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The Door into Summer

by Robert A. Heinlein

3.88 · rating details · 4,584 ratings · 223 reviews

Dan Davis was tricked by an unscrupulous business partner and a greedy fiancee into spending thirty years in suspended animation just when he was on the verge of a success beyond his wildest dreams. But when he awoke in the future, he discovered he had the means to travel back in time -- and get his revenge!

Mass Market Paperback, 291 pages

Published October 12th 1986 by Del Rey (first published 1957)

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Mar 07, 2009

Stefan rated it

· review of another edition

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

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

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Sep 18, 2010

David rated it

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...moreThis 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

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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 19...moreUltimately, 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

Marian Lee rated it

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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

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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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Dec 23, 2011

Fred rated it

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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 ...more

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Dec 06, 2011

James rated it

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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....moreI 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
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Sep 04, 2011

I.A. Ireland marked it as to-read · review of another edition

Lo malo de las historias sobre viajes de tiempo (de las historias sobre viajes en el tiempo que utilizan esa estructura cerrada, en la que todo cuadra, en la que el viaje es causa y efecto al mismo tiempo de todo lo que sucede) es que cuando uno ha leído o visto un par, el resto ya se ven venir a leguas.

Con "Puerta al verano" sucede exactamente eso. Conviene aclarar, para ser justos, que esta novela de Heinlein fue escrita en 1957, y que el problema de su previsibilidad no es...moreLo malo de las historias sobre viajes de tiempo (de las historias sobre viajes en el tiempo que utilizan esa estructura cerrada, en la que todo cuadra, en la que el viaje es causa y efecto al mismo tiempo de todo lo que sucede) es que cuando uno ha leído o visto un par, el resto ya se ven venir a leguas.

Con "Puerta al verano" sucede exactamente eso. Conviene aclarar, para ser justos, que esta novela de Heinlein fue escrita en 1957, y que el problema de su previsibilidad no es exactamente de la novela en sí, sino de que, sencillamente, han pasado cincuenta años desde su publicación y no ha envejecido (su estructura argumental, al menos) demasiado bien; leída hoy en día, después de que decenas de novelas, cuentos y películas hayan usado la estructura de paradoja temporal de forma más sofisticada, el viaje en el tiempo de "Puerta al verano" carece de cualquier elemento de sorpresa.

El defecto se ve acrecentado porque, por si de casualidad no lo sabíamos de antemano, ya desde la portada se nos advierte que se trata de "un clásico del viaje en el tiempo", lo que nos impide descubrir por nosotros mismos el giro argumental (hasta sobrepasada la mitad de la novela no hay ningún indicio de que vaya a haber ningún viaje en el tiempo) y aún antes de que se haya siquiera mencionado tal posibilidad en el libro, nosotros ya estamos atando cabos y descubriendo aburridamente que tal acción está causada por el viaje, o que tal personaje, del que no se nos da ninguna información, debe de ser la encarnación viajera del protagonista.

"Puerta al verano" es, viajes en el tiempo aparte, la historia de un hombre (y su gato) desengañado; un ingeniero estafado por la mujer que amaba y por su mejor amigo, que decide huir de su presente mediante la criogenización, en busca de un futuro en el que empezar de nuevo. El tono de esa primera mitad tiene humor, cierta poesía (la reflexión sobre la puerta al verano que da título al libro) y algunos puntos en contacto con la novela negra. En mi opinión, esa primera mitad de la historia está mejor resuelta que la segunda. Al llegar al futuro, algunas de las motivaciones más interesantes del personaje principal parecen desvanecerse; de repente sus ansias de venganza desaparecen y el protagonista se decanta por tratar de abrirse camino en la nueva realidad a la que la criogenización le ha permitido acceder. Hasta aquí, a pesar del desperdicio de la venganza como motivación para proseguir la trama, la historia y sobre todo la caracterización del personaje protagonista resulta bastante atractiva. Luego aparecen los famosos viajes, y la sensación es que Heinlein descuida la construcción de personajes en favor de ir cerrando la trama, de forma un tanto mecánica, mediante el viaje en el tiempo (que, por cierto, está introducido en la historia prácticamente con calzador). Realmente, no sé cuánto bien le hace el cambio a la novela. Aun y así, por la rapidez y facilidad con que se lee, por las reflexiones y descripciones sobre ingeniería del personaje principal, y porque la trama de traición y espionaje empresarial funciona muy bien (e incluso porque la trama sobre viajes en el tiempo, aunque envejecida, está construida con solidez) merece la pena leer esta novela.(less)

