Critical Reception
“The futures he visits are more commentaries on present day societies, rather than Haldeman’s trying to predict what the future will actually be like. But the science sounds good, and using other worlds to comment on one’s present is a viable, informative, and entertaining literary device with roots that go back to Jonathan Swift, and probably further. And like the best of such literary forerunners, Haldeman doesn’t sacrifice story or character to make his points. The Accidental Time Machine is first and foremost a terrific sf adventure story. Everything else is just icing on an already delicious cake.”
- de Lint, Charles. "Books to Look For". Fantasy and Science Fiction. Dec 2007, Vol.113 (6), p27-30.
"Whatever degree Haldeman intends us to take any of this seriously rather pales beside the fact that, SFnally speaking, he's squandering some great opportunities here. We're never in any one of these funhouse futures for long enough to get a real handle on things, to understand why and how the world developed this way. I would have been most intrigued to glean a better understanding of events that led directly from Matt's past to the formation of the 23rd century theocracy. I also think the novel could have been much stronger had Haldeman chosen to leave there to make his way as best he could, spreading the forbidden heresy of quantum physics or something. Instead, we get a frenetic final series of chapters, in which millions of years are traversed at the pace of a music video cut together for the ADHD crowd, before finally discovers the Secret he's been after all along. It leaves, one might say, something to be desired. So yes, it all starts out as a nice little book about a hapless student who finds himself an unwitting time traveler. And then it just gets silly. And as Col. Chapman might go on to suggest, Haldeman's readers might be much better off with something nice and military."
- Wagner, Thomas M. "The Accidental Time Machine". SFReview.net. 2007. http://www.sfreviews.net/accidental_time_machine.html. 14 Oct 2010.
"Haldeman's look at these societies of the centuries to come is intriguing, and even plausible, although I'm honestly sorry he didn't spend longer in some of them. As soon as we got comfortable, he was off again to the next one. I'd have enjoyed seeing Matt stay longer in the future theocracy (where Jesus literally rules) and the future barterocracy (for lack of a better word) as they both held a lot of promise. The deus ex machina which comes into play near the end didn't light my fires either; I don't know what exactly I was expecting; after all, we knew the trip was one-way and if Matt was ever to return to the past (something that was quite broadly suggested to have happened) he had to encounter something capable of reversing the process. I guess it all seemed to end rather abruptly where that point was concerned. This book could have been longer by several hundred pages and I would have been happy."
- Jones, Michael M. "The Accidental Time Machine". SF Site. 2007. http://www.sfsite.com/08b/ac254.htm. 14. Oct 2010.
The Accidental Time Machine was nominated for a Nebula Award in 2007, and a Locus Award in 2008.
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