What we have, with Echo Round His Bones, is a Cold War thriller where the US have invented a matter transmitter and the USSR haven’t.  Most of the US cities are protected by domes; though it’s clear these domes are more psychological than protective, if the nukes started to rain down the domes would crack.  And the US has its arsenal of atom bombs on Mars, ready to launch if required.  The world is constantly on the edge with both sides threatening to press the button.  And this is where our square-jawed hero, Captain Nathan Hansard, comes into play.  He and his unit have been commanded to matter transmit over to Mars and hand over secret orders.  It just so happens that these orders command the base on Mars to fire their nukes at Russia in six weeks time.

But that’s not Nathan Hansard’s major problem.  You see, the matter transmitter has this quirk of duplicating people – creating echoes of them – once it’s operated.  And so now we have a Nathan Hansard on Mars unaware that there’s a Nathan Hansard on Earth, out of sync with the Real World.  It’s a bit like that episode of Star Trek : The Next Generation when Ensign Ro and Riker are out of phase with the Enterprise and can slip through objects while at the same time remaining invisible to everyone.  Like Ro and Riker, Hansard finds himself facing dangers of all sorts including the job of stopping a nuclear war.

The novel is so packed with story that the characters take second stage and as a result this feels very different to Disch’s earlier work.  In a sense, this is one big thought experiment where Disch seems to be more interested in working through the physics, the mechanics of how someone might exist out of phase with reality, than bothering to develop character or motivations beyond the desire to save the world.  However, like a nervous tic, those aspects of Disch that made The Genocides and The Puppies of Terra such interesting books are present albeit briefly.  There’s a debate about religion and the nature of the soul.  There’s talk about redemption and the crimes humanity has committed in the past.  And there’s commentary on the posturing of the two major Cold War powers.  So while with Echo Round His Bones is, deservedly, a mostly forgettable novel that possibly tries too hard to pander to critics like Budrys, in among the exposition and square-jawed heroism there’s a darker thread about the pressing and real threat of nuclear holocaust.