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The Door Into Summer

3.94 of 5 stars 3.94 · rating details · 8,929 ratings · 389 reviews

It is 1970, and electronics engineer Dan Davis has finally made the invention of a lifetime: a household robot with extraordinary abilities, destined to dramatically change the landscape of everyday routine. Then, with wild success just within reach, Dan's greedy partner and even greedier fiancée steal his work and leave him penniless, and trick him into taking the long sl...more

Paperback, 304 pages

Published June 17th 1997 by Del Rey (first published 1957)

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Mar 23, 2013 Lance Greenfield Mitchell rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: time-travel

I really enjoyed this book from beginning to [almost] end. The reason for the "almost" will become apparent.

The story of time travel by various means was excellent. When reading this story, you should remember that it was written in the 1950s. Some of Heinlein's predictions are amazing, and some are way off the mark. It's amazing to follow his line of thinking though.

You can see an outline of the plot in the description. It is fairly predictable, but that didn't detract from my enjoyment of the...more

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Nov 16, 2012 Valerie rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: science-fiction

For today's standards it is a rather short novel with Heinlein still in his early stage, trying to develop the style that later led to his major works, and short is better in this case. It is told first person perspective and this makes things difficult for the narrative part but better for the introspective one.
There are no discussions of time travel issues or paradoxes to be solved, still the book is enjoyable, but if you want science fiction with any depth or emotional resonance, don't expect...more

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Jan 04, 2008 Jim rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: science-fiction

I liked most of Heinlein's older stuff. Once he wrote "The Number of the Beast" he started writing too weird for me. This was one of his better ones. It is the first that I recall with a cat in it (he seems to have a reverence for cats) & an inventor who is a pretty smart guy but can still get himself into a world of trouble - and then back out again. Fun, quick read.

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May 21, 2013 Jim rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: audio, science-fiction

Another old favorite picked up as a downloadable audio book from the library. It was quite enjoyable in this medium & the reader was very good. Originally published in 1957, it is set in 'the future' years 1970 & 2000. The idea of traveling into the future via 'cold sleep' was a pretty popular until sometime in the 70's, but cutting edge at this time, I think. Haven't heard about it in humans for years.

The hero, Dan, is an engineer & inventor. His genius isn't in break through techno...more Another old favorite picked up as a downloadable audio book from the library. It was quite enjoyable in this medium & the reader was very good. Originally published in 1957, it is set in 'the future' years 1970 & 2000. The idea of traveling into the future via 'cold sleep' was a pretty popular until sometime in the 70's, but cutting edge at this time, I think. Haven't heard about it in humans for years.

The hero, Dan, is an engineer & inventor. His genius isn't in break through technology, but in putting together mostly off-the-shelf parts to create really useful laborsaving devices. Steve Jobs type genius, timing, & design. Heinlein's discussion of this tech timing over the course of the book is very practical & interesting. It's amazing how much supporting technology there has to be for every major breakthrough.

Engineering is the art of the practical and depends more on the total state of the art than it does on the individual engineer. When railroading time comes you can railroad-but not before. Look at poor Professor Langley, breaking his heart on a flying machine that should have flown-he had put the necessary genius in it-but he was just a few years too early to enjoy the benefit of collateral art he needed and did not have. Or take the great Leonardo daVinci, so far out of his time that his most brilliant concepts were utterly unbuildable.

It was Heinlein's genius to take this a step further into the prosaic & make it sound so easy & obvious.

Amazingly little real thought had been given to housework, even though it is at least 50 per cent of all work in the world. The women's magazines talked about "labor saving in the home" and "functional kitchens," but it was just prattle; their pretty pictures showed living-working arrangements essentially no better than those in Shakespeare's day; the horse-to-jet-plane revolution had not reached the home.

Of course, Heinlein got a lot wrong about the future, but that wasn't too bad. Most obviously, we still don't have most of the devices that he describes. I loved his idea of Thorsen Memory tubes & macro programming, even though both are silly & simplistic. He had helicopter buses & completely missed the idea of the Internet - overall communications or electronic databases - yet he had transmutation of elements. Not a bad reason, if incorrect, for getting off the gold standard & he had the timing pretty close.

