From Publishers Weekly

"As global warming spread north, and the environment soured, meat became toxic. Many died, but not members of the militantly vegan Medical Church of America. Like something out of Aldous Huxley, the Church is a weird mixture of fanaticism and science. As it grows in power, eclipsing governments and corporations alike, one obsession dominates: where do souls go when people die?

"Some 25 years earlier, the Church began “vitrifying,” or freezing, the terminally ill. And now the dead are waking up. When David Sperling wakes, he remembers a cat named Hammurabi. A man named John Springer, who is beginning to die as David strengthens, dreams of a cat named Hannibal. Did David’s soul jump to John? Or did David inadvertently steal John’s soul? When a nurse named Laura -- who is in love with David -- kidnaps him to foil the Church’s efforts to study David and use him for propaganda, the fugitives flee to Canada, which has become a new Garden of Eden.

"In increasingly fantastic scenes, the Church is foiled. And while the displaced souls narrative veers toward zombieland, not every twist is clearly resolved, and the novel’s narrative is sometimes pedestrian, the story is brimming with ideas, action, and dry wit."

Denouement: David and Laura are living together happily, falling in love.

David crested the hill and watched the sea of green below him shift in the wind. The tide was coming in, and he could hear it now, like distant thunder.
The tide was brown, the animals that it consisted of moving like waves, gracefully crossing the plains. It was like a dream in many ways, the bison he thought would have been extinct by now running in a huge herd below him, trampling the waist high grasses, a single white one at the front.
The Movement’s primary community in Canada was simply amazing to David. They hadn’t so much given up on civilization as moved beyond it. They had fashioned a new mythology to live by that David was eager to explore.
For now, though, he turned and headed for home. His new home. He and Laura were falling in love, and the feeling welled in him like new life blossoming in his chest.
As he walked down the hill, he was overcome with the feeling of John’s presence. It only happened every once in a while now, and disappeared as quickly as it came. He took it as a reminder that past, present, or future, there was more to him than his current consciousness. He was at peace with this, knowing he would have a lifetime to explore its meaning.
For now though, he had a new life to begin.

Denouement: A New Beginning

Only a sweet and virtuous soul,
Like season’d timber, never gives;
But though the whole world turn to coal,
Then chiefly lives.
-George Herbert, Virtue

Epilogue: Another doctor at another company perfects the procedure to defrost patients.

Abner Wagner picked up the magazine that had arrived in the mail. Only way to know what’s really going on in the world, he thought as he opened it.
He read about a fire. A terrible fire. Hundreds of children dead everywhere. Abner could barely look at the pictures, they were so gruesome. What a tragedy, he thought. The Church again.
He turned the page. Another catastrophe. He flipped another page. Another disaster. The magazine seemed to Abner like it was ten feet away from him, like he was looking at it through the wrong end of binoculars, the pictures and the print on it too small to see clearly. Fuckin’ world’s going to hell, he thought, throwing the magazine aside.
He picked up his gin and tonic and took a deep drink, feeling the bubbles caress his throat. Thinking about the state of the world and putting his drink down, the thought was replaced by another.
Oh well, what can you do?


Xiau Ping looked at her patient. She had come so far, yet over the last few days she was losing hope. Once she had overcome the physical aspects of waking her patient, she had passed off the rest of the delay as a side-effect of the long quiescence her patient had endured. She didn’t know what to expect. After she had gotten a heartbeat, she waited patiently for consciousness to return. With every hour that clicked past, she grew a little wearier. With every day that passed, her expectations diminished slightly more.
Although she knew her thoughts should be focused exclusively on her patient, they were currently wrapped up in one egoistic sentiment – she had finally caught up with the Church.
Then it happened.
Her patient’s eyelids fluttered, their eyes opened. Her patient looked up at her. Her patient asked her a question.
“What the hell’s wrong with me?”

Epilogue: The Revelation

What fortitude the Soul Contains,
That it can so endure
The accent of a coming Foot –
The opening of a Door.
-Emily Dickinson