The Accidental Time Machine

Clever science fiction story about a graduate student from MIT who accidentally creates/stumbles across a time machine. The catch: the time machine only goes forward. There were some really confusing things going on in the future but it was a pretty good story overall.

Just finished today 12 June 2012. I picked this book up looking for a fix that had been created by the great READY PLAYER ONE book I had recently finished. Wow, this book really surprised me, it is a great story. Of course I listened to the audio version and the narration was excellent. The only problem with the book is that some of the persons Matt meats as he jumps time are to easy to believe him when he says he is a time traveler. Otherwise, I have to say, this is one of my favorites. If you like sci-fi, time travel, look into the future and maybe even the past, then get it. If you don't like those things you likely will after you read this. ( )

Good story about a MIT graduate assistant who invents a time machine by accident, but can only go into the future. A bit longish. I listened to this book on a Playaway in my car. ( )

Overall this is an enjoyable time adventure.Can't help but mention this, but I wasn't massively in love with the narrator acquiring an oppressed naive love interest during his travels through time. His anti-sexist comments throughout didn't really alleviate this basic set up. ( )

Two of my favorite subjects in science fiction are time travel and dystopias. I would love to travel through time, to know what will happen in the future, and to discover what really happened in the past. And dystopian stories are witness to the strength of humanity and individuals, that no matter what, they try to survive and live. I bought this book, never having read anything by Joe Haldeman, purely because it said time machine and I knew of Haldeman.
And I didn’t regret it, especially when the book also included some dystopian futures. The story is that Matt, a graduate assistant at MIT in 2058, accidentally built a time machine. It’s one way, into the future, and each jump takes longer exponentially. At first the machine jumps 12 seconds, then 3 minutes, then 3 days and so on. Matt finds a way to join the machine, and so discovers time travel and a whole lot of trouble while he travels further and further into the future.
The story moves quite fast and is pretty short, but I really liked it. Matt is truly surprised at what is going on and tries his best to figure out what happened and how he can relate it all to the time he came from. He tries to do his best to survive and live, and to make it better for those around him. The ending was quick but sweet. ( )