The overall story was a pretty good one of love & betrayal. With the time travel tossed in, it got quite twisty - although I was a little disappointed the he seemed to try to obscure it a bit too much especially in the last conversation. That was too much as the character is supposed to be fairly intelligent.

And that brings me to the creep factor that really brings the book down for me - Dan's relationship with Ricky. (view spoiler)

So it was a 4 star story with 1 star removed due to this one creepy factor. It's well worth reading or listening too, though. Glad I did again after all these years.(less)

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Mar 07, 2009 Stefan rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: science-fiction-and-alt-history

Robert A. Heinlein proves once again he can use a interesting plot that is both amusing and serious to make important points about society. This novel, which was quite funny in parts, tension packed in some passages, and brilliantly witty in other sections shows how Heinlein was able to mix a pleasing concoction out of good dialogue, interesting characters, a exciting plot, thought provoking topics, and a mixture of this both scientific and fictional. A nice, short weekend read, that is also goo...more

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Dec 10, 2007 Valeroo rated it 3 of 5 stars

If ever I own a Cat his name will be Pete, for short.

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Apr 10, 2013 Space rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: e-books, time-travel

This was a quick read. I've always heard how good Heinlein is, and this book does well to prove it. Being only the second I've read by him, I don't have a real good base yet - the other was The Puppet Masters, which was okay - but I really liked this one a lot.

A goodly amount of time-travel - not too much, and he doesn't bog you down with technical jargon like some authors do. Ahem. And he does have a good reason for it. And the way he introduces it kind of surprises you in the book. It's like y...more

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Sep 18, 2010 David rated it 2 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: american, novels, sci-fi

This review has been hidden because it contains spoilers. To view it, click here. This was my first sci-fi novel in years, perhaps decades, and my first ever Heinlein. Until Dan Davis took the Cold Sleep, I couldn't put it down. Heinlein has a wry (although sometime eye-rollingly wry) style - reflecting the mindset of the nuts-and-bolts hands-on practical man that the engineer protagonist is, that keeps the story moving and the reader chuckling along with it.

Published in 1957, describing the "present" of the 1970s is almost as big an imaginative task as describing the story'...more This was my first sci-fi novel in years, perhaps decades, and my first ever Heinlein. Until Dan Davis took the Cold Sleep, I couldn't put it down. Heinlein has a wry (although sometime eye-rollingly wry) style - reflecting the mindset of the nuts-and-bolts hands-on practical man that the engineer protagonist is, that keeps the story moving and the reader chuckling along with it.

Published in 1957, describing the "present" of the 1970s is almost as big an imaginative task as describing the story's "future", the 2000s. And Heinlein does OK. There is nothing jarringly wrong about the 1970s he describes, and, while he completely misses out on the kind of automation that would typify the 2000s and the whole digitization thing, he makes brave and plausible (and consistently upbeat) attempts at picturing how things would be.

The protagonist, Dan Davis, is depicted as a purely practical man who likes nothing better than to be holed up and applying his engineering wits to a problem. He is not a social man, or, by extension, a businessman (a lack of business acumen being his initial undoing). Ruptured connections with an evil fiance and a greedy business partner, who dupe the naive hero, lead to his taking the Cold Sleep. After he wakes from it, he really starts needing people more than before in order to achieve the tasks he sets himself - tasks designed to amend the faults of the past and facilitate a blissful future with the (to begin with, underage) love of his life.

Yet here the story reveals its major failing. Heinlein does not manage to make Dan Davis the kind of person who can plausibly influence people. His interactions with others are in the form of brash, cartoonish, corny dialogs that Heinlein uses much as Dan Davis uses cheap components from the local hardware store to help put together his Flexible Franks and Hired Girls. Heinlein's "cheap components" are basically the kind of slapstick dialogs of sitcoms, and he uses them to bridge inconveniently disparate stages in Dan Davis's adventures more as an engineer would than a novelist should.

