Blank?

"Blank?" by Randall Garrett is a science fiction novel written during the mid-20th century. The story explores themes of amnesia and time manipulation, focusing on a protagonist who grapples with an inexplicable gap in his memory. The narrative unfolds in a contemporary setting, reflecting the societal and technological context of its time. In the book, journalist Bethelman abruptly awakens in New York city with no memory of the past two weeks. He comes to realize that he has somehow forgotten his activities during this time, prompting a desperate search for answers. He discovers that he has acquired a large sum of money through gambling and other ventures, but struggles to connect the dots of his forgotten life. Guided by cryptic notes he left for himself, he learns that his memory loss is linked to an experimental drug consumed during a night of heavy drinking with Dr. Kamiroff. This drug appears to have enhanced his abilities to predict outcomes but ultimately distorts his memory, leading to an intriguing resolution where he decides to relive the past events with the newfound clarity of his experience. (This is an automatically generated summary.)

Gordon Randall Phillip David Garrett was an American science fiction and fantasy author. He was a contributor to Astounding and other science fiction magazines of the 1950s and 1960s. He instructed Robert Silverberg in the techniques of selling large quantities of action-adventure science fiction, and collaborated with him on two novels about men from Earth disrupting a peaceful agrarian civilization on an alien planet.