SF, first published in 1956. Fast-paced and rich in ideas (Disease Collectors, Sympathetic Block, etc). It's the 2400s. The Inner Planets are at war with the Outer Satellites (that orbit around the major planets). Organised religion has been abolished. People can teleport themselves distances up to 1000 miles. They call it "jaunting". They're unsure how it works, but Cogito ergo jaunteo. Throughout the book the sociological consequences of jaunting are presented - blue jauntes, jack-jaunters talking in Cockney rhyme, etc.
Gully Foyle, 30 years old, a low-grade engineer, has been drifting 170 days on a wrecked space-ship, Nomad, between Mars and Jupiter, left for dead by the crew of another ship, the Vorga. Via an asteroid mostly made of salvaged ships he gets back to Earth. Because of his head injury he's sent to re-hab sessions to learn how to jaunte again, taught by a one-way telepath - a telesend. He discovers he can jaunte well beyond the 1000 mile limit.
Presteign owns the Vorga and the Nomad. On the Nomad, unbeknownst to Foyle, was platinum bullion and 20 pounds of PyrE. Presteign's men capture and interrogate Foyle to find out where the Nomad is. He doesn't tell them. He's imprisoned, but escapes with a fellow convict, Jiz, and tries to recover the booty. He succeeds, but thinks that Jiz died in the attempt.
In Part 2 he's rich, calling himself Geoffrey Fourmyle of Ceres and joining high society, mixing with grand old families like Skoda and Edison. He's enhanced his body with impants. People don't know who he used to be, but it's only a matter of time. He tracks down his re-hab teacher, Robin Wednesday, because he believes her family might have been illegally emigrating on the Vorga, and he's still keen on revenge. She uses her one-way telepathy to coach him in a "Cyrano de Bergerac" way during social events.
Jiz turns up at a Presteign's New Years Party where Fourmyle fancies Presteign's daughter, Olivia who's been blind since birth. She's having at affair with Presteign's right-hand man, Dagenham. Robin Wednesday tells Central Intelligence about who Fourmyle was. Fourmyle's running out of time. On Mars he discovers that it was Olivia who gave the order to leave him in space. He's about to die in a missile attack when Olivia, in the Vorga, saves him, allegedly because she realises that she loves him.
An Outer Satellites spy catches him. He learns that he jaunted through space 600,000 miles. He discovers he can jaunte along space-time geosodics (typographic tricks are used here). Then the Inner Planets get him. PyrE is an explosive that only psychokinesis can ignite. Its use will end the war. He scatters it around the Earth.
The plot's riddled with coincidences and holes. The use of tech is inconsistent, to say the least. Characters can have depth, and dialogue can be slick, but people fall suddenly in love and take great risks. But it's a fun romp.
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