Some bad examples that come to mind are exchanges with people in positions of authority, who inevitably crumble and divulge what they shouldn't for the sake of such cheesy ploys of the "Well, you don't say? I had an Aunt May too!"-type. And the worst of all is the most crucial "bridge" in the story: that of riding the time machine. I'll leave the reader to sit through the seat-squirming cringing ineptitude of that one.

So, sure, The Door into Summer is a brave and fun adventure, but its author suffers the same weakness as the protagonist: a complex techie vision at the expense an ability to understand - or at least an impatience with - the subtleties of human interaction. As such, I finished this book feeling I'd been given a lecture on the physics of time and space, the possibilities it holds for time travel, with some philosophical musings - all clumsily dressed up for convenience's sake in fictional "real life" examples.(less)

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Mar 22, 2008 Steve rated it 1 of 5 stars

This review has been hidden because it contains spoilers. To view it, click here. Ultimately, creepy, and not in a good way. It's a time travel tale, and I'll forgive a lot for an entertaining time travel story. But "entertaining" and "time travel" are all it's got going for it. I haven't read a lot of Heinlein, but this didn't show me at all why he's got got so many fans.

The writing style is fine, but he goes wrong in a few key ways with the story. [SPOILERS] For one, he wrote the book in 1956, with most characters' natural time being 1970 and the rest of the action (reache...more Ultimately, creepy, and not in a good way. It's a time travel tale, and I'll forgive a lot for an entertaining time travel story. But "entertaining" and "time travel" are all it's got going for it. I haven't read a lot of Heinlein, but this didn't show me at all why he's got got so many fans.

The writing style is fine, but he goes wrong in a few key ways with the story. [SPOILERS] For one, he wrote the book in 1956, with most characters' natural time being 1970 and the rest of the action (reached cryogenically and returned from via time travel) being in 2000 and 2001. Both are full of technological, cultural, and historical differences Heinlein invented. These probably seemed cool in 1957 or 1960, but his 2000 here wouldn't have held up in 1985, let alone 2008.

Spoiling with age as badly as his inaccurate visions of change is his vision of something wholly unchanged over 50 years: a degree of sexism astonishing these days. Hell, I suspect his degree of sexism would have been startling even in the real 1970. It's not constant and overpowering; it's just striking.

Each of those would be flaws I wouldn't mind having to overlook for the sake of the time travel story, which is largely entertaining, but Heinlein completely undermines any satisfaction that could come from it by having the protagonist and narrator, Dan Davis, eagerly find a way (via the rampant cryogenics of imaginary 1970) to marry in 2000 the step-daughter of his business partner, a girl who, as a child called him "Uncle Danny."

He'd known her since she was a toddler or something (in 1970, she's nine and he's [always] thirty), and there's talk early in the book about how she had a crush on him and wanted to marry him when she grew up, but it's just some misplaced childhood crush and, of course, nothing he actually reciprocates. Supposedly. Ultimately, though, after all the time travel stuff (which you could totally separate pretty easily from this weirdness), during which he makes various occasional references to how great this kid is and how important she is to him, after he returns from 2000 (during which time he never met her as an adult) to 1970 and takes care of fun paradox stuff, he tells her that he's going to go into thirty-year cryostasis. (Again, though no one but he knows it's his 2nd time.) 30 years seems like forever to a young kid, and she's upset she won't see him again, and he tells her that in 1982, when she's 21, she could do "The Long Sleep" too and come out of it also in 2000. She asks, "If I do...will you marry me?" He replies, damn disturbingly, "Yes....That's what I want. That's why I'm doing this."

After they awake in 2000, they get married pretty much immediately. And then the book ends within a few pages.

So Heinlein's a freak and a perv. I don't care that much that this girl is physically 21 when they hook up. The "hero" never knew her as an adult, just as a young kid who called him "Uncle Danny," and it was based on that relationship that he decided he wanted to marry her. Also, the 21-year-old who opted for the cryogenics in 1982 apparently still has the precise same feelings as her nine-year-old self, which is similarly disturbing. Goddamn. Fricking. Creepy.

