Evidently this was Heinlein's first novel that was written in 1939 but not published until 2004. If Heinlein was still around, I'm sure he would have done some editing to make the story work a bit better. As it is, there are many gaps and inexplicable events that leave you wondering just what he was thinking.
It's the story of Perry Nelson, a Navy pilot, whose car goes off a cliff in the Pacific Palisades in 1939. The last thing he remembers seeing before hitting the rocks is a woman in a green bathing suit on the beach. He regains consciousness in a snowy, mountain landscape where he saved by the same woman, now dressed in furs and it is 2086. No explanation is given for how or why Nelson time travelled. The rest of the story centers on his learning to cope with the new way of life where the government, economics and employment, and sexual customs have vastly changed. Unfortunately a large portion of the story is spent with "Masters" (the experts in various fields of study) trying to explain the new ways to Nelson. The part about the new economy is especially tedious. Some of the ideas Heinlein presents in this novel are obvious predecessors to ones that crop up in his classic Stranger in a Strange Land. Since this was written in 1939, it is interesting that he predicted the suicide of Adolf Hitler but not World War II. It also seems odd to me that a society that travels in flying machines has yet to make it to the moon by 2086. All in all it isn't a bad story. It just gets bogged down in the theoretical.
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