The Reincarnation, Chris Middings

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 Sterling 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.

–Publisher’s Weekly