Throughout the book, the protagonist (and narrator) doesn't seem like a really great guy but sympathetic enough. If Heinlein's trying to blow the reader's mind by having him turn out to be not at all sympathetic after all that, I could see the point in that. But there's no indication that's what the author's up to or, indeed, that he sees anything wrong here. It seems instead that he's glad for Dan to have a happy ending. Parents of 1957, keep your children away from Robert Heinlein, please.

My default tendency is to react favorably to time travel fiction, so it's pretty striking to make that U-turn from amusement to revulsion there at the end and move this from the "OK" column into "Not OK. Not."(less)

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Feb 12, 2009 Alice Lee rated it 2 of 5 stars

Shelves: science-fiction

My first Heinlein, wasn't impressed. I heard some random dude on the bus one day loudly singing its praises and it piqued my interest, since Heinlein was an author I intended to try out anyway... Maybe this just wasn't the best first book to read. I'm thinking of trying Stranger in a Strange Land next; if that is another fail then, oh well, another author I don't care for.

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Mar 17, 2009 Manny rated it 3 of 5 stars

Shelves: science-fiction

Somewhat unusually for Heinlein, this is a cute, fun book which doesn't try to ladle a bunch of right-wing ideology down your throat, or O.D. you on dubious sex. There's some time travel, a sympathetic main character, a Bad Girl, and a cat who steals the show every time he appears on stage. He even gets the title: the reference is to his endearing habit, during winter months, of making the hero open each door in the house in turn, just in case one of them happens to lead into summer...

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Apr 01, 2013 Kevin rated it 4 of 5 stars

This review has been hidden because it contains spoilers. To view it, click here.

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Feb 23, 2013 Keith Parker rated it 4 of 5 stars

I like the innocence and optimism of classic science fiction, and Heinlein does this as well as anyone.

This is one of Heinlein's masterpieces, with a protagonist not unlike Heinlein himself (independent engineer with a libertarian streak). To today's audiences his characters could seem cardboard or even trite. That's because, in a way, they are. But if you read this and other Golden Age SF it might help to view it as a "tall tale" told by your grandfather on the back porch, rather than a work b...more

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Jan 21, 2013 Maryan Pelland rated it 5 of 5 stars

Shelves: book-reviewed

Yep. Five stars for Mr Heinlein, and no apology to reviewers who slammed him because he didn't "get" 21st Century digital technology. I picked up this book because it was by the author of STRANGER IN A STRANGE LAND, a favorite of mine, and because it was free or nearly so. I kept reading because it was so damned fun to see how a man writing in the mid 1950s saw the 1970s and the opening of the 21st Century. (Or the end of the 20th, depending on where you cut the two centuries.)

I kept annoying my...more

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Jan 07, 2013 David Yates rated it 3 of 5 stars

I love reading science fiction from the 1950s because it's neat to see how very wrong people back then were about what the future was going to be like. I don't fault them for it, of course, but there's something amusing about reading in 2012 a book written in 1956 about happenings in the 1970s and early 2000s. It would be really cool if we did have that cure for the common cold and all those robots, oh man.

Anyway, The Door into Summer is about an engineer who takes a cryogenic ride into a future...more

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Dec 30, 2012 Liam Proven rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Ooh, this is an odd one.

The second Heinlein I managed to miss out on in my early teens; looking back now, I wonder how much he influenced my adult mindset... I didn't understand a lot of the preachier bits when I was a kid, but now, as an adult, I do and I agree with them. I moan and mourn the moralistic, uptight, repressed C21 world; RAH would too, I feel.

This is an early Heinlein and it really shows. It's from before he grew into his full powers; it's a simplistic story by a simplistic charac...more

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Dec 15, 2012 Ben rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: fiction, science-fiction

More interesting than captivating. Mostly interesting for the protagonist's expectations of the future (the year 2000) and how they clash with the "reality" he finds there. That sort of retro-futurism is always fun, especially when it's told slowly and methodically. It ends with a brief scene tying up a few loose ends but feels like more should have been explored.

