Calculated Risk by Charles Eric Maine

For the man and the woman, it was the only chance of escape together from the horror of atomic war. The risk was undeniable, but the calculations were precise. Nothing had been overlooked—except the one point of detail that was to lead inevitably to the greatest horror of all...

Wow, what a book. Calculated Risk was a random find at a used bookstore, and now I want to read all his novels.

In the devastated world of the future, Phillip and Kay fight for basic survival in one of the fenced-in camps on the outskirts of a ruined London. After the first hydrogen bombs exploded, the radiation ravaged the bodies and minds of the survivors. Ramshackle shacks make up the primitive settlement, with searchlights, security teams, and mutant patrols to keep the infected in.

As a psychoneural scientist on the verge of a breakthrough before the H-bombs fell, Philip has a plan to escape with Kay. Through barricades, they escape in the night to his underground lab. Using a compact nuclear unit and an experimental theory in psychoneural quanta, they take a calculated risk - sending their minds back over 400 years to the twentieth century, inhabiting bodies already alive in that time. Their current bodies will die, and the minds of the new bodies will be replaced by theirs. They are successful.

Philip wakes up in London in the body of young Nick Brent, with a beautiful fiancée and a promising advertising job. He must learn his identity and position without arousing suspicion and is surprised to manage quite well. He meets Kay at the agreed time and place, with the proper identifier. She has been waiting for him for three months but is now in the body of an aged, infirm, and poor old woman! He must choose to either stay with his new fiancée and upper-class life or rescue Kay from loneliness and pain. Forced to recreate the experiment with current technology, can they again be transported to another time?

Maine's attention to character makes it enjoyable, and the attention to scientific detail (even if it is fictional!) is engaging. I especially loved the explanations of neural data being sent into the fourth dimension of time! A great combination of science, relationships, and action. The plot builds speed until the final exciting moments. A real rollercoaster of emotions.

Charles Eric Maine was the pseudonym of British writer David McIlwain (there is an excellent article about him here > "Have You Overlooked Charles Eric Maine?")

This was a book I couldn't wait to keep reading, literally on the edge of my seat, turning the pages to a finale I didn't see coming! Shocking. Exciting. For me, it was a real hit.

1960 / Hardcover / 191 pages

My other reviews for Charles Eric Maine:

Calculated Risk

The Isotope Man

He Owned The World