Call Me a Dreamer

Expiration Date by Tim Powers

My review

rating: 4 of 5 stars
Of the three books in the Fault Lines trilogy, I think Expiration Date is the strongest. It's hard hitting and not for those with weak stomachs, but his primary viewpoint characters are sympathetic and believable.

One of the things I've noticed about his works is the way they draw on real-world facts (generally about various famous people, but also scientific news items and other things we see as true) to strengthen the sense of reality about everything we read in his books. For example, much of what he says about Thomas Edison can be found in any biography, but in Powers' hands, these verifiable facts, such as Edison's work selling newspapers and candy on trains when he was twelve, lend credence to the fantastic things he says about Edison. Reading Powers' books, I often find myself contemplating looking some little tidbit of information up, but I'm unwilling to take the time away from the story and wind up trusting him, just because so much of what he's told me fits into what I believe to be true.

View all my reviews.

I'm still working on Expiration Date. I'm very glad that lnhammer asked whether I planned on reading the whole trilogy. What's really weird is that I owned all three books, but had very foggy memories of them. Much of what I'd expected to find in Last Call was actually in Expiration Date, so I obviously associated the two, but I think I read them each so far apart from each other, that many of the connections between the three books were lost on me.

I'm still working on Earthquake Weather and will post a review of it, and possibly of the three books in the series as a whole, once I've finished it.