The Door Into Summer by Robert A. Heinlein

He is left with only two allies, his tomcat Pete, a feisty feline warrior and Miles’s 11-year-old stepdaughter Ricky, who can’t stand Belle, but looks on Dan as her honorary uncle and Pete as her favorite animal.ĭan’s lawyer advises him that going to court would be only his word against theirs, therefore be satisfied with his own share of the stock. Or better yet, where she is an old woman and he is still thirty.

Or for Dan, hopes of a world where Belle no longer exists. He notices a neon sign across the street from the bar – an insurance company’s ad – “Earn while you sleep!” promoting suspended animation – cold sleep for years, in hopes of a better cure for cancer, or for an improved stock market when you are awakened. Belle has broken their engagement “because Dan yelled at her during the meeting.” He is left with his minority stock shares and a furious anger at Belle’s treachery. They have changed the locks and posted armed guards to prevent Dan from “stealing” his latest invention, “Flexible Frank” a multi-tasking robot servant programmed to perform a great number of tasks. In the story’s opening scene, Dan is in a Los Angeles bar, depressed after a company board meeting in which the other two shareholders, his friend Miles and his fiancée Belle, have pooled their stock holdings to vote Dan out of the company. Both robots prove immensely popular, and their small manufacturing company is soon ready to expand. With his friend and business partner, Miles Gentry, and a very efficient office manager, Belle Darkin (whom Dan expects to marry), he is already marketing Hired Girl, that cleans floors, and Window Willie that cleans glass and ceramic surfaces – sinks, bathtubs, etc. In this case, the future he imagined in the 1950s is already part of our past – the year 2000.ĭan Davis is a thirty-year-old, talented engineer in 1970, who designs robots that make housekeeping easier.

Heinlein is one of the leading authors of early science fiction, expertly blending the future with human nature.

The Door Into Summer by Robert A. Heinlein