Author: Robert A. Heinlein
Copyright: 1957
Date Reviewed:   6/6/84
Rating: 8.5

 

Synopsis: Dan Davis is an inventor of robotic devices. With his partner Miles and secretary Belle, Dan goes into business making robots. However he is double crossed by the other two members of the company and forced to go into the Long Sleep. Dan wakes up 30 years later in a world much changed but he has no trouble adapting to the new way of life. After a time, he finds a way to travel back into time to take an unusual revenge out on the people he trusted.

Review: "The Door Into Summer" is the second novel by Heinlein that I've read and reviewed since the beginning of the year. Like the last one, I enjoyed it. Heinlein is good at writing time travel stories. He deals with the paradox just enough to keep you guessing but not so much to prove its obvious impossibility. The novel also had a definite plot that progressed steadily from chapter to chapter. It's so much more refreshing than novels that talk at me for hundreds of pages before ever getting started. There is one problem with the story, which is not really the author's fault. Today, general purpose robots are one or two decades away. Many companies and universities are working on the problem. In is inconceivable that any one man could do what these groups can't.