Love in the Time of Fridges [Paperback]

Tim Scott (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: July 29, 2008

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 city most decidedly unsafe. For a chance encounter leads him into the heart of a dark conspiracy. And in order to stop it, this former cop is about to do something so unsafe—so monumentally stupid—that its reverberations will be felt all the way to the Pentagon.

Soon he is on the run from more authorities than he has had hot meals, his staunchest allies a bunch of feral fridges that give new meaning to the words “chill out.” But sometimes a dose of chaos is just what the doctor ordered, and Huck’s quest to remain among the living teaches not only him but those around him the true meaning of survival . . . in all its forms.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Scott (Outrageous Fortune) sets his absurdist sophomore effort in near future New Seattle, where ex-cop Huckleberry Lindbergh has just returned after eight years away. Huck and his old friend Gabe are soon drawn to Nena, a woman who reminds Gabe sharply of his long-lost love, Abigail. Huck and Nena are chased, caught and chased again through the weird life of New Seattle, which is overseen by the Health and Safety Department under Mayor Dan Cicero's zero-tolerance policy on danger. Amid constant lectures on implausible hazards, they struggle to uncover the mayor's machinations and help a cluster of talking refrigerators hide their conspiracy from the cops. Accelerating mad action and vivid, cleverly written glimpses of bystanders contrast sharply with the weak female characters: despite their all-seeing and revealing eyes, the two women rarely shift beyond plot objects, and the talking fridges have more personality. (Aug.)
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About the Author

Tim Scott graduated from Cambridge University, England, and decided to use his hard fought education to work a plasterer, decorator and delivery driver.

He writing career began with a training video which warned office staff that falling over could be dangerous. He then went on to write and appear on BBC Radio 4 in around fifty comedy half hours—and finally ended up being given his own late night comedy television series on network ITV. It ran for twenty six episodes and was so surreal that even Ionesco or Salvador Dali would have been shaking their heads in confusion.

He has written a large number of children's books, and also for children's television. He more recently became a television director and in 2003 won a BAFTA for co writing and directing a children's series, "Ripley and Scuff," for the BBC. He likes to travel around the world, often in search of surf.

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Product Details

• Paperback: 384 pages
• Publisher: Spectra (July 29, 2008)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0553384414
• ISBN-13: 978-0553384413
• Product Dimensions: 5.2 x 0.6 x 7.6 inches
• Shipping Weight: 9.9 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 2.7 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (7 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #2,002,271 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A story that lives in an inventive world of its own, January 22, 2010

By 

Sean Hoade (Las Vegas, Nevada USA) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)   

This review is from: Love in the Time of Fridges (Paperback)

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.

4 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars tongue and cheek satire, August 7, 2008

By 

Harriet Klausner - See all my reviews
(#1 Hall OF FAME REVIEWER)    (TOP 1000 REVIEWER)    (REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Love in the Time of Fridges (Paperback)

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

3 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Nouveau Fridges of the Phuture, October 4, 2008

By 

S. S. Penn (Centennial, CO) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Love in the Time of Fridges (Paperback)

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.