Then one day a calibrator he built for the lab - carefully, of course: Matt's machines are as beautifully made and maintained as his scruffy looks and life aren't - disappears when he hits reset. It comes back, but just in time to make him look like a fool when he tries to show his boss what happened. The next time the machine is gone a little longer, and the next... in fact, each time it vanishes, it's gone 12 times longer than the last time. The calibrator is for use in measuring quantum effects involving time. Could it be he's built an accidental time machine?

The only way to really test it is to start sending things along with it to record what's happening... like a camera, a clock... or Matt himself. Unfortunately Matt’s arrival in the future lands him in jail under a charge of murder, only to be bailed out by someone apparently from much further into his own future. Which must mean he eventually figures out a way to make his time machine go backwards as well as forward. Which must mean (not to mention its merits as a way out of the murder charge hanging over his head) he has to keep jumping forward until that happens. Of course, that's when the real fun starts...

Joe Haldeman, who teaches writing at MIT, nicely combines compelling storytelling and writing with scientific know-how. That sounds like the basics of writing science fiction, but a lot of writers are much better at one or the other, leaving you only half satisfied. Matt's a fully developed person whom we not only like, but believe in and relate to, with the sorts of thoughts and concerns we can see having ourselves, while simultaneously wondering if we would handle things half as well. It all makes Haldeman's speculations about such things as time travel and the sort of futures we might face particularly intriguing -because they're both irresistibly readable and believably real. The book will leave you satisfied, but still thinking after you turn the last page. Highly recommended.