A 1957 Heinlein Novel Invented Both the Roomba and the Time-Loop Romance

Roombas may be becoming increasingly common now, but they were originally invented in a 1957 science-fiction novel - which also featured the first time-travel romance. According to Joe Jones, the Roomba was born back in 1989 when he was working at MIT. "I decided I wanted to build a robot that would clean my apartment," he told NYMag. "Because I'm basically a slob. I thought it would be fun." The first Roomba was mostly made of LEGO, some microprocessors, some switches, and a bumper with a sweeping mechanism.

But science-fiction has always been ahead of the time. The first Roomba technically appeared decades earlier, in a 1957 novel by the legendary Robert Heinlein. Even better, this same novel was the first to feature a common time travel trope, the time-loop romance. Heinlein may be best known to many for Starship Troopers, but his influence is far wider than that.

Yes, Heinlein Invented The Roomba

The Roomba (as it would later be called) is essentially a robot cleaner, and the technology appeared in the 1957 time-travel classic The Door Into Summer. The story features an inventor named Dan working on household technology, whose work winds up stolen and who is cryogenically frozen. When he awakens decades later, he discovers his invention is now pretty much everywhere, and initially believes it has been stolen. In a fantastic twist, the inventor travels back in time and effectively steals his own technology, a fantastic sci-fi time loop.

Heinlein treated science-fiction like an engineering project, and it's only natural he saw the perfect way to use advanced technology in domestic life. What is amusing, though, is that the entire time loop is instigated for similar domestic reasons; transported to the future, Dan was missing his cat, and traveled back in time so he could be frozen again with the cat at his side.

In fact, the cat was the anchor for the whole story. In 1956, Heinlein was working on a new sci-fi book and had lots of different ideas playing around in his mind. As The Heinlein Society observe:

"One late January morning at breakfast, Ginny crossed his field of vision, being led-between-the-legs by their cat, Pixie. Bemused, he watched her open a people door for him and wait while Pixie sniffed disdainfully and turned away from the snow, complaining vocally at Ginny’s mismanagement of the weather. There were seven people doors leading out, and the same little playlet was reenacted at each door. When Pixie had rejected the last door and stalked away, indignant, Ginny shrugged. 'I guess he’s looking for the door into summer.'"

The Door Into Summer Features A Major Time-Loop Romance

Other stories had made use of time-loop romances in the past, but The Door Into Summer makes it a major focus. Unfortunately, this particular romance is more than a little creepy; while visiting the past, Dan tells an 11-year-old girl named Ricky to put herself in cryogenic suspension when she's in her 20s, so they can get married when he too awakens from his final cryo-sleep. Yes, it's true this happens because Dan already knew it would; he'd seen the future. But the idea is more than a little disturbing.

The story is all the more troubling because it's told from Dan's point of view, meaning the uncomfortable nature of this relationship is never really explored. It's ironic, then, that the first major time-loop romance was as problematic as any others that readers have seen since; a child is encouraged to find her destiny in a relationship with an adult. The Door Into Summer may be a sci-fi classic, but it's not without major flaws.

The Door Into Summer is available from retailers like Amazon.