Yes, on the face of it this is one of Heinlein's novels with multiple worlds, but in this case they're the same world, our world, re-e...more

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Dec 07, 2012 Bill Jr. rated it 5 of 5 stars

This was a wonderful story about an engineer who invents robots destined to make himself a fortune - until he runs into greedy partners. There are some nice twists, and though some are predictable, Heinlein handles them with enough aplomb that it's still wonderful reading. He reportedly wrote the book in 13 days, and it reads that way - a bright and energetic book, full of humor.

The story takes place in 1970 and 30 years later. Heinlein, writing from the 1956, created a future significantly dif...more

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Sep 26, 2012 Christopher rated it 1 of 5 stars

Gratuitous Mary-Sue fiction with some seriously creepy overtones and characters with the depth of a cardboard cutout.

While the book has some interesting takes on time and moving back and forth in it, these really aren't explored so much as used as justification for a hackneyed romance story and revenge.

The protagonist lacks any human vulnerabilities or frailties, and is only ever put in jeopardy by treachery, of course of the feminine type. There are only three women in the novel, and they're al...more

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Sep 25, 2012 Smcleish rated it 3 of 5 stars

Originally published on my blog here in November 2000.

One of the most well known of Heinlein's early novels, The Door Into Summer is typical of the best of them. It is about the use of that staple of science fiction, cold sleep, to outlive a difficult situation in the present. Most candidates for this treatment are terminally ill patients who want to be woken when a cure has been found; but Heinlein's hero wants to escape the consequences of the theft of his business.

Some complicated adventures...more

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Sep 22, 2012 Amarilli73 rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Un uomo un gatto e i pericoli del Lungo Sonno

Sebbene questo racconto lungo di Robert A. Heinlein sia considerato un piccolo gioiello della fantascienza (1957), rileggerlo oggi fa quasi tenerezza, dopo che da oltre un decennio ci siamo già lasciati alle spalle il tanto sospirato anno 2000.

Qui non c’è il solito Heinlein, non ci sono astronavi, minacce mostruose e viaggi interstellari. Ci sono, invero, un uomo e il suo gatto, poco prima delle Guerra delle Sei Settimane, in una vecchia casa di camp...more

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Aug 11, 2012 Bruce rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: sf-fantasy

This review has been hidden because it contains spoilers. To view it, click here. On the one hand, this is probably the thirds time I've read this book, so that speaks highly of it. On the other hand, it's been at least 15 years since I read it, do I still think it's awesome?

Spoilers...

This is a really tricky one. The major emotional attachments of the protagonist Dan are a cat and an 11 year old girl. Goodreads rock star reviewer Cerwiden http://www.goodreads.com/user/show/10... says she can't read Heinlein because of an ick factor. I understand... because here is Heinlein b...more

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Jul 28, 2012 Thom (T.E.) rated it 4 of 5 stars

Several people whose tastes I trust have read this novel and praised it as refreshing with a steady hum of unusual energy coursing through the tale and Heinlein's telling.

Damned if they weren't right. But, a major caveat: this story is old-school in more than one regard. It deals in time travels that both begin and end in periods that are both now of the past. To me that matters barely one whit. I was (slightly) put off by Heinlein's well-known strains of libertarianism and his peculiarly patron...more

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Jul 08, 2012 Williwaw rated it 2 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: vanilla-science-fiction

Yep. Likeable ol' Bob! He'll chat your ear off if you'll let him. He's the guy that you met on that long bus trip back in the '70s, who wouldn't shut up for the entire duration of the 12-hour trip. You wish that you had never sat next to him, but you are too polite to move to another seat. Besides, he just might follow you, without realizing that you were trying to get away from him. Because he just HAS to keep telling you his story.

