The Door Into Summer by Robert A. Heinlein

The opening paragraphs of the book are one of my favorite passages in prose anywhere. The narrator describes his cat's winter search from door to door in their old house for a door opening into summer weather, and uses it as an analogy for his own wish to escape from the pain and disillusionment of his current situation. Nice. And Pete the cat is a great character - without ever seeming more than a real cat.

The book came out in 1956 and is set in 1970. Well, the base setting is 1970 and the final setting is 2000. Heinlein did love playing with time travel and the associated anomalies. In this case, our 1970's hero ditches his troubles by taking the "long sleep" of cryogenic suspended animation. His plan is to be awakened in time to find the woman who dumped him old and wrinkled while he is still young, a petty but compelling motive. He planned to take Pete with him, of course. His plan got messed up and he ended up having to come back and rescue himself. All very tricky, but not bizarre and silly like the one that I dumped back on the shelf.

His imagined Y2K language evolution was rather odd - and fundamentally unnecessary. Imagining the near future is a risky business. Besides working cryogenics in the 70s, he introduced any number of major and minor technological advances which have not arrived, but overlooked many which have - inevitable.

The gadgetry was wonderful though. Our hero was the engineer responsible for a device called "The Hired Girl" - a robot which cleaned house. I want one.