Book Review: The Accidental Time Machine

Science Fiction, Fantasy and Horror Book Reviews

By Sandy Amazeen Aug 14, 2007, 15:05 GMT

While working on a calibrator, hyped up on Twinkies, cold coffee and amphetamines, MIT research assistant Matt Fuller pressed the reset button and watched in amazement as the machine disappeared. A few simple experiments later, Matt realizes he has inadvertently built a time machine that leaps forward in progressively longer jumps. Matt learns he has been fired, losing both his job and girlfriend to the same guy just as he comes to the realization that his thesis project is worthless. However, he won’t need that worthless data if he can prove his new machine works. Thus, Matt begins a series of time jumps where he discovers his old boss has not only taken credit for the time machine; he has also won a Nobel Prize and accused Matt of stealing it.

One misadventure seamlessly leads to another as Matt discovers what the future holds while learning how to adapt to changing social situations. During his romp through the future, Matt acquires Martha, a young woman raised in a strict religious culture where technology for anything beyond forwarding the Christian doctrine is forbidden. Martha’s reactions to the wonders she witnesses are believable even as they force her to realize that much of what she had been taught was a lie. The two time travelers team up with a bored, super-enhanced AI wishing to use the machine to discover if she can die. Matt and Martha will have to make some hard choices about what or who to trust while engineering their future together. Haldeman has crafted a rollicking fun joyride through the intricacies of time travel while gently developing a good natured but decidedly unmotivated grad student into a smart, world-wise adult. The relationship that grows between the two protagonists is sweet without being overdone with smooth prose, imagination and a neat ironic twist. Be sure not to miss the author’s note at the end, which proves once again how science and fiction sometimes overlap.

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Book Review: The Accidental Time Machine

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