Product Description

NOW IN PAPERBACK-FROM THE AUTHOR OF MARSBOUND

Grad- school dropout Matt Fuller is toiling as a lowly research assistant at MIT when he inadvertently creates a time machine. With a dead-end job and a girlfriend who left him for another man, Matt has nothing to lose in taking a time-machine trip himself—or so he thinks.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #453 in Books
• Published on: 2008-07-29
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 288 pages

From Publishers Weekly
Starred Review. Hugo-winner Haldeman's skillful writing makes this unusually thoughtful and picaresque tale shine. Matt Fuller, a likable underachiever stuck as a lab assistant at a near-future MIT, is startled when the calibrator he built begins disappearing and reappearing, jumping forward in time for progressively longer intervals. Curiosity and some unfortunate accidents send Matt through a series of vividly described, wryly imagined futures where he gradually becomes more adaptable and resourceful as experiences hone his character. The young woman he rescues from a techno-religious dictatorship gives him a chance at a mature relationship, while teaming up with an AI that intends to press on to the end of time forces him to decide what he wants from life. Rather than being a riff on H.G. Wells's The Time Machine, this novel is closer in tone to Neil Gaiman's Anansi Boys, another charming yarn about a young man who's forced out of a boring rut. Producing prose that feels this effortless must be hard work, but Haldeman (Camouflage) never breaks a sweat. (Aug.)
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From Booklist
Since H. G. Wells' heyday, the time travel scenario has undergone so much variation that it's easy to envision the river of ideas finally running dry. But here the ever-inventive Haldeman offers a new twist: a device that travels in one direction only, to the future. Lowly MIT research assistant Matt Fuller toils away in a physics lab until one day he makes an odd discovery. A sensitive quantum calibrator keeps disappearing and reappearing moments later when he hits the reset button. With a little tinkering, Matt realizes that the device functions as a crude, forward-traveling time machine. With visions of Nobel Prizes dancing in his head, he latches it to a car and leaps into the future. The interesting wrinkle here is that each jump ahead is 12 times longer than the last. Matt's successive futures involve jail time, unwelcome celebrity, and assorted holocausts in the earth's climate. He begins to long for his native era. As usual, Haldeman's ingenuity delivers cutting-edge technological speculation and irresistibly compelling reading. Hays, Carl

About the Author
Joe Haldeman has served twice as president of the Science Fiction Writers of America and is currently an adjunct professor teaching writing at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

Customer Reviews

Engrossing and strangely moving
I simply loved this book. It was strangely moving and romantic for the time travel/scfi genre. Also, the writer's authentic feel for Cambridge, MA (past, present, and far future) touched me personally, as I spent my formative scientific years in the same streets and locales as the protagonist. After putting the book down, I find myself wishing for it to begin again. it, however, has no 'RESET' button (read book for an explanation).

Excellent Time Travel story
This is a book I couldn't put down, and when I finished it, I had to start reading it again. This is only my second Joe Haldeman book, I have read the covers off of my original copy of The Forever War, The Accidental Time Machine is in the same class, funny, witty, scientifically accurate and compelling. The characters are even more real and likeable than William and Marygay in TFW. Joe's take on the future of mankind is believeable, this is no Eloi vs Morlock future. It's interestingly located mostly around Boston, so if you know the city, you'll find yourself saying - "Oh yeah, I know where that is". It's nice to have a familiar (or at least stationary) backdrop when careening through time.
A great read, you'll wish it were longer, but just re-read it, you'll enjoy it as much the second time.

Great Fun
I enjoyed this novel very much, and I look forward to reading more written by Joe Haldeman.