Sara's reading log

I am a book hoarder and reader. My main genre is SF, but I also love magic realism, fantasy and general fiction. Favorite authors are Iain M. Banks, Ursula K. LeGuin, Haruki Murakami, José Saramago, Isaac Asimov, Ben Aaronovitch and more. My rating system is based on five stars. I rate books based on my expectations and what a books aims to be. This means that the brilliant 'Fahrenheit 451' gets five stars because I thought it would be good, people said it was good, and it was good, but 'A Closed and Common Orbit' also gets five stars because in its series, in its style, I really enjoyed it and was not disappointed.

The Accidental Time Machine by Joe Haldeman

  • Started on: 2011-05-26
  • Finished on: 2011-05-26
  • Read in: English
  • Rating: ****-
  • Genre(s): Science Fiction

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. Four out of five stars.

  • Started on: 2011-05-26
  • Finished on: 2011-05-26
  • Read in: English
  • Rating: ****-
  • Genre(s): Science Fiction

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. Four out of five stars.