Okay, so Heinlein has this smooth, chatty style that's very aut...more

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Jun 30, 2012 Arwen56 rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: romanzi

Robert Anson Heinlein è stato definito uno dei padri fondatori della fantascienza moderna assieme a Isaac Asimov e Arthur C. Clarke. Nasce a Butler (Missouri) il 7 Luglio 1907. Si laurea all'accademia navale di Annapolis, nel 1929 ed in quello stesso anno sposa Leslyn MacDonald, da cui in seguito divorzierà. Nei cinque anni successivi presta servizio a bordo di navi della Marina, ma, nel 1934, per gravi motivi di salute è costretto a ritirarsi. Per qualche tempo si dedica agli studi di astronomi...more Robert Anson Heinlein è stato definito uno dei padri fondatori della fantascienza moderna assieme a Isaac Asimov e Arthur C. Clarke. Nasce a Butler (Missouri) il 7 Luglio 1907. Si laurea all'accademia navale di Annapolis, nel 1929 ed in quello stesso anno sposa Leslyn MacDonald, da cui in seguito divorzierà. Nei cinque anni successivi presta servizio a bordo di navi della Marina, ma, nel 1934, per gravi motivi di salute è costretto a ritirarsi. Per qualche tempo si dedica agli studi di astronomia, interrotti di nuovo per motivi di salute, e poi alle vendite immobiliari, al campo minerario ed alla politica. Nel 1939, Heinlein si imbatte per caso, sulla rivista “Thrilling Wonder Stories”, nel bando di un concorso letterario: cinquanta dollari per il miglior racconto di fantascienza. Quasi per scherzo, scrive La linea della vita, la sua prima opera letteraria. Non vince il concorso, ma il racconto gli venne subito richiesto da John W. Campbell, direttore di “Astounding Science Fiction”. Campbell comincia ad acquistare regolarmente gli scritti di Heinlein, che osserverà poi scherzosamente: “Da quanto tempo esiste questa pacchia? Perché nessuno me lo aveva detto?”
Tra il 1942 e il 1945 Heinlein lavora come ingegnere al Naval Air Experimental Center di Philadelphia. Nel 1948 sposa in seconde nozze Virginia Gerstenfeld. Nel 1956 vince il premio Hugo per il racconto Stella Doppia. L'anno successivo fa il bis con il romanzo Fanteria dello Spazio. Altri due Hugo gli vengono assegnati nel 1962 (per Straniero in terra straniera) e nel 1967 (La Luna e' una severa maestra). Nel 1969 commenta con Walter Cronkite il primo allunaggio. Muore a ottant'anni, il 9 Maggio 1988 a Carmel, California.

Uno dei pregi riconosciuti ad Heinlein è stato quello di essere riuscito a riversare con naturalezza nei suoi romanzi tutte le sue personali convinzioni ed i suoi valori: l’amore per la disciplina e la vita militare, la sua particolare dualistica visione della politica, il patriottismo, la sua razionale mentalità da ingegnere. Tipico dei romanzi di Heinlein è il rapporto discepolo-mentore. Gran parte delle sue storie sono basate sul confronto/scontro tra due personaggi, uno giovane e ingenuo, l'altro maturo e smaliziato, artificio letterario noto (si pensi a Holmes e Watson), utile per spiegare un punto di vista senza correre il rischio di apparire saccente.

Credo che questo romanzo piacerebbe anche a chi non gradisce particolarmente il genere fantascientifico. Se, infatti, è vero che ci vengono prospettate situazioni che presuppongono uno sviluppo tecnologico non ancora del tutto in nostro possesso, è altrettanto vero che lo stile chiaro e preciso con cui Heinlein ce le presenta le rende del tutto plausibili. I personaggi sono piuttosto ben delineati e la trama scorrevolissima, grazie anche ad una parziale commistione con genere “giallo” che crea parecchia suspense. Il protagonista, infatti, ricorre all’ibernazione per poter sfuggire ad una truffa ordita ai suoi danni dalla propria compagna e dal socio in affari.

