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Summary: An oldie but a goodie
Review: This book was written a long time ago, but is still very good.
This is the story of an inventor who is cheated by his business partner and his gold-digging fiancee and forced to take "The long sleep," suspended animation for thirty years. He awakens in the year 2000 (I told you it was old), and discovers that it is now possible to travel through time both backwards AND forwards, and returns to the past bent on revenge.
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Summary: The best time travel book of all time
Review: I am not a big Heinlein fan - and many years ago I wrote a review for a Monterey newspaper that somehow allowed me to meet Heinlein and his gracious wife - and we spent the whole time discussing all the great paradoxes that he raises in this great book -written in the 50's and still the best (and most entertaining and simplest and most complex -- paradox uh???) time travel book of all time.Why can't we travel into time? Read this book and see why not and still why yes.... If you could travel back into time and you did and then killed your grandfather ---- how could you have existed at all... to travel back? Interested in this great paradox???? Read this book.
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Summary: Question: Is this one of Heinlein's "juvenile" novels?
Review: It was in my library's adult SF section, but its characters speak in the breezy style of his juvenile stories such as "Tunnel in the Sky" and "Starship Troopers". Anyway, it doesn't matter. This was a good, fun story. But I was surprised that at least one reviewer below says it stands the test of time; I hope the reviewer doesn't mean that Heinlein accurately portrayed the future. Writing in 1946, his forecast for 1970 wasn't very accurate -- much less that for 2001: "grabbies" replacing movies, antigravity devices, and time travel, among other things. But not only is there no internet -- people actually place phone calls by speaking to an operator! I'm not criticizing Heinlein for missing the mark in predicting a future 55 years ahead; who could do that with any degree of accuracy? I'm just saying that in reading this novel, one is reading about an imaginary second half of the 20th century that is very different from reality. But if you can step into that imaginary history, this is a good, enjoyable read.
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Summary: My favorite Heinlein book
Review: I think I read the door into summer for the first time in the early 70's. I have always loved this book, and it is one that I re-read often since I get such a kick out of it. I am amazed that here it is almost 60 years after the book was written, and the useful household robot is still not a reality. Come on engineers, this is a winning invention. Heinlein's "Drafting Dan", the computerized drafting table is the precursor to all of the CAD programs that are used every day by architects and engineers, and one of the inventions in the book is the self cleaning cat litter box, predecessor of the Litter Maid. I just wish someone out there would get it together on the robot. The story was fun, and still is, even after all these year. If you like Heinlein, or even if you dont, buy this book.
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Summary: Still fun, even though dated
Review: Dan the engineer does some inventing that would take a team of researchers years. He invents a household maid robot from commonly available parts. Here we are fifty years later and engineers still haven't figured that one out. Seriously underestimated are the computer sensors, controls and programs that are required for such a machine. I suppose he ought to be given credit for being aware of the possibilities of computer controls in the 1950s when computers were huge vacuum tube devices. Transistors hadn't yet been invented, or at least not well known. He didn't foresee the end of tubes. His computer memory was built of hypothesized on memory tubes. Oh well. Despite his depiction of electronically controlled robots, his far future engineers still used slide rules, forgetting that calculation is one of the easiest things for a computer to do, far easier than controlling a robot or drawing a plan. His characters were pretty much one dimension. Heinlein never did learn to be very good at characters even years later. The plot is interesting for all the techo geeks. He gets swindled out of his company by an evil woman and deposited in 30-year time suspension "long sleep." She looks him up later though she's now old and he's still young. I got a laugh at the vision of 2001, the year he returns to life. Many things have changed but in ways he didn't imagine. We do have lots of computers, but no robot maids, nor FTL space travel, nor time travel. There never was W.W. III, for example. The business swindles are hard to follow. There is a humorous moment when Dan "drops from the sky" into a nudist resort near Denver. It's a fun read on an afternoon.
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Summary: A story of heart, honor, and love
Review: This is a different kind of story. It starts simple enough, a hard working inventor who trusts his business associates implicitly, who has a quirky cat(aren't they all!), and who falls for a legal loophole trap in which his trusted associates take his hard earned company away from him. The science in this novel provides some twists to the story which even took me for surprise at the end. Cat lovers will laugh with understanding at this strong-willed, full-of-personality feline who is the key to understanding the temporal anomoly. The setting, personalities, conversations are all richly described and told in such great form. While the ideas of 'Hired Girl' and other household robots didn't take off like this, the Jetsons-esque concept is very 50's, but fun to read. The time travel concept is something to think about, as well as the practicality problems associated with beliving the future will hold a better oppourtunity without making an investment to make it better. A book I will read again.
