"The Year of the Jackpot" is a

science fiction Science fiction (sometimes shortened to Sci-Fi or SF) is a genre of speculative fiction which typically deals with imaginative and futuristic concepts such as advanced science and technology, space exploration, time travel, parallel unive ...

short story A short story is a piece of prose fiction that typically can be read in one sitting and focuses on a self-contained incident or series of linked incidents, with the intent of evoking a single effect or mood. The short story is one of the oldest ...

by American writer

Robert A. Heinlein Robert Anson Heinlein (; July 7, 1907 – May 8, 1988) was an American science fiction author, aeronautical engineer, and naval officer. Sometimes called the "dean of science fiction writers", he was among the first to emphasize scientific accu ...

, first published 1952, and collected in one of Heinlein's anthologies, ''

The Menace from Earth "The Menace From Earth" is a science fiction short story by American writer Robert A. Heinlein, first published in the August 1957 issue of ''The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction''. Plot summary The story is set in the near future, when t ...

''. In the story, a trend-following

statistician A statistician is a person who works with theoretical or applied statistics. The profession exists in both the private and public sectors. It is common to combine statistical knowledge with expertise in other subjects, and statisticians may wor ...

finds romance and a disturbing conclusion. The story touches on recurrent Heinlein themes of survivalism and the prudishness of social mores of the time.

Plot summary

Potiphar Breen is a middle-aged

bachelor A bachelor is a man who is not and has never been married.Bachelors are, in Pitt & al.'s phrasing, "men who live independently, outside of their parents' home and other institutional settings, who are neither married nor cohabitating". (). Etymo ...

with a settled, orderly life, and a rather unusual hobby. We meet him first at breakfast in a

Los Angeles Los Angeles ( ; es, Los Ángeles, link=no , ), often referred to by its initials L.A., is the largest city in the state of California and the second most populous city in the United States after New York City, as well as one of the world' ...

diner A diner is a small, inexpensive restaurant found across the United States, as well as in Canada and parts of Western Europe. Diners offer a wide range of foods, mostly American cuisine, a casual atmosphere, and, characteristically, a com ...

, where he orders his usual meal, takes notes of various apparently unrelated items in several newspapers, and carefully counts out his payment, adding an exactly calculated tip. He then walks out to a bus stop, where a young lady is removing all her clothes. A pair of passing transvestites try to provoke a beat cop into arresting her, but the cop refrains for fear that the publicity will simply inspire more kooks to disrobe. Breen is unmoved. He waits for her to finish undressing, then wraps his coat around her just as the bus arrives. She promptly faints. He drives her to his house, lets her dress, and after explaining that he is not trying to take advantage of her, interviews her. She explains that she has no idea why she had the sudden urge to take her clothes off. He tells her why he was not surprised at what she did. Apparently women have been doing the same thing, all over the city, for some time. The news has been carefully hushed up, just as Breen himself called a friend at the newspaper and fed him a phony account of this incident. Breen is a statistician. Working mostly for insurance companies, he advises them on probability and trends. In his spare time, he studies cycles. Human behavior seems to run in cycles, with prices, wages, hemlines, fashions, and entire economies crashing and rising again for no reason, except that each was following the ups and downs of a cycle. Three big cycles bottomed out in 1929, causing the

Crash of 1929 The Wall Street Crash of 1929, also known as the Great Crash, was a major American stock market crash that occurred in the autumn of 1929. It started in September and ended late in October, when share prices on the New York Stock Exchange colla ...

. It is now 1952, and every cycle he tracks will either trough or crest simultaneously in about six months. Breen explains to Meade Barstow, the young lady, that "This year, the human race is letting down its hair, flipping its lip with a finger, and saying 'Wubba, wubba, wubba.'" Meade's striptease, along with the commonplace public

transvestism Transvestism is the practice of dressing in a manner traditionally associated with the opposite sex. In some cultures, transvestism is practiced for religious, traditional, or ceremonial reasons. The term is considered outdated in Western c ...

, the new churches with their ceremonial nudity and all the other pieces of minor insanity are simply symptoms of the inexorable trends. As Breen puts it, while any one person may seem to be rational, in the bulk people behave statistically, whether they like it or not. "Meade," he says, "I think we're

lemmings A lemming is a small rodent, usually found in or near the Arctic in tundra biomes. Lemmings form the subfamily Arvicolinae (also known as Microtinae) together with voles and muskrats, which form part of the superfamily Muroidea, which also include ...

." Meade and "Potty" grow close, and as the weeks pass and the craziness increases, both abandon their jobs and prepare for when it will be "time to jump." Breen has transport, supplies and a firearm or two. He plans to head for the

Mojave Desert The Mojave Desert ( ; mov, Hayikwiir Mat'aar; es, Desierto de Mojave) is a desert in the rain shadow of the Sierra Nevada mountains in the Southwestern United States. It is named for the indigenous Mojave people. It is located primarily in ...

