by Chris Adrian, Eli Horowitz and Russell Quinn
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BookExcerpt
Published: 2015
Publisher: Farrar, Straus and Giroux
Genre: SciFi
Hardback: 224 pages
Rating: 3
First sentence(s):
Jim collapsed and died at the hospital where he and Jane both worked, she as a pediatric surgeon and he as a chaplain—a humanist chaplain, as he liked to remind everyone.
What is the purpose of life?
If you could send a message to the future what would it be?
Why do you deserve, not desire, to live forever?
Acclaimed author Chris Adrian (The Children’s Hospital, The Great Night) joins the award-winning creators of The Silent History – Eli Horowitz and Russell Quinn to create an innovative digital novel about memory, grief and love.
The New World is the story of a marriage. Dr. Jane Cotton is a pediatric surgeon: her husband, Jim, is a humanist chaplain. They are about to celebrate their eighth wedding anniversary when Jim suddenly collapses and dies. When Jane arrives at the hospital she is horrified to find that her husband’s head has been removed from his body. Only then does she discover that he has secretly enrolled with a shadowy cryogenics company called Polaris.
Furious and grieving, Jane fights to reclaim Jim from Polaris. Revived, in the future, Jim learns he must sacrifice every memory of Jane if he wants to stay alive in the new world. Separated by centuries, each of them is challenged to choose between love and fear, intimacy and solitude, life and grief, and each will find an answer to the challenge that is surprising, harrowing, and ultimately beautiful.
My two-bits:
I found this to be a quick read on the topic of grief. It is not too different than other grief books out there and only provided a couple ideas on the afterlife that had me pondering.
Not sure why this book made it into the Tournament of Books shortlist as it does not seem as strong as a contender as other nominees.
