Expiration Date A fantasy written by Tim Powers in 1996 Reviewed edition by TOR from 1996 A paperback has 540 pages ISBN 0-812-55517-1 Click to rate this book from worst 1 2 3 4 5 to best.

Koot Hoomie Parganas, or Kootie, is a small kid from a Los Angeles family of religious fanatics. One day, Kootie happens to break a bust of Dante and finds a strange glass brick inside. Afraid of what his parents would say, he runs from home, but soon decides to go back - only to find his parents murdered and a strange man with one arm chasing after him. Kootie runs away again, but soon, the man is on his tail again, and doing much better than a stranger chasing a lost kid in Los Angeles should. Not only that. A reward of 20 grand is offered on billboards throughout the city for whoever finds the kid, and Kootie suddenly finds all places too hot to be in. Vaguely feeling that the sudden twist of events has something to do with the glass brick he found in the bust, Kootie starts to investigate it. When he takes it apart, however, he only finds an empty vial - but is almost knocked unconscious when he smells it. If that was not enough, Kootie starts recalling things he never lived through. His pursuers, of course, understand all this. They are ghost eaters, a strange breed of humans that feed on ghosts. And the vial that Kootie had the bad luck of finding contained a very desirable ghost indeed ...

I must admit that I do not particularly enjoy fiction books where the author lets his imagination run too wild. Or, to be more precise, too unrestricted. For me, imagination in a work of fiction needs to observe a small and concise set of self-imposed rules. Without rules, the work gets an unrealistic feel of "everything is possible" ; with rules, the work feels "reasonable if different".

Having said that, it should be pretty clear why I do not particularly like ghost stories. Although it might sound funny, I kinda "understand" why, in a sword-and-sorcery novel, a mage needs to recuperate before casting a spell, or why, in a science-fiction novel, a ship cannot travel faster than light (or the opposite, in both cases :-). But I really do not understand why a ghost cannot be detected over water, why a TV should announce when a ghost is coming, and a lot more :-). It all feels just like too much inventiveness.

Do I feel like a critic now :-) it is not so bad, really, the ghosts and the ghost eaters do act pretty rational once you get to know them better. After that, the story goes off on a wild ride, and is every bit as exciting as any more classical good-vs-evil battle, if not as epic in scale as fantasy fans would like :-). As it seems to give little beyond this excitement, I rate the story a better average.

Rated as average by Ceres on 2001-07-01

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