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Aug 19, 2011

Michelle rated it

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Shelves: book_club, ebook, sci-fi

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 ...more

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Aug 02, 2011

Algernon rated it

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Shelves: 2011

I liked it, but It was suggested to me I shouldn't give four stars to every book I enjoy, so here it goes for Heinlein. I really had no issues with The Door Into Summer, and Heinlein is one of my favorite SF masters.
I enjoy books that feature engineers as protagonists, and here we have one proto-geek singlehandedly inventing robotics in the 50's and failing rather spectacularly in the human relations department. later there's some time travel thrown in and some cryogenics, giving us a glim...more

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Jul 02, 2010

John rated it

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This review has been hidden because it contains spoilers. To view it, click here. In 1970 engineer/inventor Dan Davis is swindled out of his inventions and his company by his fiancee Belle and his long-time buddy and business partner Miles, and determines that he and his loyal cat Pete will take the Long Sleep -- will go into cryogenic storage for thirty years, until the year 2000, so that he can have the satisfaction of showing a wrinkly old Belle the youthful virile hunk of man she could have had. Or something. First, though, he takes steps to invest the cash and options he...moreIn 1970 engineer/inventor Dan Davis is swindled out of his inventions and his company by his fiancee Belle and his long-time buddy and business partner Miles, and determines that he and his loyal cat Pete will take the Long Sleep -- will go into cryogenic storage for thirty years, until the year 2000, so that he can have the satisfaction of showing a wrinkly old Belle the youthful virile hunk of man she could have had. Or something. First, though, he takes steps to invest the cash and options he's managed to keep back from the conniving pair; and then he thinks that, the night before departure for the future, he might as well go round and confront the two. The encounter goes badly; they drug him and pack him off on the Long Sleep sans Pete and swindled even further.

In the year 2000 he adapts swiftly and gets himself back onto a reasonable financial footing, but is startled out of any complacency when learning, first, that back in 1970 he invented various devices he knows for sure hadn't yet existed outside his head, and, second, that l'il Ricky, the adopted kid daughter of Miles, seems, on reaching adulthood, to have followed him into the future and been met and married by . . . himself. There can be just one possible explanation! He must have located a cranky old booze-reeking physicist whose prototype time machine was years earlier instantly classified by the military, and must have persuaded said cranky old booze-reeking physicist to send him back to 1970; there he must have swiftly invented the gadgets the Patent Office says he invented, while making plans with still-prepubescent Ricky to coordinate their travels in the Long Sleep and sorting out his investments a bit more securely.

And so, as if by magic . . . oops, no, for this is hard sf, not mere fantasy. And so, as if by cutting-edge technology, it comes to pass.

It's a bit worrying that the most fully rounded and appealing character in all this is the cat. Indeed, all the others are really just names and collections of cliched attributes, with the arguable exception of our narrator, Dan himself. He's the standard Heinlein libertarian hero, full of himself, a straight arrow whose view of the opposite sex consists for the most part in checking for bits that go spung!, yet who's capable, if given a few vacuum tubes and a screwdriver, of knocking together a functional robot in no time flat. As I said, the exception's arguable.

One bit of the book did, I confess, give me the creeps a bit. (I don't remembver it doing so last time I read this, which was likely when I was in my teens. Either my sensibilities have changed or I'd simply forgotten.) On Dan's return to 1970 he has to discuss with the child Ricky how he and she will coordinate their Long Sleeps such that she'll be 21, and thus marriagable, by the time they reunite in 2000. There seemed something oddly pedophile in Dan's motivations here: he's negotiating with a child so that, in a matter of days or weeks by his subjective time, he'll be able to bed her. I'm sure there are other ways of looking at this bit of the plotwork, but to me it read as if he was thrilled to bits at the prospect of it Real Soon Now being all legal and aboveboard. As I say, I found it unsettling.

