Love in the Time of Fridges

by Tim Scott

Tim Scott's Outrageous Fortune marked the debut of one of the most wildly inventive writers to hit the sci-fi scene in years. Now he returns with a hilarious yet poignant novel of love, loss, and itinerant appliances. "New Seattle Health and Safety. Do not die for no reason." This is the motto of a city so obsessed with the danger of sharp corners that it has almost forgotten how to live. But Huckleberry Lindbergh is about to find his trip to the...

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0553384414
• ISBN13: 9780553384413
• Release Date: July 2008
• Publisher: Random House Worlds
• Length: 384 Pages
• Weight: 0.70 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.8" x 5.2" x 8.2"

Customer Reviews

A story that lives in an inventive world of its own

I loved the characters in this book, the way the author plays with time and memory (and how they can be portrayed in fiction without losing the flow of the book), the plot, the all-too-plausible "marketing" of everything from police equipment to the idea of not "dying for no reason." It is sui generis, and it is brilliant. The naysayers are probably the same people who don't "get" Philip K. Dick and don't understand why the movie theater accidentally showed that "Memento" movie backwards. "Love in the Time of Fridges" truly exists in a plane of its own, and it was very fun to visit that universe for a while.

Nouveau Fridges of the Phuture

Love in the Time of Fridges is not an imagined Gabriel Garcia Marquez sci-fi book, but a bonafide different approach to the medium. Full of surprises, and good character development, this 2nd novel by Tim Scott definitely makes one want to search out his first. Very visual, but contemplative, the scores of short chapters chop up the story well enough to provide many insights into the characters and the storyline, while providing good humor throughout. An enjoyable read that mixes elements of Kurt Vonnegut Jr. with Ray Bradbury.

tongue and cheek satire

After his beloved Abigail died, ex police officer Huckleberry Lindberg left New Seattle and worked in Memory Print Store where he took pictures of other people's memories. Now he is on his way home where the highway sign reads "Welcome! New Seattle Welcomes Visitors ... See Exclusions". The West Coast of America is run by the Health and Safety Department. He shares a drongle with a woman he does not know when the cops stop him for a routine check. When they learn who he is, they decide to do a mind hack and include the woman Nena too. Huck gets loose and rescues Nena who hides secrets from him. They separate, but she tells him to meet her at the Halcyon Hotel. There he finds four talking Fridges and a dryer. When Nena arrives, the clerk calls the cops on them. The Fridges and dryer escape, but Nena tells him if something happens to her he is to save the little Fridge because inside is the means to saving New Seattle. This is classified as a sci fi thriller, but it is more a tongue and cheek satire of government using security to control everyone. The tale is filled with humor often biting especially when the Fridges and Dryer sing out of tune and exchange barbs. Underneath all the jocularity ironically is a serious post 9/11 message that to live free means taking risks even when a person wants to run from bad memories to hide inside a secure cocoon. Harriet Klausner