本小说讲述了家用机器人的专利发明者佩特受骗后，利用冷藏休眠和时空跃迁“科技”，挫败了骗子们的计谋，维护专利权益的“故事”。　　时间旅行无疑是科幻领域最让人着迷又最让人迷惑的永恒话题之一。关于时间旅行的理论，最重要的是怎么自圆其说，避免“时间悖论”，并且不落俗套。海因莱因的确是个故事高手，整个称得上故事滴水不漏。目前可以解释得较为圆满的时间理论之一：历史已经注定，如果回到过去干预历史，所作所为正恰恰促成了历史——是谓“宿命论”；之二：我们回到过去，的确已经改变了历史，但那只是众多平行发展的宇宙中的一个，未被改变历史仍在另外的宇宙中发展着——是谓“平行宇宙论”。现在这些理论不算新奇，不过想到本书乃是９５６年的作品，作者的超前性就可见一斑了。前者目前更为被接受，但是在很多作品中运用此理论时往往会有意在前边做下许多铺垫，但却经常过于明显，以致很容易就让人猜出结局。而海因莱因处理得相当巧妙，前边不着痕迹，似有似无，让人疑云丛生，后边又巧妙地画完了整个圆。尤其出彩的地方是关于怎么回到过去的处理。一般低俗点儿的就是找个“野博士”，高雅点儿的又得扯出一套一套的，生硬无趣。而海因莱因立足在了中间领域。哈伯特·特威彻博士／教授，掌握了最美妙的技术，却被困在军方的军事秘密之下。作为科学家，成果的不到公布承认，只能放在政治家的柜子里，实在是哑巴吃黄连。主人公丹正是抓住了这点，用不算太正经的激将法，在无奈地刺激了老科学家本已受伤的心后［最后主人公也算作了汇报］，的最终使自己达到了返回过去的目的。

My Brief History recounts Stephen Hawking’s improbable journey, from his postwar London boyhood to his years of international acclaim and celebrity. Lavishly illustrated with rarely seen photographs, this concise, witty, and candid account introduces readers to a Hawking rarely glimpsed in previous books: the inquisitive schoolboy whose classmates nicknamed him Einstein; the jokester who once placed a bet with a colleague over the existence of a particular black hole; and the young husband and father struggling to gain a foothold in the world of physics and cosmology. Writing with characteristic humility and humor, Hawking opens up about the challenges that confronted him following his diagnosis of ALS at age twenty-one. Tracing his development as a thinker, he explains how the prospect of an early death urged him onward through numerous intellectual breakthroughs, and talks about the genesis of his masterpiece A Brief History of Time—one of the iconic books of the twentieth century. Clear-eyed, intimate, and wise, My Brief History opens a window for the rest of us into Hawking’s personal cosmos.