Set in Hawaii and the Far East, The Bones of Time revolves around the secret of the preserved bones of the greatest of the old Hawaiian kings, Kamehameha. Goonan interweaves two story lines, each with its own central character: Cen, a mathematician who falls in love with a girl from the past and works desperately to join her by solving the riddle of time travel; and Linda, a young woman who rescues the only surviving clone of Kamehameha. The key to the solution of both stories is the bones. But each of the stories opens vistas of future history, and of the past, that are dense with meaning and rich with promise.