Keeping Time - Hardcover

BEAR, David

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0312451105 ISBN 13: 9780312451103

Publisher: St. Martin's, 1979

About this title

From the Inside Flap

Jack Hughes can hardly remember how the troubles began.  Oh sure, those gas-wars in the eighties really slowed things down, but you got used to riding as bicycle through old Manhattan, and if you were lucky, you might still find an electric cab humming at its plug.  The elevator that elevated was a rare find indeed, but how else could he have afforded a high-rise penthouse on Park Avenue?  No, it was something else, something even worse than deserted streets and dehydrated dinners.  Sometime about twenty years back, people had simply ceased to care.

Reading over "Today's Suicides" in the paper is enough to bring out the pessimist in anyone, and considering the fact that he's probably the oldest - if not the last - private detective around, it's a wonder that Jack Hughes didn't take the leap himself ages ago.  But cases like this one are worth living for; it seems that not only is it possible to save small amounts of time, it is possible to rob someone of the time they have saved.  Aging movie-star Gregory Darling can't imagine life without his transducer (it's the key to the youthful virility that makes life so fun); Lea Dark is hoarding days that she hopes to enjoy someday in outer space; Carlo Mountain has bought time because, after all, for the man who has everything, what else is left to buy?  Senator Victor Sieg knows that, as a politician, he's going to need to have time on his side, whereas novelist Allison Bashcock is simply so bored that she's glad to lock a few dull evenings away.

In KEEPING TIME, the precious moments that these five prominent citizens have set aside are missing, and we follow Hughes as he tries to find out why - before time runs out for all of them.  Along the way, we get a glimpse through the eyes of a brilliant young novelist.  David Bear has managed to create the perfect marriage of science fiction and detective story, and the result is a tour de force of wit and imagination that combines the best of both worlds.

From the Back Cover

In Manhattan, in 1999, it is possible to save small amounts of time.
It is also possible to rob someone of the time they have saved.

Edition details

• Publisher: St. Martin's
• Publication date: 1979
• ISBN 10: 0312451105
• ISBN 13: 9780312451103
• Binding: Hardcover
• Language: English
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 236