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Summary: The best time travel novel ever written
Review: There have been many science fiction novels written about time travel, but The Door Into Summer is my pick for the greatest among them. It comes remarkably close to conveying the very theory of the subject in layman's terms. I'm not saying Heinlein's arguments are correct, but they darn near make sense. The experiment with the two coins and with the two guinea pigs (just one, actually) is fascinating, and Heinlein's introduction of several paradoxes in the protagonist's actual temporal dislocation lends his science even more believability. Time travel doesn't even enter into the pages of the first half of the novel (not directly, at least), but the whole story is totally engrossing from the very start. Dan is an engineer and a darn good one. His inventions have been designed with the view of easing the housework of women everywhere: Hired Girl cleans floor; Window Willie washes windows, and Flexible Frank, his newest creation, will be able to do just about anything around the house, from changing a diaper to washing dishes. Life seemed to be treating Dan pretty well. Then his fiancé and business partner swindle him out of their business, and he decides to take the Long Sleep (cryogenic suspended animation) for thirty years so that he can come back to chastise an ex-fiancé who will be thirty years older than he will be. Of course, he won't do it without his best friend Pete, his feisty, ginger ale-loving tomcat and true friend. He sends his remaining shares in the company he created to his partner's young daughter Ricky, his only other friend in the world, trying to make sure that those don't fall into the wrong hands as well. His only mistake is in confronting his traitorous friends one last time. He gets the Long Sleep all right, but he wakes up in 2000 without any money and without Pete. He starts trying to find Ricky and start a new life, but he eventually, prompted by subtle clues to things that will have taken place, works up a plan to journey back in time and change things-of course, he won't really be changing things because they have actually already happened. It's so much easier to time travel when you know everything you will have done before doing it. I love this novel. It's brilliant the way he works in clues to Dan's future past, and Heinlein's discussion of time travel is enough to make anyone a fanatic about the subject. When I think about time travel, I continue to think of this novel and its simple experimental analogies of coins and guinea pigs. It's mind-boggling yet completely comprehensible. I also love animals, and good old Pete is one of the most memorable feline characters in the universe of fiction. Finally, the concept of the title is well-nigh epiphanous (if I may coin a word). Dan explains how Pete would make him open every door in his house whenever it snowed, convinced that behind one of those doors it will be summer time. Dan describes all of his adventures as his own search for the Door Into Summer. The only possible explanation I can formulate as to why this novel did not win the Hugo for best science fiction novel of 1957 is the fact that Heinlein won the award the previous year for Double Star and could not comfortably be given the award two years in a row. The Door Into Summer is much better than Double Star; in fact, it is much better than all but a handful of science fiction novels ever published.
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Summary: I miss these characters already.
Review: This novel is one of those rarities that make me sad to finish the story. The concept, characters, setting, pace, and science are superbly balanced. Absolutely one of my favorite books.
I finished last night and I remain at a loss for words to describe the mastery that was used in crafting this work. In Summary: Masterful Sci/Fi that should not be missed.
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Summary: Works on all levels, all themes.
Review: The primary theme of this novel is betrayal and revenge. The secondary theme is time-travel. The tertiary theme is the working life of a design engineer. The tertiary theme is why this book is one of my favorites, Heinlein shows an intimate knowlege of what it is like to earn your living as a design engineer. When he throws in little details like the fact that standing at a drawing board all day kills your back, you know that he knows what he is talking about. Oh yes, inspite of the fact that this novel was written in 1956, his "Drafting Dan" is an almost perfect description of a modern cad system....
There is another reason that this book is a favorite of mine. It shows that Heinlein's libertarianism was the reasoned and mature kind, the kind that knows that Big Business can be every bit as [bad] as Big Government or Big Religion.
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Summary: A lighter favorite
Review: Less weighty than his longer works, but written with the skill and insight that shines in his softer sci-fi. Still, it makes you think about your life, what you'd change if you could have a 'do-over.' A fairly quick read for a winter weekend day.
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