armed enigma Sherman Oaks, a disgraced psychonanlyst, a former TV child star who has been missing for 17 years, and a huge number of ghosts.
Powers draws them into a pulse-pounding thriller unlike anything else I've ever read. It's extravagant imagining that doesn't work for everyone. Powers's fans tend to be fanatical; those that like his stuff REALLY like his stuff.
I'd describe Powers work as a kind of magic realism; as if Garcia Marquez had chosen to write thrillers (set in Orange County, CA... and in English.) Powers might very well be the best fantasy writer working in English.
The first time I read this, I didn't catch the many subtle connections to Last Call. In the third volume, Earthquake Weather, most of the surviving characters from both earlier books are dragged back onstage. On re-reading Expiration Date, I caught a cameo by Arky Mavranos's blue Suburban early in the book, and at least one other character from Last Call. Clearly Powers knew where he was going with this trilogy, and set up a number of "easter eggs" that will pay off in the concluding volume.