Overall, though, this was the kind of amiable fast read that these days reminds me why I for the most part gave up reading "Golden Age" sf after my mid-twenties or so. Reading this made an interesting contrast with reading Asimov's roughly contemporaneous The End of Eternity just a couple of weeks ago: the Asimov, for all its typically Asimovian flaws, was a clever, ambitious piece of storytelling that manipulated the reader, and had borne up surprisingly well; the Heinlein, though far more smoothly told, was at the end of the day really rather empty -- merely a very mildly involving adventure with nothing much to say.

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Feb 28, 2010

Mark rated it

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Heinlein's another favorite I'm catching up with, fearfully. Fearfully because I'm often discovering my childhood favorites have not weathered the span of time between now and my former reading of them. (see "Childhood's End) I'm so jaded now!

Anyway I'd not read this one of Heinlein's, though he was almost my first author & I read most of his work. Robert writes in a folksy, intimate first person manner: you are very best friends with the protagonist, and this book's no except...more

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Feb 24, 2010

Chris rated it

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Shelves: classics, science-fiction, time-travel

Oh, 1950s science fiction - is there nothing you can't do?

One of the downsides to our modern information age is that we have so much information available to us. If I see a reference on a blog or in a book that I don't know, it's a quick hop over to Google or Wikipedia to find out what it is, and if it's really interesting I can find myself learning about something I never knew before. And so, if I want to know more about cold sleep, robotics or time travel, there's a whole host of way...more

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Apr 18, 2009

Thomas Johnson rated it

This review has been hidden because it contains spoilers. To view it, click here. This is the first Heinlein book I've read, and I definitely enjoyed it. Dan Davis is a thoroughly likable main character. While his status as the clear protagonist of the piece is never in doubt, he exudes a mischievous and witty attitude which keeps him from becoming a boring, pure white hat.

Heinlen's depictions of 1970 and 2000, while obviously factually incorrect considering the book was published in 1957. are fascinating. He admits that the future has both its good -- who wouldn'...moreThis is the first Heinlein book I've read, and I definitely enjoyed it. Dan Davis is a thoroughly likable main character. While his status as the clear protagonist of the piece is never in doubt, he exudes a mischievous and witty attitude which keeps him from becoming a boring, pure white hat.

Heinlen's depictions of 1970 and 2000, while obviously factually incorrect considering the book was published in 1957. are fascinating. He admits that the future has both its good -- who wouldn't want a smog-free Los Angeles? -- and its bad -- who wants an overcrowded Los Angeles? -- but seems to argue through Dan that the future is ultimately an improvement over the past. I can't say I necessarily agree, but I doubt I'd enjoy the past anymore than Dan enjoyed traveling back to 1970.

The time travel plot device was well used, though I probably would have enjoyed it more if it had not been spoiled by the plot description on the back of the edition I was reading. Heinlen the "closed loop" form of time travel, which prevents the possibility of paradox. That was smart of him as a writer, and it inspires Dan to make some profound declarations at the end of the novel concerning the possibility for free will and predestination to coexist, and how it all fits into God's plan.

He proposes a worldview similar to to that of Augustine's in City of God. Just as Augustine believes God can be omniscient while permitting humans to make their own choices, Dan believes that God allows to make him to make his own choices, though a set plan does exist. This philosophizing sounds much more interesting coming from Dan than Augustine, because Heinlein is a much more entertaining writer than Augustine!

Apart from these musings, the novel is just overall a fun yarn. It's difficult not to like Pete the cat and Ricky, and it's difficult not to hate Belle and Miles. The characters don't have incredibly complex motivations, but they don't need to in this case -- greed and love are simultaneously simple and powerful motivations, though love turns out to be the more powerful of the two. The love story does run the risk of being unsettling due to the initial age difference between the two characters before the time wackiness, but it ultimately ends up being endearing. It completely redeems Dan from engaging in the fiasco with Belle at the start of the novel.

To summarize after overlong review: a really enjoyable read that turns out to be more intellectual than the reader may have anticipated from the start.(less)

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Aug 14, 2011

Julie rated it

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An enjoyable, if easy, read. This is not the best of Heinlein, but there's nothing in the novel that'll put you off either.

Dan Davis, currently in the 1970's, has been betrayed by his partner and his lover - losing his business, his patents, his dreams, and his tentative faith in all human relationships. All he has left is the buy-out money and his best, most loyal friend - his cat, Pete. On impulse, Dan opts to take a 30 year cryogenic sleep, setting himself up so that he'll have...moreAn enjoyable, if easy, read. This is not the best of Heinlein, but there's nothing in the novel that'll put you off either.

