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A review by ablotial
The Door into Summer by Robert A. Heinlein
5.0
ETA: Read AGAIN December 8, 2014-December 13, 2014 as a buddy read with a friend. Still LOVE it, and really enjoyed talking about the different pieces of the novel and how well everything fits together. And another friend picked it up shortly thereafter as well -- mission accomplished! Spreading the love for this amazing book... one of the few books I can read over and over and over and over... Have not yet succeeded in getting my husband to read it though.
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This book is amazing! I had it for a few years before I read it ... I went on a Heinlein kick back then and purchaced a good number of his books. But I'd never actually read this one. Mostly because it's far shorter than most of his others (only 159 pages in my edition) and has a SERIOUSLY horrible tagline scrawled across the cover of my version of the book, "He entered the Future -- bend on Revenge -- and found himself trapped in 2000 A.D." If that's not lame, I don't know what is.
But I finally decided to pick it up, and I am SO glad that I did. It is, of course, masterfully written -- I expected no less from a Heinlein novel. It takes place beginning in 1970, but since the book was written in the 1950s, there are many liberties taken with "history" in the 60s and 70s, and with technological progress at the time. A thing called "cold sleep" or "the long sleep" had been invented, in which you would have your body frozen and revived at some pre-determined point in the future without having aged a day. Many people were using this as a means to earn money - after all, the interest accrued over that amount of time would be wonderful!
Dan, a well-known engineer who created many famous household help products, has been jilted by his fiance and business partner and forced out of his own company. He decides to take the long sleep and go forward 30 years when surely their age compared to his will enable him to take revenge far easier. But of course, things rarely go as planned... There are so many twists and turns in this book, it's amazing. And while I was somewhat embarrassed not to have figured out what the "trick" was much earlier than I had, it was still a great and entertaining read. Even if you're not into gadgets and science fiction, it's still really worth the read so you can see what someone in the 50s thought the year 2000 would be like. It's pretty neat :)
My favorite part of this book was actually the sub-story about Dan's cat, Pete. Originally, Dan had wanted to take the cat with him on the long sleep, but ... events happened such that he was unable to do so, and he was heartbroken. But it all works out in the end :)
Seriously, read this one.
------------
This book is amazing! I had it for a few years before I read it ... I went on a Heinlein kick back then and purchaced a good number of his books. But I'd never actually read this one. Mostly because it's far shorter than most of his others (only 159 pages in my edition) and has a SERIOUSLY horrible tagline scrawled across the cover of my version of the book, "He entered the Future -- bend on Revenge -- and found himself trapped in 2000 A.D." If that's not lame, I don't know what is.
But I finally decided to pick it up, and I am SO glad that I did. It is, of course, masterfully written -- I expected no less from a Heinlein novel. It takes place beginning in 1970, but since the book was written in the 1950s, there are many liberties taken with "history" in the 60s and 70s, and with technological progress at the time. A thing called "cold sleep" or "the long sleep" had been invented, in which you would have your body frozen and revived at some pre-determined point in the future without having aged a day. Many people were using this as a means to earn money - after all, the interest accrued over that amount of time would be wonderful!
Dan, a well-known engineer who created many famous household help products, has been jilted by his fiance and business partner and forced out of his own company. He decides to take the long sleep and go forward 30 years when surely their age compared to his will enable him to take revenge far easier. But of course, things rarely go as planned... There are so many twists and turns in this book, it's amazing. And while I was somewhat embarrassed not to have figured out what the "trick" was much earlier than I had, it was still a great and entertaining read. Even if you're not into gadgets and science fiction, it's still really worth the read so you can see what someone in the 50s thought the year 2000 would be like. It's pretty neat :)
My favorite part of this book was actually the sub-story about Dan's cat, Pete. Originally, Dan had wanted to take the cat with him on the long sleep, but ... events happened such that he was unable to do so, and he was heartbroken. But it all works out in the end :)
Seriously, read this one.