Body Tourists by Jane Rogers
Published by Sceptre An Imprint of Hodder & Stoughton An Hachette UK company
Publication date: 14 November, 2019

Conceptually, Body Tourists intrigued me from the beginning. Though the core idea, the transplantation of consciousness, has been explored in fiction before, the blurb promised a modern take that would not shy away from societal commentary and implications.

The opening chapters delivered on those promises, a story compelling in plot, but also thought provoking. As I carried on, however, a sense of impatience grew in me—at first I wondered if it was the format, the frequent addition of new characters, but soon realised it wasn’t that, so much as a problem with pacing within these sections. They sometimes seemed to drag; there were passages that seemed to add nothing integral to the characters or plot. At times I was left feeling as though pieces were written as character studies rather than with a cohesive narrative in mind. Looking back, after reading, it seemed a shame, as I did enjoy the book and would have appreciated it so much more with some tighter editing.

With all this said, I’d still recommend Body Tourists if you’re interested in the subject matter. It explores some interesting ideas.

With many thanks to NetGalley, the author, and publisher for providing me with a copy for review.

The central premise of The Body Tourists (what would you do if you could borrow/steal someone else's body) is not new. The novel is set in a near-future London that is ravaged by austerity and it's the way the novel looks at the class divisions around body swapping that is most innovative. The way Rogers shows the various degrees to which the characters are culpable for their actions cut against each person's particular economic or class power was clever and details how complicated the ethical issues involved are. The book has multiple POVs and I felt some of these worked better than others, but I found all of the characters stories and the ethical issues they raised really thought provoking.

One reason I enjoy science fiction is that it can, if done well, fire my imagination more than any other genre. I don’t mean the wars with scary creatures from other planets stuff but thoughtful, perhaps more feasible (to me, anyway) science. Here the author gets into the realm of digital memory transference through cryogenics, that is to say preserving the mind of a person who has died by freezing it and subsequently transferring it to a living person. In this imaginative story, set in the year 2045, a scientist has cracked a way of achieving this and is trialling a series of two-week transfers so that the dead can live again, at least for a short period. The recipients of the memory transfer are volunteers who are to receive a cash payment for effectively being put to sleep for a fortnight whilst their body is borrowed.

There’s not a lot of science here, the reader just has to take it on trust that the means have been achieved by a bright but somewhat heedless scientist. OK, I can live with that as I’d rather not get bogged down in protracted chunks of meaningless technical claptrap. Ostensibly the borrowed body will be protected for the period of the transfer by being under constant monitoring on an idyllic island. Well, that’s the theory but of course plans can go awry. And to some extent they do.

What I particularly liked is the way author focusses on a discrete group of people who are all impacted in different ways. It’s clear how the motivations of all parties drive their particular actions and though I cared little for the scientist and his ‘team’, I did find myself worrying for the wellbeing of others tied up in this tale. I also admired the way that a picture of a dystopian England twenty-five or so years from now is developed. This, though, also provides the first jarring element as there seemed to be just too much change – would it really be possible to have the country so reliant on bots undertaking virtually any job from teaching to caring for our medical needs and just about anything else you could think of, in such a short space of time? But the idea of a largely unemployed population spending their days living in a virtual reality world of exploration and game playing does strike a more tenable chord!

For me, the most impactful feature of this book lies in the many and somewhat spooky thoughts that sprang into my head as I was reading:

- How would I feel if I’d died of old age and found myself alive again in a different and much younger body?
- And what if that body were a different gender?
- If I found out that I’d only two weeks to live out this new life how would that impact my ability to enjoy this miracle?
- How would I want to spend this time: meeting old or surviving acquaintances, doing things I’d missed out in during my ‘first’ life, or something else?

It’s a really thought provoking read and though I’m not a major fan of how the story is wrapped up, my overriding emotion is that it’s been a long time since a book has played with my mind quite so much as this one has.

Following on from Ian McEwan's foray into science fiction, we have another literary author delving in to the world of mind transference into younger bodies. This could almost be a prequel for Richard Morgan's Altered Carbon with the early clinical trials of rich, dead people having their minds electronically uploaded and stored to be later downloaded into younger subjects. All the ethical dilemmas are explored and various cases explore different scenarios: a revived woman is brought back in a man's body in order to satisfy the sexual proclivities of a male scientist; a dead racist father is brought back in the body of a young black man. Young people's vacated bodies are abused, sexually and physically, without their knowledge or consent.
As well as this futuristic exploration of possibles, the underlying message is political and current - the exploitation of the poor and young by the old and rich in our society, where their futures are denied for the financial gain of the elite and wealthy. The poor are relegated to Estates in tower blocks such as Thatcher and Heseltine and they seek an escape to their lives in the addictive world of virtual reality. The offer of easy money via the clinical trials is a tempting offer.
A gripping read with multiple narrators and different voices, that provides a wide canvas for the exploration of the books' themes.

