Speculative fiction often serves as an effective medium for philosophical debate of ethically murky issues. Marcel Theroux's Strange Bodies is a revelatory whodunit that challenges accepted notions of biological consciousness and identity by examining the physical and psychological implications of human consciousness's survival beyond death in a world that witnesses Man playing God with devastating effect.
Nicholas Slopen, after dying in a horrific car accident, awakens to find himself trapped in another man's body, struggling to prove his identity. He ends up imprisoned in a psychiatric institution, where he begins a dreamy recollection of his life as a brilliant but impoverished professor of Johnsonian literature who is recruited by a Silicon Valley mogul to verify the authenticity of a mysterious batch of letters alleged to be authored by Samuel Johnson. These letters awaken Slopen academically while drawing him into the conspiracy-fueled world of Cold War-era Russian intrigue and dark scientific experimentation, leading to his physical destruction--and to a world where identity can be taken and reassigned at one man's will.
Poetically written, eerily reminiscent of a Philip K. Dick novel, Strange Bodies moves with jagged twists and turns as it follows Slopen's descent into ethical purgatory. One cannot help but cheer on Slopen's psychological doppelganger as he seeks to redress the wrongs and prevent darkness from setting foot in the world. --Nancy Powell, freelance writer and technical consultant