The main characters in Unwise Child are unabashed stereotypes — the handsome hero, the beautiful damsel, and so on — but with some exotic variations. The hero, a towering blond Adonis with an inventive intellect that da Vinci might have envied, is Michael Raphael Gabriel. Named after three archangels, Mike "the Angel" is a street-smart engineer thriving in the wilderness of the Manhattan of the future, not unlike a latter-day Tarzan.

In order for the plot to get going, even the hero must have an appealing weakness or two. Michael Gabriel's are a "wise-guy" curiosity and being a most eligible bachelor.

The heroine is Leda Crannon, a luscious lady scientist who partakes of divine beauty. Her red hair and curvaceous figure suggest a passionate nature just waiting to be released within the proper bounds of matrimony for the lucky male who gets there first. She is just childlike...