Monday, May 25, 2009

59. The Accidental Time Machine


By Joe Haldeman
Rated 5 Stars
From:  Library

Science fiction is another one of those genres that I am fond of saying I never read.  I need to learn to keep my mouth shut since this is the second book I have read in that genre this month, both of which I enjoyed.  It's getting to where I can't believe a word I say anymore. *sigh*

LIBRARY SUMMARY:  "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" Copyright 2007 Booklist