The Accidental Time Machine

NOW IN PAPERBACK-FROM THE AUTHOR OF MARSBOUND Grad- school dropout Matt Fuller is toiling as a lowly research assistant at MIT when he inadvertently creates a time machine. With a dead-end job and a girlfriend who left him for another man, Matt has nothing to lose in taking a time-machine trip himself—or so he thinks. Publishers Weekly Hugo-winner Haldeman's skillful writing makes this unusually thoughtful and picaresque tale shine. Matt Fuller, a likable underachiever stuck as a lab assistant at a near-future MIT, is startled when the calibrator he built begins disappearing and reappearing, jumping forward in time for progressively longer intervals. Curiosity and some unfortunate accidents send Matt through a series of vividly described, wryly imagined futures where he gradually becomes more adaptable and resourceful as experiences hone his character. The young woman he rescues from a techno-religious dictatorship gives him a chance at a mature relationship, while teaming up with an AI that intends to press on to the end of time forces him to decide what he wants from life. Rather than being a riff on H.G. Wells's The Time Machine , this novel is closer in tone to Neil Gaiman's Anansi Boys , another charming yarn about a young man who's forced out of a boring rut. Producing prose that feels this effortless must be hard work, but Haldeman ( Camouflage ) never breaks a sweat. (Aug.) Copyright 2007 Reed Business Information NOW IN PAPERBACK-FROM THE AUTHOR OF MARSBOUND Grad- school dropout Matt Fuller is toiling as a lowly research assistant at MIT when he inadvertently creates a time machine. With a dead-end job and a girlfriend who left him for another man, Matt has nothing to lose in taking a time-machine trip himself—or so he thinks. Grad-school dropout Matt Fuller is toiling as a lowly research assistant at MIT when, while measuring quantum relationships between gravity and light, his calibrator disappears and reappears one second later. In fact, every time Matt hits the reset button, the machine goes missing twelve times longer. Working as a lowly research assistant at MIT, Matt Fuller is working on a project to measure quantum forces related to time changes in gravity and electromagnetic force, when his calibrator is transformed into a time machine