Now Wait For Last Year

The main action happens on Earth, mid-21st century. We're involved in a drawn-out interstellar war, and Dr Eric Sweetscent finds himself with an opportunity to make a unique contribution to the course of the conflict. He specializes in artificial organ surgery and is the personal doctor of Gino Molinari, Earth's leader. He discovers that Molinari has a death wish, and may have died already, but has somehow procured new bodies. Although written in the '60s some of the plot details are still strikingly fresh. There is a drug that allows the user to travel in time, but is so toxic and addictive that it's used as a weapon of war; the leader of Earth is Italian rather than American; and the goodies may just turn out to be bug-like aliens instead of a more palatable humanoid race. Other details date the book, making it feel like a real relic: computers aren't really relevant, vidi-phones are the most sophisticated method of communication, and women are futuristically dressed versions of their '60s counterparts. Sweetscent is more of an anti-hero but although he's not a very sympathetic character, it's impossible to resist siding with him. Earth must survive! With the use of the drug revealing any number of possible futures, and the main characters crazed with paranoid confusion, it's hard to accept the end of the book is the end of the story - it could go on forever. This was written before Dick's revelation/breakdown, and his own spiritual confusion, the striving for meaning and battle against the depressing elements of existence, is ingrained in the many twists of plot possibilities. (Kirkus UK)