Jane Rogers - Body Tourists

Rating: 4/5

Review:
Good but flawed

Body Tourists had a lot of very good things about it, but for me it didn’t quite live up to its initial promise.

The book begins excellently. It is 2045 and a lone scientist with a super-wealthy backer has found a way of downloading the minds of dead, cryogenically frozen people into the bodies of young, healthy (and well paid) volunteers for 14 days. Jane Rogers uses this to explore the consequences and ethics of such a procedure, as well as to make some strong political points about the direction our society seems to be taking. This includes the increasing use of robots and the consequent loss of jobs, income and self-respect and people’s use of Virtual Reality effectively as a drug to deal with the effects of this as the unemployed are shipped out to bleak “Northern Estates” and left there with almost no facilities. The wealthy, meanwhile have a fabulous time – which begins to include the wealthy dead taking over the bodies of the poor so that they can return to life.

It’s an intriguing concept and Rogers does pretty well with the ideas and examines both how things can go terribly wrong but also how it may be an opportunity to resolve injustice and bring resolution. We get several points of view, some in the first person, some in the third. For me, there were rather too many to keep the narrative sufficiently tight, some were more effective than others. There is also a long story which for much of its length isn’t directly relevant to the Tourism concept; it’s well done and I can see why Rogers wanted to give such a fully drawn background, but it doesn’t sit well with the book as a whole. The issues weren’t always considered in the depth I’d expected and I also found much of the ending rather rushed and over-neatly resolved – but there is also a brief but brilliant and quietly chilling final section in the voice of the rich backer.

Jane Rogers is a very good writer, so there is much to like about this book. Flaws notwithstanding, I can recommend this as an exciting and thought-provoking read.

(My thanks to Sceptre for an ARC via NetGalley.)