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: #671 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

Not likely
At the beginning the novel is well written and you'll be interested in the story. By half book you'll read how is the future and the problems Matt have there, here is when the story starts being dull and it keeps that way till the end. Of course nobody can tell us how will be the future but I don't think it will be as JH wrote it here.

Unfulfilling
A few too many open ends. There are interesting points, such as mildly explaining some futuristic aspects. The time travel possibility was interesting and belieavable, though as to why only his could was a mystery. I can buy random error, though I see a couple other reviewers could not. Could have been much better with a little more explanation of what was fully going on instead of the slow moving build up it creates that never quite get resolved.

Also, the main character is difficult to identify with, due to being a beer guzzling, drug using, MIT student. It's really just personal preference, but I tend to feel that if you're into science then you should at least follow some of its proven recommendations. These being adequate sleep, exercise, non-drug use, reasoning out decisions, etc, which amazingly the main character does all entirely backwards. Again, just personal preference, but very difficult for me to identify with to fully enjoy.

Bestseller?!?!
The story was mildly interesting though the characters were shallow and two-dimensional. While the author introduces ideas and lines of thought that have great potential, he drops them and leaves you unsatisfied. Whether it's laziness or perhaps he can't be bothered with exploring the realm of "What if?", I can't decide. And why does the author hate Christians so much? Reads almost like an atheist manifesto. My time machine shows this book sitting on the bargain shelf in the near future. 75% off.