基本信息出版社：Random House Large Print
页码：368 页
出版日期：2000年11月
ISBN：0375430768
条形码：9780375430763
装帧：精装
正文语种：英语
丛书名：Random House Large Print (Hardcover)
外文书名：杀戮时刻
内容简介 "It is the greatest truth of our age: Information is not knowledge."
The year is 2023, a time that bestselling author Caleb Carr paints in fascinating and believable detail. Much of the world enjoys the great wealth generated by the triumph of information technology, but horrifying poverty grips many countries, bitter wars rage over natural resources, and the failure of international regulatory agencies has resulted in an expanding black market in all forms of weapons--including nuclear devices. The staphylococcus plague of 2006 wiped out forty million people, the crash of '07 ruined many national economies, and in America the assassination of President Emily Forrester in 2018 traumatized the nation. The Internet remains the main source of information, bombarding people everywhere with news, rumors, and allegations twenty-four hours a day--and creating enormous possibilities for the manipulation of mankind.
New York psychiatrist, criminal profiler, and historian Dr. Gideon Wolfe becomes enmeshed in this world of deception when the wife of a murdered special-effects wizard brings him a computer disc containing startling evidence that the now-famous visual record of President Forrester's assassination was digitally altered by her husband. Investigating this crime, Wolfe enlists the help of his oldest friend, Max Jenkins, a private detective expert in all forms of information manipulation.
When Max, too, is murdered, a stunned and enraged Wolfe sets out to uncover who is behind the Forrester hoax and the killings, a journey that leads him to a secret group of scientific and military experts who--led by an ailing, mysterious young genius and his beautiful, brilliant sister--have undertaken to demonstrate the astonishing degree to which the public can be deceived and manipulated. Seduced in every way, Wolfe joins the team. But are their methods really as noble as their motives?
Relentlessly suspenseful and packed with brilliantly realized characters and settings, Killing Time reveals a new side of a master novelist
作者简介 Caleb Carr was born in Manhattan and grew up on the Lower East Side, where he still lives. He is the author of the bestsellers The Alienist and The Angel of Darkness, along with several volumes of nonfiction. Carr writes frequently on military and political affairs, and is an editorial adviser to The World Policy Journal and MHQ: The Quarterly Journal of Military History.  
媒体推荐 书评
Amazon.com
It's 2023, and the Web has almost destroyed the world. While cyberspace's early pioneers promoted the Net as a revolution in human communication, America has instead become a society of desk-bound introverts who believe everything they read. The federal government has been "bought" by a Microsoft-style corporation. Any semblance of central authority has vanished. As the Net infiltrates India and Pakistan, fevered nationalists and terrorists find one more medium through which to spread the word.
With Killing Time, Caleb Carr (The Alienist, The Angel of Darkness) manages to create a future that's both frightening and nostalgic. The novel's narrator, Dr. Gideon Wolfe, longs for a world before technology swallowed people's minds and imaginations. Through a series of complex misadventures, beginning with the murder of his best friend, Gideon finds himself joining a ragtag army of scientists and inventors who hope to take it back. Heading up this '60s-style revolutionary cell is a brother-sister team--genetically engineered geniuses with silver hair and shining eyes. Aboard their ultramodern ship, Gideon learns the extent of the damage done. When they dive below the surface of the Atlantic, he looks out the window and sees
not an idyllic scene of aquatic wonder such as childhood stories might have led me to expect but rather a horrifying expanse of brown water filled with human and animal waste, all of it endlessly roiled but never cleansed by the steady pulse of the offshore currents.Carr's future is suffused with regret. It's also rife with mystery and suspense; in every chapter the stakes are raised a little higher, the apocalypse hovers a little closer. This author is a master of the cliffhanger, of cryptic warnings that return to haunt our hero later in the text. Occasional flashes of humor relieve the prevailing ominousness, and a beautiful girl with a huge gun appears at regular intervals to keep things humming. Fans of Steve Erickson's end-of-the-world novels will likely enjoy this adventure in the Internet age, where the sheer amount of information has induced not quantitative changes in the human psyche, but qualitative ones. --Ellen Williams --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.
