Search - Buying Time (aka The Long Habit of Living)

This is an interesting book that I think exceeds his more recent and more honored titles such as 'Camouflage.'

Buying Time is about a future where life can be extended via a special medical procedure, but the technology is controlled by an organization that is outside the control of a government or other regulatory body. The organization ensures that population does not get out of control by limiting the use of the life extensions. They also have safeguards against very old people from getting too powerful over time.

Like many of Haldeman's other books, there's some gunplay in here and some great characters. If I were composing a list of classic Joe Haldeman books, Buying Time would be in the top three.

What if you could live for centuries, or perhaps longer... at the price of 1 million dollars every 10 years?

The resourceful men and women who are able to do so find themselves in a bit of a situation when the longevity process comes into question, and some "immortals" begin to meet untimely deaths.

Is it a conspiracy, or is there a fix? One man and his long-lost girlfriend come together to try to save their own lives and solve the mystery.

There's a bit of space travel and some futuristic weapons/drugs, but this is not hard sci-fi. It's more of a mystery/thriller that happens to take place in the future.

If you enjoyed The Last Mortal Man by Syne Mitchell (2006), this book is in the same vein, though the medical process is quite different.