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Dr Nate Sheehan is gunned down in the parking lot of a Los Angeles shopping center, the apparent victim of a random robbery gone wrong. Sheehan's pregnant wife Mary, a researcher in cryogenic regeneration, severs Nate's head from his body before police can claim the corpse. She takes the head to a research lab where it is preserved in hopes of future regeneration. Arrested for this action, Mary is eventually released from police custody. After the birth of her son, Mary adds a video of the child to a canister of keepsakes she and Nate hid in the basement of their home. In the canister Mary finds a batch of documents Nate placed there without her knowledge. The documents concern the apparent suicide of Lew Wasserstrom, a scientist known to Nate. They implicate Nate's college buddy Martin Rando in a theft at Wasserstrom's laboratory. Mary returns the documents to the canister, where they remain even after the Sheehan home is destroyed in an earthquake in 2012. The story fast forwards to 2037 where Mayor Jose Villaloboz reigns over a Los Angeles changed by the earthquake of 2012. Much of the city is now under water, and electricity has replaced a depleted oil supply as the only means of power. Solar generators are a luxury of the rich, saving them from the frequent power outages that threaten the livelihoods of most people. Adding to California's problems, global warming has lowered the state's water supply to the point where desalination plants now dot the Pacific shoreline. Nevertheless, people like Mayor Villaloboz still flock to the Pasadena Cryogenesis Research Institute to view 'The Head', the preserved remains of Dr Nate Sheehen. Will 'The Head' ever be united to a body? Still a dream in 2037, the unbelievable happens in 2070 when Sheehan's head is grafted onto the body of convicted murderer Duane Williams at Arizona's Icor Regrowth Programme. Dr Garth Bannerman expects another in a long line of failures when he supervises Sheehan's surgery in the well-guarded lab outside Phoenix. But surprisingly, SheehanÔs brain begins to respond under the care of Dr Persis Bandelier, wife of Icor's managing director, Rick Bandelier. Over time, Sheehan learns to walk and talk again under the guidance of Persis and Nate's personal nurse Monty. He's not the man he used to be, though. Confused by all that's happened in the world since his death, and devastated by the knowledge that his wife and son died in the 2012 earthquake, Nate tries to end his life through suicide. He's saved by Monty, only to face a worse future at the hands of the Epidemic Intelligence Service, an arm of the Center for Disease Control. The EIS has been monitoring Dr Bannerman's work, and when they find he's succeeded in reviving Dr. Sheehan, they invade Icor and take Nate to a detention center for examination. Nate's escape from the center sends him on a journey of discovery that ends back in Los Angeles. There his past clashes with his present life when he finds the canister of mementoes once hidden in his home. Was his murder a random act as everyone thought? Or was his death ordered by someone who wished to claim Wasserstrom's work as his own? When Nate learns that John Rando, Martin Rando's son, now runs Icor, his suspicions grow into certain knowledge of his old friend's complicity in Wasserstrom's death. Nate has other things to worry about, though. Both Icor and the EIS are searching for him, as is Persis Bandelier. Reporter Fred Arlin is also looking for Nate, convinced that several disappearances and deaths are linked to Sheehan's physical revival at Icor. With danger on all sides, Nate must face a life he never wanted and somehow survive to bring his foes to justice. THE WAKING is British reporter and newscaster TM Jenkins' first venture into novel writing. Supposedly based on scientific fact, the story outlines a future made bleak by environmental disasters linked to present day economic policies. The United States of 2070 is seen as a land overrun by viral diseases, quarantines, and state borders guarded by troops wearing gas masks. Rickshaws, electric scooters, and horses have replaced gasoline-driven automobiles. Working folk relieve their stress in mind-altering domes built by the federal government while homeless people pitch their tents in airplane graveyards scattered throughout a growing western desert. Gas masks are worn by anyone going outdoors, and food is grown under plastic bubbles throughout the country. Mirroring the bleakness of their surroundings are the characters themselves. Only in the year 2006 do they seem to exhibit realistic emotions. Even then it is difficult to believe that Nate's wife, having witnessed her husband's bloody murder, could overcome the trauma of the moment to undertake the grisly task of severing his head from his body. Her later actions seem more true to life, but her role in the book is minimal and thus unsatisfying. Nate's return from the dead is marked by periods of introspection typical of many trauma victims. Yet even here, Jenkins' writing lacks the emotional power to capture the reader's sympathy fully for the resurrected doctor. Persis is an equally weak character despite her prominence in the story. Her relationship with her husband is hinted at but never fully explored, and her feelings for Nate are ambiguous and tainted by scientific curiosity. One doesn't sense the woman in Persis, only the scientist. The other characters have moments of strength, but other than Dr Bannerman and convicted killer Duane Williams, few pack the punch needed to impress a reader. Although Jenkins has been compared to Michael Crichton, his book falls short of generating the kind of emotional impact consistently delivered by Crichton. THE WAKING won't keep you awake at night, despite its billing as a medical thriller.
Reviewed by Mary V. Welk, August 2006
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Contact: Yvonne Klein (ymk@reviewingtheevidence.com)
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