From Publishers Weekly
Famous for his bestselling thrillers re-creating old New York (The Alienist; The Angel of Darkness) and trained as a military historian (The Devil Soldier), Carr leaps into the future for his third novelDand lands with a thud. Set about 25 years ahead, the first-person narrative describes the grim adventures of Gideon Wolfe, a bestselling author who joins forces with a band of outsiders intent on alerting the world to the dangers of excess information untempered by wisdom. By 2023, the Internet has multiplied wildly the ability of power possessors to deceive the general populace, resulting in a globe devastated by ecological blight and filled with near-zombies glued to computer screens. Some groups have escaped this fateDparticularly those living in unwired if disease-ravaged areas of Africa and AsiaDand a few, led by the enormously wealthy and brilliant brother-and-sister team of Malcolm and Larissa Tressalian, have vowed to fight it. These two, with a small crew, bring Gideon aboard their fantastic flying/diving fortress vehicle. They explain that for years they've seeded world-shaking disinformationDfor instance, that Winston Churchill plotted the outbreak of WWI and that St. Paul advocated lying about the life and miracles of Jesus in order to spread the faith. They've planned to reveal these hoaxes as such, to warn about the power of disinformation, but they're stymied by both the cleverness of their own lies and by a new threat that sees one of their hoaxes lead to possible nuclear Armageddon. This book is as much didactic essay as novel, filled with preachy talk. Characters are broad but memorable, and there's some brisk action, but the suspense relies too much on forebodings and cliffhangersDno doubt because the text originally appeared as a serial in Time magazine, from November 1999 to June 2000 (it's been slightly revised for this edition). The prose Carr uses is elaborate, near-VictorianDperhaps a holdover from his other novelsDand ill suits a futuristic tale. As readers navigate it, they won't be quite killing time, but they'll be wounding it for sure. (Nov.)
Copyright 2000 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.
From AudioFile
It is 2023. Malcolm and Larissa Tressalian, the genetically engineered spawn of "The Father of the Internet," attempt to break a gullible public's addiction to the Web through an insidiously designed program of misinformation. Their motives may be noble, but their methods are corrupt. When they attempt to reveal their hoaxes, no one believes them. As most nongenetically engineered children would know, crying wolf leaves one with a lot of dead sheep. While it has an interesting premise, the story's characters are merely cyber versions of talking heads with Victorian sensibilities. Narrator Philip Goodwin makes the most of this material, managing effective dialects and creating excitement whenever possible, but Caleb Carr«s dialogue is preachy, often pedantic, leaving Goodwin little leeway for interpretation. S.J.H. © AudioFile 2001, Portland, Maine-- Copyright © AudioFile, Portland, Maine --This text refers to the Audio Cassette edition.
From Booklist
Carr, whose Alienist (1994) helped launch the literary-thriller juggernaut, turns from the past to the future with this anti-utopian mix of sf and mystery, set in 2024. It's Blade Runner times 10 in a world ravaged by technology, especially by the rampant misuse of misinformation, spread like a plague by the Internet. Investigating the murder of a video wizard vaporized by an unknown weapon, criminologist Gordon Wolfe soon finds himself in league with a band of cyber-rebels out to expose what technology has wrought: "a world where intelligence is measured by the ability to amass information that has no context or purpose save its own propagation. The plan is to perpetrate frauds--false documents, for example, suggesting that George Washington was assassinated--and then reveal the hoaxes, proving that facts are no longer trustworthy, and information science is utterly corrupt. Unfortunately, nobody will believe the truth when it is finally revealed. Matters come to a head when a terrorist, convinced by misinformation that Stalin was a coconspirator in the Holocaust, sets out to nuke Moscow. Can the cyber-rebels save the world with the same technology that ruined it? Anyone with even an ounce of Luddite blood will love Carr's premise, but unfortunately, the novel doesn't quite live up to its subject matter. Carr spends too much time explaining the premise and detailing all the horrors that have befallen the information-glutted world; consequently, his characters are more mouthpieces than people. Ironically, in a novel that pleads passionately for humanity, the human voice is nearly lost in the rhetoric. Still, this is the kind of story bound to attract attention. Bill Ott
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.
Kirkus Reviews
"Fun...entertaining." --This text refers to the Mass Market Paperback edition.
Denver Post
"Startling...a daring step...a book of ideas and an allegorical warning against a future that must be avoided." --This text refers to the Mass Market Paperback edition.
Washington Post Book World
"Fast-moving...a high-velocity tour of the year 2023." --This text refers to the Mass Market Paperback edition.
USA Today
"A non-stop thrill ride...Carr is a master of the cliffhanger." --This text refers to the Mass Market Paperback edition.
George magazine
"Mind-blowing...twisted, hilarious, touching...an intimate family drama...from a born storyteller who's invented a new way to write." --This text refers to the Mass Market Paperback edition.
编辑推荐 Amazon.com Review
It's 2023, and the Web has almost destroyed the world. While cyberspace's early pioneers promoted the Net as a revolution in human communication, America has instead become a society of desk-bound introverts who believe everything they read. The federal government has been "bought" by a Microsoft-style corporation. Any semblance of central authority has vanished. As the Net infiltrates India and Pakistan, fevered nationalists and terrorists find one more medium through which to spread the word.
