"All the laboratory animals used to test the dimensional quadrature device had perished. But Dr. Hugh Macklin was determined to run a low-power test with himself as subject, unaware that one of his associates - and his own wife - had arranged to kill him during the experiment, accidentally throwing the switch to full power."
Charles Eric Maine (the writing pseudonym of English author David McIlwain) has crafted a terrific time slip thriller, his most popular novel.
Macklin had worked out every formulae and knows the risks of climbing into the capsule, constructed in the underground atomic complex to test the psychological and physiological effects of quadrature on the human being. The ultimate goal the exploration of time travel. He is confidant the small increase in manipulation of uranium isotopes will be safe - unaware his wife Lydia and a coworker plan him not to survive. The countdown ends - and in a split second, Macklin's consciousness breaks the shackles that held him fast to the temporal now, he becomes untethered in the dimension of time.
He is Eddie Rayner, a uranium miner on the Ptolemaeus crater of the Moon. Macklin's consciousness has entered the body of another man, moving 75 years into the future 2035, where workers live on a moonbase and satellite stations orbit the Earth. Adamantly proclaiming himself Macklin, he is sent back to Earth a victim of trauma. His only connection to the past is Rayner's girlfriend Valerie - who looks identical to Macklin's wife, Lydia. In the struggle to escape security forces, he falls to his death.
He is Ernst Tehn, interrogated by Technocratic Security, suspected of being a Reversionist. No claim a dimensional transfer has occurred will make them believe he is a 1959 scientist. Earth is now a radioactive cinder, and a small human colony has built an underground complex on Venus, with a government ensuring science will not be abused again. Tehn finds his interrogator Daxin is a Reversionist, working with Tehn's now wife Louana (again the image of Lydia) to stop the despotic Commander Karn. He convinces Daxin and Louana he is Macklin, and proves it by turning a weapon upon himself, setting his consciousness free again - death is his mode of travel.
He is Commander Karn, fully aware that he has transferred to the enemy, and he can help strike a blow against the technocrat empire by convincing Daxin to assassinate him as Karn, setting Macklin free once again.
10,000 years in the future, he is Lieutenant Kane447, posted to a Styracol outpost in System 43, scanning for the presence of the Saakori - giants from an alien planetary system with ships more than a mile long whom no one has seen, indeed they could be insentient. When the Saakori invade, he is rescued by a soldier, Thoa802 (another Lydia). With his amnesia, he is labelled a psychotemperal parasite, and great concern is given to the body he has invaded. He is charged with murder - along with other Timeliners - it is a known condition now.
He is Psychocel D22, one of many hundreds of formless conscious entities of complex structure encased in a gelatin matrix, more than 30,000 years into the future. A council of disembodied voices understands Timeliners and has the power to return Macklin to his correct time.
But all is not so simple - nothing will be as it seems.
Dimensional quadrature is based on the hypothesis that each individual is an observer moving through a physical body extended into the fourth dimension of time. There is an Affinity - a person to whom you are attached - and you are drawn to them in connecting timelines.
Charles Eric Maine has created a fast moving and exciting novel, filled with the fantastic, but within the realm of believability - and always on a human level. His other novels follow time travel themes, and with every one I read he becomes more a favourite author of mine, Calculated Risk being my favourite.
Recommended! For fans of classic speculative fiction, you will not be disappointed.
My other reviews for Charles Eric Maine:
1955 / Hardcover / 186 pages
I read one of his books: Countdown and wanted to read him further. I'll search for this book.
Neeru