SOLVED. Sci-Fi - Bubbles of Repeating Time - Humor [s]

[Kinsey]

I read this sci-fi novel in the early 80s. The protagonist somehow discovers that there are several interconnected time bubbles (my term), which are places that have been scooped out of Earth history. Inside a bubble, if you walk far enough, you come back to where you started. Also, everything resets every 24 hours, but the people inside the bubbles still retain their memories.

The book has a humorous tone, and as the protagonist travels from bubble to bubble, he meets all sorts of interesting people. I recall that in one, there is an old lady with not much food in the house. Every day (after a reset) she eats the same can of creamed corn, and she exclaims that it's a good thing she likes creamed corn. In another, there is a family of squabbling hillbillies. Sometimes the daughter gets mad at her brothers and shoots them. It's okay, though, because they always come back to life after the reset.

The protagonist sometimes meets up with alien intelligences (perhaps the ones who created the time bubbles), and they ridicule him for being so primitive. He has the last laugh, though, because he meets up with a super godlike intelligence who agrees to help him, because he recognizes that he was created by distant descendants of humans and therefore should serve the protagonist.

It was a pretty wacky book. The title may contain "time warp" or "time trap", but I've never been able to find it through searches.

[Slinkyboy]

You might be looking for Time Trap by Keith Laumer. The first review of this book sounds a lot like what you've described.

[Kinsey]

Wow! Based on that and the Amazon reviews, it definitely looks like the right book. I guess I should have done a more careful search (since I actually had the correct title). Thank you so much, Slinkyboy!