 City at the End of Time is a 2008 science fiction novel by American writer Greg Bear . It was published in August 2008 by Del Rey in the United States , and Gollancz in the United Kingdom . The story follows three drifters in present @-@ day Seattle who are tormented by strange dreams of the Kalpa , a city one hundred trillion years in the future . The Kalpa is attempting to ward off the Typhon , an inexplicable entity that has consumed the rest of the ancient universe and broken down the laws of physics . 
