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Description edit
When Dan Davis is crossed in love and stabbed in the back by his business associates, the immediate future doesn't look too bright for him and Pete, his independent-minded tom cat. Suddenly, the lure of suspended animation, the Long Sleep, becomes irresistible and Dan wakes up thirty years... read more
Ridiculously Simplified Synopsis edit
Summary edit
Dan Davis is a successful inventor, fiercely independent. His main invention is an automated "cleaning lady" called Hired Girl. His company is run by his friend Miles Gentry and his secretary the beautiful Belle Darkin, who is also his fiancé. Dan's only friend in the world is his cat,... read more (warning: may contain spoilers)
Characters/People edit
- Daniel Boone Davis: an engineer
- Frederika 'Ricky' Virginia Heinicke: Dan's cousin
- Miles Gentry: Dan's friend and business partner
- Belle S. Darkin: Dan's amor and secretary
- Petronius the Arbiter AKA 'Pete': Dan's savant pet cat
- Jenny Sutton: Add a description of this character.
- Sam
- Jack Galloway
- Grandma
- Dr. Bernstein
- Y. E. Reuther
- Frederica Virginia Gentry
- Chuck Freudenberg
- Dr. Hubert Twitchell
- Mr. Doughty
- Dr. Albrecht
- Mr. Powell
- Mrs. Schultz
- John Sutton
- Dr. Rumsey
- F. V. Heinicke
- Mr. McBee
- Leonard Vincent
- Mr. Curtis
- Jake Schmidt
Quotes edit
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“Engineering is the art of the practical and depends more on the total state of the art than it does on the individual engineer.”
D. B. Davis -
“There is only one real world, with one past and one future. Just one... but big enough and complicated enough to include free will and time travel and everything else in its linkages and and feedbacks and guard circuits. You're allowed to do anythinginside the rules ... but you come back to your own door”
D. B. Davis -
“"Back" is for emergencies; the future is better than the past. Despite the crepehangers, romanticists, and anti-intellectuals, the world steadily grows better becaouse the human mind, applying itself to the environment, makes it better.”
D. B. Davis
- Popular Highlights from Kindle Customers
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no matter how many times you get your fingers burned, you have to trust people. Otherwise you are a hermit in a cave, sleeping with one eye open. There wasn’t any way to be safe; just being alive was deadly dangerous...fatal, in the end.
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I have spent too much of my life opening doors for cats—I once calculated that, since the dawn of civilization, nine hundred and seventy-eight man-centuries have been used up that way.
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Despite the crepehangers, romanticists, and anti-intellectuals, the world steadily grows better because the human mind, applying itself to environment, makes it better. With hands...with tools...with horse sense and science and engineering.
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an invention is something that was “impossible” up to then—that’s why governments grant patents.
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Cats have no sense of humor, they have terribly inflated egos, and they are very touchy.
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if you just try all the doors one of them is bound to be the Door into Summer.
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the Builder designed the universe that way. He gave us eyes, two hands, a brain; anything we do with them can’t be a paradox. He doesn’t need busybodies to “enforce” His laws; they enforce themselves. There are no miracles and the word “anachronism” is a semantic blank.
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Engineering is not science, it is an art, and there is always a wide range of choices in how to solve engineering problems. An engineering designer “signs” his work by those choices just as surely as a painter does.
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I’ll say this for military research: If money and men can do it, it gets results. Print another billion, hire another thousand scientists and engineers, then in some incredible, left-handed, inefficient fashion the answers come up.
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I had rarely met a housewife who did not have a touch of slaveholder in her; they seemed to think there really ought to be strapping peasant girls grateful for a chance to scrub floors fourteen hours a day and eat table scraps at wages a plumber’s helper would scorn.
Highlighted by 3 Kindle customers
Setting & Locations edit
- Great Los Angeles: Los Angeles in 2000
- Denver
- Mojave: Hired Girl Inc. is located in Mojave
Organizations edit
- Hired Girl Inc.: Dan's original company
- Geary Company: The owner of Hired Girl Inc in the future
- Aladdin Auto Engineering: A company Dan helps setup when he returns from the future.
First Sentence edit
ONE WINTER SHORTLY BEFORE THE SIX WEEKS War my tomcat, Petronius the Arbiter, and I lived in an old farmhouse in Connecticut.
Table of Contents edit
Themes & Symbolism edit
- Time Travel: A feature in many Heinlein novels , but this time the 'paradox' elements of time travel are not explored.
Series & Lists edit
This is book 1 of 40 in SFBC 50th Anniversary Collection. (publisher edition list)
This is book 72 of 98 in Modern Library's 100 Best Novels: Reader's List. (authoritative list)
This book is in temp list for combination. (community list)
Authors & Contributors edit
- Robert A. Heinlein (Author)
First Edition edit
Original Language: English
Publisher: Doubleday
Country: USA
Publication Date: 1957
ISBN: N/A
Page Count: 188
Publisher: Doubleday
Country: USA
Publication Date: 1957
ISBN: N/A
Page Count: 188
Awards edit
- Locus Poll Award (1975: All-Time Best Novel, #36)
- Locus Poll Award (1987: All-Time Best SF Novel, #29)
- Locus Poll Award (1998: All-Time Best SF Novel before 1990, #43)
Classification edit
- Library of Congress: PZ3.H364 Dn PS3515.E288
- Dewey: 813.54
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