Ma, soprattutto, indimenticabile è Pete, il gatto che lo accompagna ovunque e che non si rassegna all’inverno. Voglio riportare qui l’incipit del libro, che ho sempre trovato degno della miglior letteratura:
Un inverno, poco prima della Guerra delle Sei Settimane, io e il mio gatto, Petronio Arbitro, abitavamo in una vecchia casa di campagna nel Connecticut. Credo che quella casa non esista più. Non era lontana dalla zona di Manhattan che andò completamente distrutta, e poi si sa che le vecchie case di legno bruciano come la carta velina. Ma anche se esiste ancora, non credo che serva molto in quanto è priva di impianti igienici, ma a me e a Pete piaceva, sia perchè l'affitto era basso, sia perchè la sala da pranzo, rivolta a nord, era per me un'ottima stanza per disegnare. Unico svantaggio erano le undici porte che si aprivano nella casa. Dodici anzi, se contiamo quella di Pete. A proposito, Pete è sempre Petronio Arbitro. Lo chiamo così per comodità. Io ho sempre fatto in modo, in tutte la case dove siamo andati a vivere, che Pete avesse la sua porta personale. Nel caso specifico si trattava di un'apertura praticata nella porta-finestra di una stanza disabitata, apertura grande abbastanza per lasciare passare Pete con baffi e tutto. Per troppo tempo avevo aperto e chiuso porte ai gatti: da qui la decisione di ricorrere a quello stratagemma. Pete si serviva abitualmente della su porta, tranne quando riusciva a costringermi ad aprirgliene una normale. Una cosa era certa: non si serviva mai della sua porta quando fuori c'era la neve. Fin da quando era un micio tutto pelo e ronron, Pete aveva elaborato una filosofia molto semplice: io dovevo occuparmi della casa, dei viveri e del tempo, lui pensava a tutto il resto. Mi riteneva in particolar modo responsabile delle condizioni atmosferiche. Gli inverni nel Connecticut vanno bene per le cartoline natalizie, e durante l'inverno Pete provava regolarmente a uscire dalla sua porticina, e regolarmente si rifiutava di andare fuori a causa della sgradevole cosa bianca che c'era all'esterno. Allora veniva da me, per pregarmi di aprire una porta normale, convinto che almeno una di esse si aprisse su una bella giornata estiva. Così, tutte le volte io dovevo fare il giro delle undici porte e aprirle in modo che si persuadesse che anche fuori di quelle era inverno. A ogni porta il suo disprezzo per la mia inettitudine aumentava, accresciuto dalla delusione. Usciva, finalmente, ma stava fuori il tempo necessario a far calare la pressione idraulica. Quando tornava, il ghiaccio rappreso intorno alle zampe risuonava sul pavimento di legno, come se calzasse minuscoli zoccoli, e Pete mi lanciava occhiate di fuoco, rifiutandosi di fare le fusa finché non riusciva a leccare via tutto. Dopo di che mi perdonava, fino alla prossima volta. Con tutto questo non rinunciava mai alla sua ricerca di Una Porta che si aprisse sull'Estate.
(less)

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Mar 03, 2012 Sandy rated it 3 of 5 stars

If I'd read this book in the early 1970's, when I was a young teenager, I would have loved it. Cryogenics mixed with time travel... a feast for a young science fiction fan. Unfortunately, reading it for the first time in 2012, it seemed much too cozy to be written for a contemporary adult. Except for the boring details of patents and company stock. Those I found tedious and unnecessary, not cozy at all. The fact that the novel was written in the 1950's then staged in 1970 and 2001 would have sto...more

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Feb 22, 2012 Sineala rated it 2 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: e-books, science-fiction, time-travel, fiction

This review has been hidden because it contains spoilers. To view it, click here. The plot is a wonderful, twisty masterpiece of hard SF, and exactly all the sort of things I love about Heinlein in one book. Engineer Dan Davis is swindled by his business partners (they run a business making robots) and plots to cryogenically sleep the years away and make a fortune with investments. And bring his favorite cat, too. The plot fails, and he ends up in the year 2000 with no money and no cat. But! Luckily there is time travel, and so he goes back and tries it again, and this time b...more

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Dec 23, 2011 Fred rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: science-fiction

I loved this book. Easily five stars. I had no idea that anyone was writing science fiction about time travel that was this detailed in theory back in 1956 when it was first published! Heinlein is impressing me more the farther I go in working through his books.

