Mr. Heaviside takes the reader on a literary roller-coaster ride that starts with the impossible and ends with the incredible. But what’s impossible or incredible today is not beyond science at some future time. If I Knew Then’s heart-stopping ride begins when Ted Dawson, the millionaire CEO of a high-tech company, is abducted on the eve of negotiations for the sale of his company. On regaining consciousness somewhere in Asia in a misanthropic Shangri-La, he finds himself in the hands of his kidnapper, the creator of this evil redoubt. After Dawson learns of the larcenous purpose behind his abduction, his captor tells him that he plans to extract a ransom from Dawson as well, coercing him into using his technological and intellectual abilities to write a deviant erotic novel. Dawson finds that this distasteful assignment ensnares him in his captor’s obsessive sexual fantasies, plunging him into a nightmarish and, at times, seductive world.
      The extreme sexual practices that Dawson must author plus what he physically experiences later in reality place the book in the “Adult” category. And, it should be acknowledged, those vividly described excesses may prove too graphic for some adults!
      For Dawson’s book-within-a-book to work effectively, the reader must become as interested in Dawson’s fictional characters as in Dawson himself. Heaviside meets this challenge by employing a suggestive parallelism between fiction and reality. The effect on Dawson as he reluctantly writes the material outlined for him is that his initial understanding as to the purpose of his writing assignment is increasingly beclouded as he grows more uncertain about whether he is writing fiction, science-fact, or a grim future for himself and his wife.
      He realizes that any plan to defy his seemingly invincible captor must begin with his staying alive. He can only do this by dutifully completing his writing assignment as he looks to the future. For Dawson to succeed, and the sometimes unpleasant steps he must take to protect himself and others, make If I Knew Then a unique read, if not a whole new science-fiction genre.
      A final disclaimer regarding the book’s sexual passages should point out the difference between pornography and redeeming literary content. That difference is in the quality of the writing and the crafting of the story. For that reason, no one places the writings of Marquis De Sade or D. H. Lawrence in the category of pornography. Carleton Heaviside’s work, though devoted to different themes, deserves the same distinction.