TITLE:  The Accidental Time Machine

AUTHOR:  Joe Haldeman

___________________________

DESCRIPTION:

"Joe Haldeman "has quietly become one of the most important science fiction writers of our time" (Rocky Mountain News). Now he delivers a provocative novel of a man who stumbles upon the discovery of a lifetime-or many lifetimes.

Grad-school dropout Matt Fuller is toiling as a lowly research assistant at MIT when, while measuring subtle quantum forces that relate to time changes in gravity and electromagnetic force, his calibrator turns into a time machine. With a dead-end job and a girlfriend who has left him for another man, Matt has nothing to lose taking a time machine trip himself-or so he thinks."

____________________________

REVIEW:

An entertaining and light romp through future time via a wonky (it only goes forward and sideways) and accidentally discovered time machine.  The main character is a bit flat and I can't say the futures provided by Haldeman were terribly exciting.  The novel was entertaining but not great.  I found the beginning more interesting than the end.

What is a Camaro?

It's a made up word to fit the Chevrolet naming plan of the time (Corvette, Caprice, Chevelle, and so on.). Some venturesome Chevy PR type professes to have discovered the word (afterward) in an old French lexicon as a slang word for companion (as in brotherhood), however it give the idea that is a sometime later back story.

There’s no question that the 1969 ZL1 Camaro is a legend, but is it one of the fastest Camaros ever? It’s true that this model kicked street performance up a notch. In fact, it was able to hit 60 mph in just 5.3 seconds. If you think about it for a moment, you might not be overly impressed at the moment. There are plenty of cars that can produce those kinds of time.

Now, stop and remember that this car is from the late 1960s. In that time, those speeds weren’t seen. The ZL1 offered speed and excitement to the average, everyday driver. It’s no wonder that Chevy has had such success with the ZL1 nameplate since then. Chevy Camaro enthusiasts know a good thing when they see it.

Spencer Wetherall is an award winning classic car restoration specialist. In fact, he is the only classic Camaro ZL-1 expert in the world. In addition to running his business, Wetherall Restorations, He also own, write, and direct Time Machine Camaros, a TV show about classic car restoration.

His passion for rebuilding classic cars began at age 16 when he rebuilt a Camaro with his father Fred Wetherell. Since that day he has rebuilt over a hundred custom cars for clients from all around the world. He is a Territory Manager for Brown & Associates. He has expertise as a Chief Operating Officer with a background in finance, purchasing and machinery manufacturing. Reach his at Spencer_37@msn.com if you are interested in a new car!

The Time Machine is a multi-layered, dually structured novella, with the main plot lingering on both Physicalism and philosophical supernaturalism. It is a social doom prophecy which explores a model of society on the brink of chaos, as a consequence of social injustice.

From the perspective of a listener to the tales of a time traveller with questionable credence, the story narrates the physical embodiment of magnified industrialism, in the form of human evolution. Visiting the distant future, the traveller sees a utopian society with a suspiciously perfect lifestyle. He is acquainted with the Eloi, a weaker and smaller descendant of the humans, people who were of devoid of any tactical or logical sense due to the absence of any societal hardships. He questions the sustenance of such fragile creatures and their worldly existence.

Soon, he discovers the dark underbelly of the seemingly majestic superficiality - the Murlocks. An evolutionary product of the working class; beastly creatures who have been plagued by reality, and hardened by the horrors that come along with it. After countless generations of the nurturing of such a delicate dichotomy, they finally seek revenge and the destruction of the ones responsible for their existential predicament, the Eloi. Armed with physical strength, and, more importantly, common sense, their victory seems inevitable. However, the traveller does not stay there long enough to witness the outcome, escaping to a few other eras, including the death of our planet, and returns home to tell his story.

The entire journey is just an exacerbated fictional manifestation of our socioeconomic structure. While the intellectualism of the upper class made a solid base for a left-wing order, their weakness and stupidity due to indulgently isolated upbringing have favoured for greater power to the working class - the clearest form of emergent Socialism. While the novella superficially seems to be purely fantasy-based, it subtly weaves these political themes in a way that meaningfully completes it.

The fact that none of the listeners (except the narrator) believe the time traveller's story could be symbolic of humanity's ignorance to such consequences, and his sudden disappearance at the end may hint at the fact that our chance to fix these issues has been missed.

The futurism of this story can undeniably keep anyone engaged. His visit to the end of our planet can also be seen as an explicit expression of the doom prophecy. However, I feel that his visit to the beach, where he is visited by giant crabs, is truly unnecessary. Otherwise, this book is truly ahead of its time.

The multiple perspectives that can emerge from this story truly make it one of a kind. It was the book that created this genre, and I would say that it is a must-read for anyone looking for a mind boggle.

Interesting concept, but the execution fell a bit flat (or old fashioned - it was written in 1895). Central themes, besides the minor time-travel aspect, include how the social class divide and technological innovations have altered humanity. This book provides something to think about.