SPOILER ALERT

Personally, the fact that Leonardo da Vinci was Leonard Vincent, a college student from Denver who went back in time, was one of the high lights of the book for me and totally amazing. Loved the way that it worked out and lo...more

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Dec 06, 2011 James rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: sci-fi

I like Robert Heinlein's early stories with their running-monologue narrative style that only he could pull off well. "Door Into Summer" is such a book, originally published in around 1957, it gives an interesting view of the "future" of 1970 and the even more distant "future" of 2000!

"Despite the crepe-hangers, romanticists and anti-intellectuals, the world steadily grows better because the human mind, applying itself to environment, makes it better. With hands ... with tools ... with horse sen...more I like Robert Heinlein's early stories with their running-monologue narrative style that only he could pull off well. "Door Into Summer" is such a book, originally published in around 1957, it gives an interesting view of the "future" of 1970 and the even more distant "future" of 2000!

"Despite the crepe-hangers, romanticists and anti-intellectuals, the world steadily grows better because the human mind, applying itself to environment, makes it better. With hands ... with tools ... with horse sense and science and engineering." - RAH

I've read a few of Heinlein's early books and this one was the first to delve into time travel. Not really as good as his Methuselah books, still a fun read. Dan Davis is a creative engineer - not much sense when it comes to business nor to love, and gets cheated by both! Bella the secretary turns out to be a shyster - and his business partner Miles is as much a victim as Dan is.

Dan describes the world of 1970, with its recent nuclear war and the capital of the USA in Denver, CO - and he decides to take the Long Sleep - a cryogenic place, run by insurance companies (who else?) and he sleeps for 30 years. And in this mix is Pete the Cat -- finiky and self-serving, as any cat can be!

He is enamored by the year 2000 with its zipperless clothing and "grabbies" (movies). But what interests this reader is how he adapts the environment so well, bends it to solve his current problem of getting his former protégé Ricky (now a grown woman) and is bummed to see she is married - but that's actually not a bad thing, as we find in the last chapters.

The discovery of an experimental time machine (temporal device) saves the day. The how and why I'll leave to Heinlein.

Bottom Line: Enjoyable, sometimes a bit too wordy and self-narrative chatty, but overall a typical Heinlein yarn. Enjoy.

Other Heinlein Collections (there are many!):

Requiem: New Collected Works by Robert A. Heinlein and Tributes to the Grand Master

TOMORROW THE STARS. A Science Fiction Anthology. Edited and with an Introduction by Robert A. Heinlein.

Analog Anthology # 2
(less)

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Aug 19, 2011 Michelle rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: book_club, ebook, sci-fi, grand_masters

ah, Heinlein: when he's not completely off the fucking deep end into icky-sex territory(1), he's such a fun writer. I think a lot of times, the kookoo stuff in his later works overshadows his body of work as a whole, so it's nice to come back to one that's fairly free of insanity(2).

in classic Heinlein fashion(3), our protagonist is a salty, quick-witted, ex-military man, equally keen on being his own boss as he is on the aerodynamics of a woman's brassiere. he's an engineer working on household...more

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About Robert A. Heinlein

Robert Anson Heinlein was an American novelist and science fiction writer. Often called "the dean of science fiction writers", he is one of the most popular, influential, and controversial authors of "hard science fiction".

He set a high standard for science and engineering plausibility and helped to raise the genre's standards of literary quality. He was the first SF writer to break into mainstre...more

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“I have spent too much of my life opening doors for cats—I once calculated that, since the dawn of civilization, nine hundred and seventy-eight man-centuries have been used up that way. I could show you figures.” — 11 people liked it

“Nothing could go wrong because nothing had...I meant "nothing would." No - Then I quit trying to phrase it, realizing that if time travel ever became widespread, English grammar was going to have to add a whole new set of tenses to describe reflexive situations - conjugations that would make the French literary tenses and the Latin historical tenses look simple.” — 7 people liked it

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