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Summary: One of the best and most up-beat SF novels ever!
Review: I read this more than 30 years ago while in Vietnam. It was, at least temporarily, MY OWN 'Door into Summer' and I can't recall how many times I read it during that year as a means of mentally escaping that Southeast Asian toilet. The story is wonderfully written, the characters well defined and the plot never dulls. I've often felt that a movie, exactly like the book, would be a great success. Unfortunately, this'll never happen. If a movie doesn't have exploding bodies and thousands of guns, tanks and aliens to kill, Hollywood won't think it bankable and never make it. Why??!! A good love story can make a successful movie...we've all seen some excellent examples, i.e. Pretty Woman, etc. Today's digital techonology would make the "future" envisioned by Heinlein exciting and, the movie makers can always fall back on a great story. As for this book? Buy it, read it, treasure it. I promise you'll love it and give it to your kids and (as in my case) grandkids.
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Summary: Yesterday's SciFi, today's technology + an excellent story
Review: For a story published more than 40 years ago, some of the technology used by the hero, an engineer and inventor, is in use today - especially in the CAD/CAM area. I used this book to start off an "Introduction to Computers" class. I described his "tube", what it would do, then held up something like a Pentium chip and said that this was what he was describing. The story itself is enjoyable if you keep in mind that the cleche's were written in the 50's. Also, one part took place around the year 2000 and a good dinner costs as little as $10.00 if one was careful. Any story that can predict the price of food that close must be read.
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Summary: How The Monkees Led Me To This Book
Review: Twenty years ago I became familiar with a song by the Monkees called The Door Into Summer. I then became aquainted with the book. I've been a fan of both ever since, especailly after learning that the two are connected, albeit loosely. I think that they should be joined even closer,like movie/ title song? What's even more fun about it for me is that it is set in familiar territory; I'ved lived in the L.A. and Denver areas
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Summary: We must honor Heinlein, but I'd suggest leaving it at that.
Review: I love science fiction. Somewhere out there is my perfect science fiction book. Some have come close, for example, Dune, Hyperion, Red Mars, a few others. In my quest, I have occasionally sampled "old" science fiction, and generally found it very wanting. Robert Heinlein's book The Door Into Summer is a good example of a book which, perhaps 30 or 40 years ago would have been thought of quite highly, but today does not cut it, doesn't even come close. The problems are many. Heinlein writes about both "cold sleep" and time travel. Bringing the two large presumptions together in one novel allows for incredible possibilities. Yet Heinlein does little to capitalize on this. Allowing the protagonist to marry the child he adored in his previous life is hardly sufficient. While cold sleep is at least somewhat realistically fleshed out, the time travel aspect is dropped in with almost no development or explanation. As well, the writing style is (not surprisingly) very dated and rather obnoxious sounding. The biases of the 1950s are stark: women's place is in the kitchen, etc. The household robot is named "Hired Girl." Good grief. Another shortcoming concerns bad guesses regarding the future. Interestingly, Heinlein's future centers partly around the year 2000. Yet he got almost nothing right, or even close. Among other things, computers are never mentioned (never mind the Y2K problem!). His guesses about other aspects of future science are pathetically wrong. In particular, he sees robotics as a huge success (robots in every home, etc.), when in fact it has been essentially (a few manufacturing production lines notwithstanding) almost a total failure. With so many good current day writers of SF crediting Heinlein for their inspiration, we must honor him, but I'd suggest leaving it at that.
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Summary: Uplifting even if you don't like cats
Review: This novel is optimistic in everything. In life, in the universe and everything else. It doesn't have everything (which would get it 5 stars), but what it does have is astounding. I've never been a cat person, but this book helped me understand the reason so many people do (actualy that there isn't a reason. I still don't like cats, though. It's message is something everybody needs to learn
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Summary: HEINLEIN'S ABSOLUTE BEST BY FAR & I OWN THEM ALL!!!
Review: My first Heinlein, and still my favorite. Each time I re-read it, I enjoy it even more. It has everything - mystery, SF, time travel, romance, humor, adventure - each & every component of a great story, brilliantly written! As a clean-freak (like Heinlein: "Only barbarians wear street shoes in the house."), I just wish his future housekeeping inventions, in this and other stories, were real!! A MUST READ FOR EVERY HEINLEIN FAN!!
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Summary: Um...Read it. Today.
Review: This book is so, so solidly entertaining. Its greatest strengths are its aesthetic flow and its feeling of urgency. It's as if Heinlein is standing behind you, pushing you with words, sights, and sounds to keep you moving along within his story -- a story so well-known and interesting to the author that he can't help but tell you about it.This is Heinlein's best. (Which actually isn't saying much, since this book is infinitely better than many of his other works.)
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Summary: Fantastic, like all other Heinleins
Review: I have read Puppet Masters, Friday, Farnham's Freehold, Stranger in a Strange Land, Between Planets, Double Star, Past through Tomorrow, and others of Heinlein's works, but this one is still my favorite. It is obviously older than some of his more famous books, but I think the younger style is better. You MUST read this book, whether you're a Heinlein fan, a Science Fiction Fan, or just a book fan!!!!!!!!!!
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Summary: Simply put this book is great.
Review: When I was nine I was on a dreaded road trip with my parents and my dad and I were arguing again. It was pretty typical; "I'm bored!" "Why don't you read?" "Gawd no!" Things escalated and my father all but shoved the book down my throat. It was the hard back edition of the Robert Heinlein Trilogy. "Read the third story!" he said gruffly as my mother glared at him from the driver's seat. He buried his nose in the paper, and I began to protest, but my mother gave me a look that told me I had nowhere to run. So I opened the book and muttered, "If it's not good after three pages I'm not reading anymore." By the time we were entering Houston (from Dallas) my dad was back into his usual cheerful 5 year-old mode. He was telling jokes and making up stupid songs. I finally got fed up. "Dad! Be quiet! I'm trying to read!" My mother nearly ran off the road and my father would have had he been driving. They both turned around, and sure enough I was about half way through the third book in the trilogy. My dad got a huge grin and started asking me about it, when again I asked him to be quiet. That was the first book of any substance I had read, and my father told me it had been his first book too. It sparked my mind to the world of science fiction, science and of course reading. The Door Into Summer marks the type literary excellence that the younger generation needs to get them interested in books, and it holds it's 'readability' year after year. No matter how many times you read it, you can always read it again.
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Summary: I read this book once a year...
Review: This is Heinleins best book! Most of his work starts good but get worser to the end. This one not! It has everything a SF book needs.
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