A really intriguing concept which made a great thought provoking story. I was intrigued the whole way through as to where the story was going and what the ending would be. This is a memorable book which is definitely worth reading.

Thank you to Netgalley for my copy.

The write up on this book really appealed to me. However, the actual content failed to deliver. I didn’t really connect with any of the characters. I felt I was skim reading rather than enjoying the book.

The content is an interesting concept. That cells from a dead person can be implanted into a healthy volunteer. The deceased then come back and live in their host for two weeks. Frightening that this could possibly happen in the future.

Perhaps it’s because it’s not necessary my genre of book but I’d be interested to see other people’s take on the storyline

Fascinating novel that only misses out on four stars because of how much more detail I wanted to read. Body tourists take the idea of a life after death to a whole new level. With entire human minds downloaded into electronic memory, it becomes possible to bring people back from the dead. Not permanently of course and not in their own body. But it becomes possible to shut down someone's brain and download this dead personality and memories into the space that's left behind. This gives the dead a new lease of life... for two weeks at least, then the body is returned to its original owner.

It's all very experimental and very, very secret. It's likely not all that legal but that's what confidentiality agreements and £10,000 for volunteers is for. And what's the harm. In a country where most jobs have been taken over by bots and the poor are blindingly impoverished with no hope of a better life, is it a surprise young, healthy individuals from sink estates will jump at the chance? After all, it's meant to be perfectly safe. There are all kinds of safeguards in place. The problems begin though when one of the first volunteers doesn't come back. His relatives and family are told one thing, but Paula knows differently.

I found the premise fascinating and the execution of the novel largely stands up to scrutiny. You get a lot of third view perspectives, from the volunteers, family, the resurrected dead and the scientific mind behind the project as well as his financial support... this makes the novel very busy and somewhat choppy at points, but it works. Many of the characters are highly empathisable and the ethical dilemma's they are placed in are striking. My main issue here is that it feels to me that there could be so much more to this; with relative ease this could become a book to really sink your teeth into and wrestle with, but instead it's a light and easy read that glosses over many aspects I'd be really keen to hear more about.

Much of the focus is on the individual stories of the many characters in the book and whilst this does serve to drive the narrative, it doesn't work so well at bringing real depth to the novel. There is a huge wealth of things that could have been delved into; scientific aspects, ethical and morality questions, long flung consequences and varying reactions. You get a small sampling of this but it's all rather glossed over and it's that level of detail that would have moved this from good to bleeding fantastic. There are some decisions made from the scientific trial front that frankly made little sense to me and so if they made sense to the author, further explanation was needed.

For example, why let select 'tourists' go back to a family home but then not allow others to even see their family for more than an hour. You've brought them back from the dead. Surely the point of this - in addition to scientific research - is to make it worth it for them. I got the safe environment aspects, but it would have made more sense logically to bring all interested parties to that safe environment to be with the 'tourist'. Why is this considered an exception? And yet at least two of our other tourists are actively unleashed on the real world.

This is just one of many aspects I would love to see explored in more detail. Others would be the rationale behind choices; volunteers and tourists picked, body swaps chosen. Or the actual process, the explanations given to volunteer and tourist, the experience of the 'typical' tourist rather than the exceptions. The ethical issues and the safety concerns in more detail than just 'lock 'em on an island'; a thorough exploration of how the tourists might impact on direct friends and family or even society as a whole is difficult when you isolate them from any of those experiences. The way this research could be used in the future.

I admit, I enjoyed this, I really did. But i didn't find as much depth or bite as I might have expected or hoped for. Instead of giving me something to really chew on, I whistled through it. So yes. It's good. But it had the potential to be excellent and it didn't hit that mark.

Wunderkind scientist Luke Butler has developed a process whereby the saved consciousness of a deceased person can be inserted into a living donor for a set time of two weeks, giving them a chance to live again. To reconnect with loved ones, to complete unfinished business. Obviously there are many takers for this technology but notsomany donors. So he reaches out to the poor of the parish. For a whack of money, all they have to do is relinquish control of their bodies for a fortnight. What could possibly go wrong? Even with the promise that their bodies will not be abused.
In this book we meet lots of people on both sides of what is happening. We hear from donors, recipients, family, scientists, money people, and those that broker the deals. We follow certain of the dead as they are reborn and what happens to them during their second lives. There's so much going on that, at times, the book does feel a little disjointed. Many individual stories linked by a tentative over narrative which just serve to add colour to the overall debate as to whether this is a good or bad thing.
There's a lot to debate morally about the shenanigans that go on in this story. There is also the rich/poor divide to consider in the mix. And the race between legislation and technology and the divide that exists between them. We also have the dilemma of how far to go when the worst happens.
Some of those enjoying their second life have positive experiences. The chance to say goodbye, the conversation they wished they had had before one died. But then there's the other side of the coin and what happens to those who stray off the path they are supposed to be on and the fallout from that. Given two weeks in a body that is not your own, knowing that at the end you will die again, and not be held accountable...?!
As a story on the whole it is a bit lacking as it is not quite a fluent as maybe I would have liked it to be. As food for thought for the future, taking some of the individual stories, it excels. It would definitely make for a very interesting book club book. What would I do if I was in their position...
All in all, a good solid read that had piqued my interest in what else the author has written to add to my TBR.
My thanks go to the Publisher and Netgalley for the chance to read this book.