Dan Davis, currently in the 1970's, has been betrayed by his partner and his lover - losing his business, his patents, his dreams, and his tentative faith in all human relationships. All he has left is the buy-out money and his best, most loyal friend - his cat, Pete. On impulse, Dan opts to take a 30 year cryogenic sleep, setting himself up so that he'll have the satisfaction of youth and money when he wakes, just so he can rub his betrayers' faces in it in the future. But Dan's immediate need for confrontation gets in the way and the ex-partner and ex-love get the upper hand once again, leaving him to wake in the future with none of the perks he'd planned. Oh well, nothing he can do for it...or so he thinks. He stumbles upon an time-travel option available to no one else and crafts a plan that will both undo the disaster of his waking and also tie in with the future he found there. If he's quick on his feet, he just might pull it off.

In summary The Door Into Summer is a fun, lightweight novel. The characters are somewhat simple, even bland, but that's not the point. This a plot-driven story, intended to present a time-traveling, paradox-solving, root-for-the-good-guy romp, which Heinlein performs well. Despite the characters' lack of backstory or growth, they're not strictly two-dimensional either and Heinlein's skill with dialogue goes a long way to forgive their static nature. By far, the favorite character is the cat, Pete. The need to rescue Pete is probably the sub-plot that keeps you cheering; without it, I might not have been as interested to see Dan's plan revealed.

While the novel isn't stunning and the characters lack complexity, from the first lines as Dan orders a ginger ale for his cat from the bartender, Heinlein has already established that the novel as a purely light, entertaining read and achieves his goal. Had he managed a little extra panache, been a little more creative beyond the basic plot-line, the novel would elevate itself into the 'Must Read' shelf.

Readers seeking an enjoyable, light read, happy endings and a sci-fi/fantasy story without all the high tech explanations will find this novel a good choice.(less)

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Aug 12, 2011

Maree ♫ Light's Shadow ♪ rated it

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The first time I read this book was years ago at the suggestion of a boyfriend and I don't know if that colored my opinion of the book or what, but I thought it was merely okay/didn't really like it. But in rereading, I find I have a much better opinion of the book and I'm not sure if it's just that I understand it better, having had that first experience, or if my tastes have changed since then (in boyfriends as well as books ;).

The Door into Summer is a classic time displacement nov...more

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Nov 23, 2010

julia rated it

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While I've seen this book around, I wasn't ever truly interested in reading it until I found out about the cat. Seems I've become a cat person. The story was rather enjoyable, with lots of time travel, both slow and fast. The main character is a little naive, a little manipulative, and really really smart, all at the same time. It was obvious it had been written some time before 1970--he was using vacuum tubes instead of transistors--but aside from the obsolete technology, it was really good...more

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Jul 18, 2011

Daryl Nash rated it

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Shelves: science-fiction

The romance in this book is squicky: (view spoiler) Petronius the Arbiter a.k.a. Pete (a cat) is the undeniable best part of the book, and some of Heinlein's cat observations are priceless. In between, there is a lot of rambling exposition about "futuristic" inventions that are an amusing peek back at a 50s future that couldn't take into account the eff...more

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Feb 04, 2008

Dinofly rated it

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Shelves: sci-fi, humor

Time travel, a tomcat addicted to ginger beer and a genial, even trough a little naive inventor.

One of the most funny books from Heinlein and I enjoyed every word in it. It is loosely tied with other Heinlein's books, so you will recognize some of the characters.

What will happen, when you try to cheat on an inventor and his cat and he will not just sit in the corner and leave it be? Especially, when he has something to live for? Read it and find out!

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Mar 01, 2008

M. W. rated it

Shelves: sf_classic

This book is the archetype for all modern stories that combine romance and time travel. One of Heinlein's lighter reads that relies on humor more than any sci-fi gimmick. I love the automatic desk! ....what a strange guess about the future of work. One of the reasons I love classic sci-fi is to see what panned out. It's usually funny and sometimes frighteningly accurate (check out Arthur C. Clarke's The City and the Stars).

