Novel: The Door into Summer

Overview
Robert A. Heinlein's 1957 novel "The Door into Summer" follows the life of Dan Davis, an inventive, pragmatic engineer who faces betrayal, loss, and the lure of the future. The story blends corporate intrigue, domestic robotics, and speculative uses of suspended animation to tell a tale that moves between wry humor and pointed social observation. It frames technological ingenuity as both a refuge and a tool for setting wrongs right.

Plot
Dan Davis is a talented inventor who conceives practical devices for the home and workplace. When his business partner and fiancée conspire to take control of his company, Dan is financially ruined and emotionally betrayed. Determined not to play the victim, he arranges to enter a form of "cold sleep", suspended animation, planning to skip ahead to a time when the consequences of the betrayal can be undone and his inventions can flourish without interference.
Waking in a future that is both familiar and subtly transformed, Dan must navigate corporate maneuvering, legal obstacles, and advances in robotics and automation to regain what was taken from him. He pieces together evidence, makes strategic alliances, and leverages technological advantages to outthink his rivals. The story resolves with Dan engineering circumstances to secure his work and personal happiness, culminating in a hopeful, if conventionally romantic, conclusion.

Characters
Dan Davis is resourceful, practical, and unapologetically engineering-minded; his voice carries the novel's mix of dry wit and confident problem-solving. His antagonist is a partner whose cleverness is matched only by opportunism, and the betrayed-fiancee element adds a personal sting to the business treachery. Supporting characters range from loyal friends and inventive colleagues to corporate types and robotic aides, each serving to highlight Dan's determination and the era's attitudes toward technology and human relationships.

Themes and Style
The novel celebrates rational problem-solving and the ethic of the competent engineer. Heinlein frames technology as an instrument of personal and social restoration, using speculative devices like suspended animation to explore agency across time. Corporate greed, legal chicanery, and human frailty are counterpoised with loyalty, ingenuity, and a belief in a better future. The tone is breezy and conversational, often leavened with humor, though it also reflects mid-twentieth-century attitudes that can feel dated to modern readers.
Heinlein's plotting emphasizes cleverness: puzzles are set up and resolved through a mixture of foresight, technical know-how, and strategic planning. The novel's optimism, its titular "door into summer", is less about escapism than about deliberately shaping circumstances to achieve a desired life. That outlook, together with tightly constructed set pieces and a likeable protagonist, helps explain the book's enduring place among Heinlein's more accessible, lightly speculative works.