The novel “What Mad Universe” by Fredric Brown was published for the first time in 1949.

Keith Winton is the editor of a science fiction magazine. While he’s a guest in the villa of his publisher, an experimental rocket that isn’t working as expected releases a very powerful electrical discharge that strikes him. Apparently, Keith survives with no consequences but soon realizes that something is wrong when his coins are viewed as something completely out of the ordinary and he stumbles upon an alien.

Soon, Keith becomes a fugitive because he’s mistaken for a spy in the pay of alien enemies. He manages to return to New York but there the situation seems even worse because the city is among the targets in an interplanetary war. At night there’s the most complete darkness and Keith has to face various types of danger while trying to figure out what happened to him.