I've never forgotten Jane Rogers' deeply disturbing The Testament of Jessie Lamb, so it's not surprising to see her returning to questions of bodily autonomy in her latest novel, Body Tourists. The premise is reminiscent of Richard K. Morgan's Altered Carbon, but a few centuries earlier in the development of the technology: selfhood can now be stored digitally and transferred to another body, even after your own death. In Rogers' world, the twist is that you need a healthy volunteer to allow the wealthy dead to live their lives again - someone who's willing to put their own lives on hold for two weeks and take the risk of letting somebody else walk around in their body. And given the extensive poverty and inequality on the British housing estates in this not-so-distant future, there are no shortage of volunteers hoping to earn ten grand for taking this gamble.

Body Tourists unfolds through the stories of several people connected with the technology; some only narrate for a chapter or so, while others form a continuing thread throughout the novel. Octavia, one of the first to benefit from the technology, is overjoyed by the experience of being in a young body, and Rogers captures the visceral reality of this very well. Paula and Ryan see no alternative other than to volunteer for the experiment. Elsa's partner Lindy is swept up in a witch-hunt and killed before they can reconcile; what wouldn't Elsa give for more time with her? Finally, ageing rock star Richard K is tempted to bring back his dead father, but soon begins to regret it.

These human stories are all compelling, but spending its time on so many threads holds Rogers back from exploring the implications of this technology as thoroughly as I'd hoped she would. I can see the advantage of these multiple voices - as in Helen Sedgwick's wonderful The Growing Season, these different narrators stop body tourism from being pigeonholed as either good or bad. However, the simplistic villainy behind the scheme lets the novel down; the character who drives the misuse of the technology is unbelievable and simplistic, and this stops Rogers asking the more interesting kind of moral questions that she raised in The Testament of Jessie Lamb. This is an addictive read, and more thoughtful than much recent high-concept speculative fiction, but I still wanted a little more depth.

I will post my full review to Goodreads and my blog nearer the publication date.

What a belter of a read! An interesting concept “body tourists”. What an unsettling thought that this could actually happen. Very well written, slightly jumbled in places but all in all a very enjoyable, unputdownable read.

‘Body Tourists’ may initially appear too preposterous a concept to enable the reader to ‘suspend disbelief’ but, because Jane Rogers always writes so thoughtfully and pertinently about human nature, it quickly becomes easy to accept the idea of a world in which the young and healthy poor are exploited by the wealthy who want just a little more time with their rich dead friends. They buy a youthful body for two weeks into which is planted their dead love-one’s frozen cells. Hey presto, the host’s brain is taken over by this impostor.
Rogers allows us to appreciate the vulnerabilities of both the exploiters and the exploited and she also shows us just how dangerous it is to play God – the great come-back in a newer, lovelier body sounds exciting but peak physical health can make an old man or woman behave as they never have before. It gives them confidence to overstep old boundaries and, in doing so, hurt those they’ve loved. Nonetheless, Rogers also suggests that being able to apologise face-to-face (albeit to a different face!) for mistakes made can have a healing, cathartic effect. But one positive example is not enough to make up for the chaos caused by most of the tourism. Don’t tamper with Nature; don’t play God; don’t abuse the weak and the needy are all lessons to be learnt in ‘Body Tourists’ but Rogers is not an overtly didactic writer. These important truths are often explored in amusing as well as chilling ways.
Perhaps the most powerful aspect of this story is the realisation that we are teetering on the brink of this dystopia. The neediest in society do live in ‘sink’ estates; gaming addicts do exist; people do live off processed food and we are told that, ‘Hardly any people walk, did you know that? I mean, there are joggers and cyclists, and at rush hour humans walk to and from the trans and the Tube, but that’s all. They keep their heads down looking at their phones with their earplugs in, they side-step you neatly without even looking up. No one sees you, no one hears you, so you walk the streets like a ghost. Invisible, watching, this mass of digitally connected creatures rushing about its business.’ Sounds familiar?
This is a wise and brilliantly observed novel, made all the more memorable for its combination of present problems and future horrors. Not normally a reader of science fiction, I recommend it to anyone who is interested in what it is to be human – and that mean pretty much everyone, right?
My thanks to NetGalley and Hodder & Stoughton for a copy of this novel in exchange for a fair review.