. Then the record drought breaks, and the skies open. They decide to leave. On the way, there is an

earthquake An earthquake (also known as a quake, tremor or temblor) is the shaking of the surface of the Earth resulting from a sudden release of energy in the Earth's lithosphere that creates seismic waves. Earthquakes can range in intensity, from ...

. A hitch-hiker attempts to steal the car at gunpoint. Meade surprises Breen (and herself) by shooting the thief with Breen's pistol. Far from the city, they are horrified when a

nuclear explosion A nuclear explosion is an explosion that occurs as a result of the rapid release of energy from a high-speed nuclear reaction. The driving reaction may be nuclear fission or nuclear fusion or a multi-stage cascading combination of the two, t ...

apparently destroys

. Living at an isolated cabin, they wait for things to stabilize. There has been a full-scale nuclear exchange, but the weather was so bad that few bombs reached their targets. Breen himself has had to shoot a group of marauding Russian soldiers. But now the world is at peace, and Breen can catch up on his reading, in journals of

astrophysics Astrophysics is a science that employs the methods and principles of physics and chemistry in the study of astronomical objects and phenomena. As one of the founders of the discipline said, Astrophysics "seeks to ascertain the nature of the h ...

. He comes across an article where the author calculates the exact conditions required to make the Sun explode in a

nova A nova (plural novae or novas) is a transient astronomical event that causes the sudden appearance of a bright, apparently "new" star (hence the name "nova", which is Latin for "new") that slowly fades over weeks or months. Causes of the dramati ...

,Like many stories of the time, this one makes no distinction between a

, a flaring

white dwarf A white dwarf is a stellar core remnant composed mostly of electron-degenerate matter. A white dwarf is very dense: its mass is comparable to the Sun's, while its volume is comparable to the Earth's. A white dwarf's faint luminosity comes fro ...

star, and a

supernova A supernova is a powerful and luminous explosion of a star. It has the plural form supernovae or supernovas, and is abbreviated SN or SNe. This transient astronomical event occurs during the last evolutionary stages of a massive star or when ...

, an exploding star. At the time of writing, the different phenomena had not been fully explained by physicists. Comparable stories include

The End of Eternity ''The End of Eternity'' is a 1955 science fiction novel by Isaac Asimov with mystery and thriller elements on the subjects of time travel and social engineering. Its premise is that of a causal loop, a type of temporal paradox in which event ...

Isaac Asimov yi, יצחק אזימאװ , birth_date = , birth_place = Petrovichi, Russian SFSR , spouse = , relatives = , children = 2 , death_date = , death_place = Manhattan, New York City, U.S. , nationality = Russian (1920–1922)Soviet (192 ...

, and

The Star ''The'' () is a grammatical article in English, denoting persons or things already mentioned, under discussion, implied or otherwise presumed familiar to listeners, readers, or speakers. It is the definite article in English. ''The'' is the m ...

Arthur C. Clarke Sir Arthur Charles Clarke (16 December 191719 March 2008) was an English science-fiction writer, science writer, futurist, inventor, undersea explorer, and television series host. He co-wrote the screenplay for the 1968 film '' 2001: A Spac ...

. and even offers predictions about when in the life of the Sun this might occur. Meade comes out of the cabin to join Potiphar and watch the sunset. There is a rather large

sunspot Sunspots are phenomena on the Sun's photosphere that appear as temporary spots that are darker than the surrounding areas. They are regions of reduced surface temperature caused by concentrations of magnetic flux that inhibit convection. Sun ...

on the Sun's face. Suddenly Breen realizes that this has not just been a bad year. Looking again at the article, he knows it is the final year. "Something funny is happening to the sunset," says Meade. "No," replies Potiphar, "to the Sun."

Reception

Floyd C. Gale ''Galaxy Science Fiction'' was an American digest-size science fiction magazine, published in Boston from 1950 to 1980. It was founded by a French-Italian company, World Editions, which was looking to break into the American market. World Edit ...

of ''

Galaxy Science Fiction ''Galaxy Science Fiction'' was an American digest-size science fiction magazine, published in Boston from 1950 to 1980. It was founded by a French-Italian company, World Editions, which was looking to break into the American market. World Editi ...

'' described "The Year of the Jackpot" as a "frightening classic".

References

External links

"The Year of the Jackpot"
at the

Internet Archive The Internet Archive is an American digital library with the stated mission of "universal access to all knowledge". It provides free public access to collections of digitized materials, including websites, software applications/games, music, ...

{{DEFAULTSORT:Year of the Jackpot Short stories by Robert A. Heinlein 1952 short stories

Plot summary

Reception

See also

References

External links