The Accidental Time Machine
by Joe Haldeman
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Book Reviews of The Accidental Time Machine
Book Review: Unwinding the time paradox
Summary: 4 Stars
Since H.G. Well's The Time Machine, we've been fascinated by the idea of being able to travel into our past or even our own future. And for decades, science fiction authors have speculated on how this could be done, despite having Einstein throw a wet blanket over the whole theory.
One of the biggest hurdles of time travel is The Paradox. That traveling, especially to your past, would cause too many paradox's, thus causing a possible unwinding of the universe, ala Back to the Future.
One theory is that if time travel was feasible, we could only go forwards, never back.
That's the premise of Joe Haldeman's The Accidental Time Machine, a whimsical comic tale of Grad-school dropout Matt Fuller, who while toiling as a lowly MIT assistant researcher, accidentally creates, through no fault of his own, a time machine while studying the quantum relationship between gravity and light. When he hits its reset button, the box disappears, only to reappear a second later. Soon Matt discovers every time he hits the reset buttom, the machince goes missing twelve times longer.
After a few expeirments, he discovers he can attach a metal box to it and then send objects -like a store bought turtle - into the future. This leads to the idea of taking himself into the future. Borrowing an old car from a friend, Matt sends himself into the near future, only to discover he is a wanted man in the murder of the friend he borrowed the car from (he dropped dead of a heart attack when he saw Matt vanish before his eyes). Bailed out by a man -apparently - who could pass for an older version of himself, Matt decides to beat the rap by traveling further into the future, in hope of finding a safe haven.
The Accidental Time Machine is a swift read, a hallmark of Haldeman's sf style. He can create such a vivid world full of bright and wonderful ideas, yet present them in prose that need not go on forever. However, at times, you would've hoped he stayed in some the future worlds of Earth, like a society ruled by religion, with a strange blend of high and low technology, or the one where bartering is an artform and AI commonplace.
There is a deus ex machina towards the end which could be off putting, but its a small issue. Plus, while sort of saw the ending, you always knew that the time travel was one way -despite the broadly suggested idea that somewhere in the future, Matt did travel back.
Book Review: Tunneling Across Alternate Realities
Summary: 3 Stars
In one reality, "The Accidental Time Machine" is a fun time travel story in which a naive underachiever becomes the recipient of what would be the Holy Grail of physics. As his journeys through time progress, he matures up, throws off his hedonism and becomes practically noble. This is a metaphor for much of recent political history, although this correlation may itself be accidental. Doesn't matter; one could read this same lesson into David Jerrold's "The Man Who Folded Himself", which wouldn't be necessary--Jerrold's book was also just plain fun to read, a fascinating exploration into the serpentine repercussions of time travel. The trouble for science-fiction writers is that physicists keep coming up with new theories, theories that can render older time travel stories as obsolete as 64K RAM. I think that Poul Anderson understood this with his "Time Patrol" novels, having them rely more upon story and action rather than science.
In another reality come the more sophisticated concepts of hard science, such as Gregory Benford's "Timescape", in which authors use the medium to explore current theories. Haldeman is looking at p-branes with this book, tunneling across alternate realities in order to allow time travel without the attending paradoxes. Many of the unanswered questions and loose ends that have been commented upon by reviewers are bound up in parallel universes, which Haldeman leaves as self evident without going into greater explanation.
"The Accidental Time Machine" struggles under both of these realities. The story arc flattens out much too soon, failing to grow in depth toward the conclusion. The science is fascinating but not fully formed, so doesn't carry the book either. The book was a fun read but not a sophisticated read, certainly not on par with most of Haldeman's work. Despite the seemingly finite conclusion, however, there is much room for a sequel or two, not only in the science but also in the development of the central characters, especially the underdeveloped Martha. Here's jumping into the future to see if it happens...
Book Review: A fun read with no story
Summary: 3 Stars
I'm embarrassed to admit that this is the first time I've read Joe Haldeman, but based on the praise he receives I sincerely hope this is his worst novel. That's not to say it's a bad novel, but you'd expect a professor of writing at MIT not to fall into a few of the basic traps that he has in this story.
Time travel stories are notorious for falling victim to the deus ex machina. The problem is that if you have a time machine, it's difficult to make anything that happens in the story matter, because you can always just go back in time and fix it. Haldeman tries to avoid this problem by making his time machine one which moves in only one direction, and he succeeds to some extent. Thankfully, he never does reverse a plot point out of existence. Unfortunately, there's also little plot to speak of.
In fact, Haldeman's characters repeatedly run away from the plot. Any time things start to get bad, they just hop back into the time machine. The characters don't solve anything, they just observe, and run. Towards the end, it starts to look like maybe the characters will have to fight there way out of a difficult situation, but instead somebody just steps in and solves the problem for them.
Haldeman is clearly a skilled writer. There is plenty of political allegory, humor, and suspense here. The characters are likable, if lacking in depth, and stylistically it is compact, fluid, and transparent. It certainly kept me reading and I always wanted to know what would happen next. I was always amazed out how quickly he could explain a scientific phenomenon; where other hard sci-fi writers might have spent pages he spent paragraphs, and without losing any information. But somewhere in there he forgot to write a story, and that left me feeling unsatisfied when I finished. If it weren't for the humor and the unpretentious tone this would have received a much lower score.
Book Review: Good author writes ok book
Summary: 3 Stars
I am a fan of Haldeman, I think he has written a couple of great sci-fi works. When you pick up The Accidental Time Machine, what you will find right from the get go is a very seductive/readable style of prose that sucks the reader right in. I was hooked from the first couple of pages & over the first half of the novel was cheering Haldeman along, thinking "what a great little book".
However... The story here really falls apart at around the half way point. Hmmm... maybe the best way to describe what is so very wrong here is to compare this story to its forefather, the Time Machine by HG Wells. I think that both stories suffer from the same lack of imagination. In Wells' version, the protagonist travels through I dont know how many millennium only to land in a place where humans were essentially less evolved than we are today. I feel like the futures that Hadelman gives us are filled with these same ugly mocking images of ourselves right now. Not the advanced societies or evolved humans I bet will be there. I mean, common, journey 2400 years into the future and have a conversation with people you meet. No way.
so I guess what I am trying to say is that I was underwhelmed to the point where i would not recommend this to anyone. Even though I really enjoyed the first half. The future was just way to limited for any self respecting sci-fi'er.
Book Review: Classic old style SF slightly modernised
Summary: 3 Stars
Another discovery on my journey through joint Hugo/Nebula winners. This book felt so old-school to me: take an idea and wrap a novel around it. In the classic short stories of the fifties and sixties the idea was easily the main character, with everyone else in supporting roles. That's still here, but it is a novel, and SF writers are more aware of how thin their characters may be, so there is more of an attempt to build them. That being said, the boy/girl subplot is dated rather than nuanced - but there is something sentimentally enjoyable about how the boy hero comes into contact with the naively sexual girl, much as she is more daydream than individual. Haldeman has a go at showing how he gets where the kids are, man, referencing, for example, digital porn - but, charmingly, the roles they actually play could have come straight from a black and white movie.
Whatever, the idea is a cool one, and Haldeman has fun with it. There's an enjoyable recklessness as we're hurled through a geometric progression in time - each jump in years at least doubling the last. Haldeman doesn't worry about details in painstakingly painting each new era, rather he just plays with some ideas and then moves on. This is what it is - if you're after rigorous and challenging look elsewhere. If you're after Boys' own adventures, climb aboard.