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Feb 25, 2010

Jes. Cavanaugh rated it

· review of another edition

Shelves: library-books

This review has been hidden because it contains spoilers. To view it, click here. I'm generally a fan of Heinlein's work, but I didn't like this book much at all. The primary problems I had were with the settings. Written in 1956, the "present" in this book is a vastly different 1970 than the one we actually experienced. The "future" of 2000/2001 is also nothing like the real world we've seen.

I think that it's one of the biggest downfalls that science fiction writers can face, especially those who write well enough that their works outlive t...more

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Apr 22, 2011

Chris rated it

· review of another edition

The Door into Summer is another example of Heinlein’s skill as a writer. The characters are likeable. The fictional technology described in the book is detailed, credible, and I wouldn’t be surprised to hear that some of elements have become fact in the next 50 years or so. As usual, Heinlein has plenty of subtle and not so subtle social commentary laced throughout the book. One such issue is tended in the fact that most of Dan Davis’ inventions are designed to help decrease the complicated work...more

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Nov 02, 2007

Julie rated it

· review of another edition

Shelves: sci-fi, i-own-it

I'm not a big sci fi fan but I've been inspired to read some more time travel books after reading the Time Traveler's Wife. This one was really good. Heinlein impressively utilizes the spacetime paradox to create suspense and make major plot points. And parenthetically, the character of the protagonist's cat is surprisingly well-developed. Heinlein was definitely a cat owner. It cracked me up.

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Jul 24, 2011

Bonnijean Marley added it

This story was an enjoyable read. The protagonist was a likable character. The plot development was satisfactory. The scenes with the cat was amusing, and the story had a happy ending. I appreciate books that have a happy ending.

It was interesting to see what a science fiction author thought the 1970s and 2000s would be like. Some of the inventions we take for granted were not mentioned in this version of Heinlein's vision of the future, and others such as time travel and cold sleep have not bee...more

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Aug 17, 2011

Sarah Pi rated it

· review of another edition

Shelves: time-travel, sf

A sports car on a twisty road of a time travel story, breezy and fun. I love reading (and rereading) the near-future SF classics to see which predictions have come to pass, and which have not. This one was written in the 1950s and set in 1970 and 2000, which gives both futures a House of Tomorrow hue, complete with house robot. Heinlein also predicted bellbottoms coming into fashion, though in the wrong future. The plotting is tight and clever, and the main character and his cat are worth rootin...more

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Jun 07, 2010

Mike rated it

RAH wrote several 'juvenile' books aimed at the young adult market during this time, and this feels like one of them. But that's why I picked it - I just wanted some light sci-fi from a time when we believed we'd get to Mars, have flying cars, and survive nuclear wars by at least the current year (without, of course, ever having the sexual revolution take place). You get all that in this book, but you also get a basic story and plot device that have (since 1956 when the book was written) been ...more

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Jan 29, 2012

Erica rated it

· review of another edition

The novel opens in 1970 with Daniel Boone Davis, an engineer and inventor, well into a long drinking binge. He has lost his company, Hired Girl, Inc., to his partner Miles Gentry and the company bookkeeper, Belle Darkin. She had been Dan's fiancée, deceiving him into giving her enough voting stock to allow her and Miles to seize control. Dan's only friend in the world is his cat, "Petronius the Arbiter", or "Pete", whom he carries around in a bag, allowing him out from time t...more

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Dec 01, 2011

David Jordan rated it

· review of another edition

Heinlein is an icon to the scifi crowd -- of which I am not a card-carrying member -- but this 1956 novel must not have contributed much to his status. I read “Summer” because I saw it on a list of time-travel novels, and I DO enjoy those. It also involves cryogenics (referred to as “the long sleep”). Unfortunately, the characters are bland and/or cliched in that ‘50s pop fiction way and the science, however dated it may be, was over my head. The best thing about the book was the hero’s cat, Pet...more

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Aug 20, 2011

Pauline rated it

· review of another edition

What a time traveler!

This book is a little slow at the beginning, but once the main character is in 2000, it starts being really interesting. I quite like when he describes all you can find in the future, things created to "change life".

*spoiler*
I also found really interesting his travel back to the past. I supposed it was a book about going to the future only, so it was kind of a surprise.
*spoiler*

The story is clear, easy to follow, inter...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 writer to br...more

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Quotes from The Door into Summer

“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.” — 1 person 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.” — 1 person liked it

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