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The Door Into Summer

Robert A. Heinlein

Start date: January 1, 2016

Finish date: January 29, 2016

Discussion: Book Discussions

Discussion leader: Sarah Mankowski

Why we're reading this: Group Classic Novel Discussion January 2016
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What Members Thought

May 19, 2013 Jim rated it liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: 1audio, 2fiction, scifi

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 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. ...more

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Jan 04, 2008 Jim rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: scifi, 2fiction, 1paper

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. ...more

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Jul 02, 2023 Michael rated it liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: science-fiction, finally-off-the-tbr-pile, read-in-2023, summer-reading-2023

My relationship with Robert A. Heinlein's stories can be complicated.

On one hand, he's one of the established masters of the sci-fi genre, with a set of novels packed to the brim with fasincating ideas that still resonate with readers to this day.

On the other hand, some of his stories (while still packed with ideas) simply read like Mary Sue treatises and diatribes by Heinlein in order to justify his pecadellos and worldview. Many of these novels seem to come later in his publishing career, pos My relationship with Robert A. Heinlein's stories can be complicated.

On one hand, he's one of the established masters of the sci-fi genre, with a set of novels packed to the brim with fasincating ideas that still resonate with readers to this day.

On the other hand, some of his stories (while still packed with ideas) simply read like Mary Sue treatises and diatribes by Heinlein in order to justify his pecadellos and worldview. Many of these novels seem to come later in his publishing career, possibly at a point in which he was too big a name for anyone to really edit his stories as much as they had been in earlier times.

I like Heinlein a good bit, but I find it can be hit or miss as to whether or not I will enjoy one of his stories as much as others seem to do. This is especially true of The Door Into Summer, a novel that I picked up a while ago but has languished on my bookshelf for far too long. According to the Internet, Heinlein wrote this novel in thirteen days, after a comment from his wife concerning the cat.

That quick burst of creativity explains why Summer feels like one of the most compelling Heinlein novels I've read. It also feels like a bit of a hybrid between the early works of Heinlein and the later, what I refer to as the dirty-old-man works of Heinlein. Engineer Dan Davis creates a new type of robots that could secure his financial future only to get swindled out of them by his business partner and former fiancee. Determined to get back at them, Dan is cryogenically frozen and wakes up thirty years later to a different world, only to find his plans have gone slightly awry and that the partner and fiancee let his beloved cat pass away.

As Dan digs into the world of the future and tries to figure out what he missed, he hatches upon an entirely new plan involving time travel and putting himself into cryogenic sleep again.

The Door Into Summer is one of those stories that doesn't necessarily hold up to itensive scrutiny, especially given the time travel element of Dan's plan. However, Dan's first-person narration is so compelling that I found myself just going with the plan and not really parcing the details and/or nitpicking it.

Nor does it necessarily hurt that the novel predicts a future that is now twenty plus years in our past and didn't necessarily unfold the way Heinlein envisioned. It's fasciating to see Dan wake up in the year 2000 and that he has to head to the library to research things still -- Heinlein apparently missed the memo on an easily accessible knowledge bank that people would use for things like cat memes and adult content.

And yet, based on this novel and others, I can't help but think that Heinlein would have loved the Internet for the cat memes and adult content. Since much of Dan's central motivation is to get back to his cat, the cat memes are fully in play. And if you've read later Heinlein, you know that he had some interesting thoughts on relationships and human sexuality. While that does rear its head a bit here, it's not quite as prevelant as it is in some of the later Heinlein I've read.

The Door Into Summer sits firmly in the middle. It feels like a summer reading Heinlein novel -- one to be enjoyed in the moment and not necessarily scrutinized in any great detail. I'd argue that if not written by Heinlein, this one might have ended up on a list of obscure, enjoyable sci-fi novels that didn't necessarily age well, but that modern readers might find fun.

I know I found it just enough fun to chalk up a one of the more enjoyable Heinlein stories I've encountered. ...more

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Nov 05, 2008 Netanella rated it liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: science-fiction, time-travel, author-robert-a-heinlein

Time travel, housecleaning robots, doublecrossing ex-lovers, a ginger-ale-drinking tomcat, nudists in the woods - this book is a fun read. The protagonist is an engineer in the 1970's who's swindled by his partner and fiancee and forced into "the long sleep" for 30 years. When he awakens in the future of 2000, he finds a way to return before this past and take his revenge. ...more

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Aug 08, 2011 Cody rated it really liked it

Shelves: fantasy-sciencefiction

I really enjoy reading his SciFi books. This one was written in the 50's and takes place in 1970 and 2000. I wish that his prediction that the common cold was cured was true ;) ...more

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