With Killing Time, Caleb Carr (The Alienist, The Angel of Darkness) manages to create a future that's both frightening and nostalgic. The novel's narrator, Dr. Gideon Wolfe, longs for a world before technology swallowed people's minds and imaginations. Through a series of complex misadventures, beginning with the murder of his best friend, Gideon finds himself joining a ragtag army of scientists and inventors who hope to take it back. Heading up this '60s-style revolutionary cell is a brother-sister team--genetically engineered geniuses with silver hair and shining eyes. Aboard their ultramodern ship, Gideon learns the extent of the damage done. When they dive below the surface of the Atlantic, he looks out the window and sees
not an idyllic scene of aquatic wonder such as childhood stories might have led me to expect but rather a horrifying expanse of brown water filled with human and animal waste, all of it endlessly roiled but never cleansed by the steady pulse of the offshore currents.Carr's future is suffused with regret. It's also rife with mystery and suspense; in every chapter the stakes are raised a little higher, the apocalypse hovers a little closer. This author is a master of the cliffhanger, of cryptic warnings that return to haunt our hero later in the text. Occasional flashes of humor relieve the prevailing ominousness, and a beautiful girl with a huge gun appears at regular intervals to keep things humming. Fans of Steve Erickson's end-of-the-world novels will likely enjoy this adventure in the Internet age, where the sheer amount of information has induced not quantitative changes in the human psyche, but qualitative ones. --Ellen Williams --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.
From Publishers Weekly
Famous for his bestselling thrillers re-creating old New York (The Alienist; The Angel of Darkness) and trained as a military historian (The Devil Soldier), Carr leaps into the future for his third novelDand lands with a thud. Set about 25 years ahead, the first-person narrative describes the grim adventures of Gideon Wolfe, a bestselling author who joins forces with a band of outsiders intent on alerting the world to the dangers of excess information untempered by wisdom. By 2023, the Internet has multiplied wildly the ability of power possessors to deceive the general populace, resulting in a globe devastated by ecological blight and filled with near-zombies glued to computer screens. Some groups have escaped this fateDparticularly those living in unwired if disease-ravaged areas of Africa and AsiaDand a few, led by the enormously wealthy and brilliant brother-and-sister team of Malcolm and Larissa Tressalian, have vowed to fight it. These two, with a small crew, bring Gideon aboard their fantastic flying/diving fortress vehicle. They explain that for years they've seeded world-shaking disinformationDfor instance, that Winston Churchill plotted the outbreak of WWI and that St. Paul advocated lying about the life and miracles of Jesus in order to spread the faith. They've planned to reveal these hoaxes as such, to warn about the power of disinformation, but they're stymied by both the cleverness of their own lies and by a new threat that sees one of their hoaxes lead to possible nuclear Armageddon. This book is as much didactic essay as novel, filled with preachy talk. Characters are broad but memorable, and there's some brisk action, but the suspense relies too much on forebodings and cliffhangersDno doubt because the text originally appeared as a serial in Time magazine, from November 1999 to June 2000 (it's been slightly revised for this edition). The prose Carr uses is elaborate, near-VictorianDperhaps a holdover from his other novelsDand ill suits a futuristic tale. As readers navigate it, they won't be quite killing time, but they'll be wounding it for sure. (Nov.)
Copyright 2000 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.
From Booklist
Carr, whose Alienist (1994) helped launch the literary-thriller juggernaut, turns from the past to the future with this anti-utopian mix of sf and mystery, set in 2024. It's Blade Runner times 10 in a world ravaged by technology, especially by the rampant misuse of misinformation, spread like a plague by the Internet. Investigating the murder of a video wizard vaporized by an unknown weapon, criminologist Gordon Wolfe soon finds himself in league with a band of cyber-rebels out to expose what technology has wrought: "a world where intelligence is measured by the ability to amass information that has no context or purpose save its own propagation. The plan is to perpetrate frauds--false documents, for example, suggesting that George Washington was assassinated--and then reveal the hoaxes, proving that facts are no longer trustworthy, and information science is utterly corrupt. Unfortunately, nobody will believe the truth when it is finally revealed. Matters come to a head when a terrorist, convinced by misinformation that Stalin was a coconspirator in the Holocaust, sets out to nuke Moscow. Can the cyber-rebels save the world with the same technology that ruined it? Anyone with even an ounce of Luddite blood will love Carr's premise, but unfortunately, the novel doesn't quite live up to its subject matter. Carr spends too much time explaining the premise and detailing all the horrors that have befallen the information-glutted world; consequently, his characters are more mouthpieces than people. Ironically, in a novel that pleads passionately for humanity, the human voice is nearly lost in the rhetoric. Still, this is the kind of story bound to attract attention. Bill Ott
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.
Review
"A non-stop thrill ride...Carr is a master of the cliffhanger." -- USA Today
"Fast-moving...a high-velocity tour of the year 2023." -- Washington Post Book World
"Fun...entertaining." -- Kirkus Reviews
"Mind-blowing...twisted, hilarious, touching...an intimate family drama...from a born storyteller who's invented a new way to write." -- George magazine
"Startling...a daring step...a book of ideas and an allegorical warning against a future that must be avoided." -- Denver Post --This text refers to the Mass Market Paperback edition.