The Year of the Jackpot

A statistician attempts to make sense of a world gone mad in an apocalyptic sci-fi scenario from the Hugo Award–winning author of Starship Troopers. Multiple Hugo Award winner Robert Heinlein earned countless fans, accolades, and honors with groundbreaking novels such as Starship Troopers and Stranger in a Strange Land. But it was shorter works like his brilliant novella, The Year of the Jackpot, that solidified Heinlein’s position among sci-fi’s greatest. Potiphar Breen puts his trust in numbers to make sense of the world. An unassuming, middle-aged bachelor, he has been carefully noting a rise in odd behaviors all around him in order to determine some pattern or meaning in these bizarre recent events. Then one day, he comes upon a beautiful young woman at a bus stop who is taking off all her clothes. Meade Barstow has no idea what compelled her to disrobe in public, and she is grateful when Potiphar comes along to save her from herself. Needing some time and a place to recuperate, she accompanies him home. Soon, a relationship develops that is warm, mutually supportive, and sane—in dramatic contrast to the growing madness of the world outside. But “Potty’s” house won’t be a refuge forever. Because once Breen clearly identifies the cycle that humanity is undergoing, he and his newfound friend will have to run for their lives. Originally published in the early 1950s, Heinlein’s The Year of the Jackpot is a story of love, trust, and volatile human nature that still retains its wonder and unique philosophical edge.