Buying Time
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3.9 • 15 Ratings
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- $7.99
Publisher Description
The Nebula Award–winning author of The Forever War explores a world where time is money—and for some, both are running out . . .
The Stileman Process is a medical miracle: Every ten years or so, you can restore youth and health to your aging, ailing body—as long as you can pay the enormous fee. The scientific advancement has altered the twenty-first-century world even more than space travel.
Dallas Barr is one of the oldest men on Earth, and now he needs to repeat the procedure. But while scrambling desperately for his next essential million, he meets Maria, a woman from a previous life—and makes two chilling discoveries: Not all Stileman "immortals" were created the same. And their days may be more numbered than they think . . .
From the author of The Hemingway Hoax and Camouflage, and the recipient of multiple science fiction honors including the Hugo, John W. Campbell, and Robert A. Heinlein Awards, Buying Time is "a mystery/SF hybrid that exhibits the author at his most inventive. . . . The action is fast and furious" (Publishers Weekly).
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
One of the foremost practitioners of ``hard'' science fiction, Haldeman offers his first novel in five years, a mystery/SF hybrid that exhibits the author at his most inventive and also, at times, his least involving. Late in the 21st century, the rich have the option of rejuvenating their bodies once every decade, as long as they can come up with the price--everything they own, minimum 1 million. This has made the Stileman Foundation, which provides the medical makeover, the richest and most powerful corporation in the world, and has also created an elite expert in making and sheltering fortunes. One of these ``immortals,'' Dallas Barr, has been invited to join a super-elite group calling itself the ``Steering Committee,'' but finds instead that he has been set up for murder. Fleeing with his lover, Maria Marconi, an immortal who has decided to forgo further rejuvenation and therefore will die in a few years, Dallas sets himself on the trail of his would-be assassins, and of the secret someone wishes to keep him from discovering. Haldeman keeps the technological wonders coming, and the action is fast and furious, but not balanced by characterization of any depth or any emotional resonance. It's worth reading, however, for the original world Haldeman has envisioned.
