The Thumbnail Book Reviews
by John Q McDonald --- 10 January 2011
by Robert A. Heinlein
Traveling in time is one of our greatest fantasies. It is unlikely to ever become a reality, at least not in the way envisioned in science-fiction novels like this one. If it did, wouldn't we have been visited by people from the future by now? Here is Dan Davis, an engineer living in 1970, but a 1970 of the future, as this book was first written (apparently in a whirlwind of creative activity and published as a serial) in 1956. Davis is an inventor, a one time holder of a high security clearance, and one of many survivors of what appears to have been a very limited nuclear war (Denver is now the capital, and some large American cities have been destroyed). He has a small company that he founded with a friend. He designs and builds household robots and the friend runs the business. When the friend and their secretary bilk Davis out of his stake in the profitable enterprise, he decides to escape into the future, sending himself to the year 2000 by way of cryogenic sleep. The world in which he arrives, without his precious pet cat, Petronius, and feeling still irritated at his treatment by his associates, is vastly preferable to 1970. This is a sort of George Jetson future. Robots are in charge of all the menial tasks, but there are still newspapers, phone books, phone booths, and even pneumatic tubes. But we're advanced pharmaceutically, and we barely have to work with all the efficient robots running around. Many of Dan's robotic inventions have become ubiquitous. But his financial plans for accumulating wealth while he slept have been foiled by mismanagement and thievery. So, Davis contrives to find a way back to 1970, where he can use his knowledge of history and his own situation to rectify all the wrongs that have befallen him. Along the way, he restores a romantic connection to a young girl who loves his cat as much as he does. There is a slightly unsavory nature to what appears to be his sexual attraction to an eleven-year-old girl. Heinlein uses the devices of time travel to fix that up, but it comes off just short of convincing. On the other hand, some of what he envisions for 2000 is remarkably prescient, and it is also as fascinating to consider what he didn't foresee as much as what he did. Reportedly, Heinlein wrote this story in thirteen days and didn't edit it much. That was probably ill-advised. While it is occasionally entertaining, the author's fixation on the financial twists and tricks of the story are much less interesting than the much less-developed vision of time travel and the experience of visiting another time. In fact, the story is more or less a chase after money. Money is swindled, invested, saved, transferred and lost. Davis is going after the swindlers and following a paper trail through time. As a time-travel device, it isn't terribly compelling. The novel is a light read, almost juvenile in its tone. A curiosity for fans of time travel fiction (like this reader), but not a terribly good book.
Also by Heinlein: [Have Space Suit - Will Travel]