Jane Rogers’ novel, Body Tourists, speculates on technological advances within the medical field in offering a second crack at life to those who are able to afford it. The yawning gulf between the rich and poor ensures a plethora of ‘host’ bodies willing to submit their lives in exchange for financial incentive. There is only one hitch - there is no guarantee that you will survive. A real page turner!

Fascinating piece of science fiction, with a focus on the moral and ethical dilemmas of inserting the consciousness of the (rich) dead into the (poor) young. The science part is light, with minimal time and effort wasted on the macguffin of how this would work. The implications of the ability to do this are explored through a series of narratives giving the perspective of those involved - volunteer “host bodies”, family members of the dead or the hosts and those running the show. A believable world is painted - like ours but far enough developed to make the events realistic - whilst still demonstrating the increasing polarisation of wealth in society, and the potential for the poor to be ghettoed. I’m making this sound worthy - it isn’t, it’s ‘just’ a cracking read that leaves you thinking.

I enjoyed this book. The central idea - that the poor should sell their bodies as commodities to the rich - is while not original, certainly very engagingly entered into here. In some ways this felt that a sequal to a previous novel that I would have liked to have read first -I thought the first three quarters of the book was excellent. By the end it seemed to me that perhaps the manuscript had been rather too brutally edited or that by the end that the author had created perhaps too many storylines for her to entirely resolve. I would have preferred to understand more about one or two of the characters.

That said I would not hesitate to recommend Body Tourists to any reader.

I found the concept of the story fascinating and couldn't wait to get started .
Set in the future -if you have a few quid -you can have your body -or that of your loved ones -cryogenically stored .
.Scientist Luke Butler is going a step further -he is experimenting with a new project called Body Tourism.
This involves finding young (skint) hosts -putting them to sleep for 2 weeks and digitally implanting into their minds - the minds of the frozen dead -to allow them to live again for 2 weeks.
.So in a nut shell- you can actually pay to have your loved ones brought back briefly -albeit in a different body .(Think you in a memory stick ).Think of the possibilities ...
The young host gets £10,000-you get your loved one back for a short while -everyone is happy ?
Not entirely ...
I was so sure I was going to love this but I found some parts a little boring . I wish the author would have concentrated on the actual experiments instead of the stories behind it.
Still a good read though .
Thankyou NetGalley for an ARC in return for an honest review.

I really did enjoy this, I do like a dystopian read that doesn’t feel too distant.

Imagine a future where memory can be stored digitally after your death, and at some future point inserted into another body, effectively restoring you to life. The ‘body tourists’ are these people – brought back to life at the request of colleagues or relatives, with some kind of reasoning behind their decision: wanting to make amends, have a final conversation, get the chance to say goodbye.

Of course this opens up all kind of moral and ethical dilemmas – the bodies are generally young and vulnerable people who are paid a significant amount of money for the fortnight they lose while their body is used by the digital memory, and the procedure is not without risks.

The story was dramatized as an excellent radio production earlier in 2019 on Radio 4 – for the first half of the book I could not understand why I had deja-vu!

Highly recommended.

In the mid twenty-first century, a brilliant scientist discovers a way in which a cryogenically preserved brain can be downloaded into the body of a living person. In Body Tourists, Jane Rogers considers the various ethical, legal, physical and emotional ramifications of this process.

In a dystopian British society, the poor are housed in massive, soulless estates where addiction is rife, and the elderly and infirm are disposed of. When Dr Luke Butler offers a select few the opportunity to earn a life-changing sum of money, it seems to good to be true. All they’ll have to do is sleep for two weeks, while their body is used by somebody else. They’ll have no memory of what goes on in the missing time, and no harm will come to them - honest.

I had high hopes for Body Tourists, but there’s not particularly anything new here. It’s difficult to keep track of the characters, which stopped me from really caring about what happened to them. It is an easy and relatively quick read, just it left me disappointed.

I received an ARC of this book in exchange for an honest review.

A really interesting premise, which raised so many moral and ethical questions. Great to hear so many viewpoints to really explore the ideas and impact.

I first came across Jane Rogers when The Testament of Jessie Lamb was longlisted for the Booker Prize. It was an impressive work, chock full of ideas. So I was delighted to be able to read Body Tourists ahead of its general release (thanks Netgalley!).

Body Tourists is set in a near future world where medical science has just begun to find ways to reanimate cryogenically frozen brains into the bodies of living donors. The science is in its infancy, the subject of secret trials, and reanimated brains have only two weeks before they give their bodies back to the donors.

Which makes one think of all the ways this could possibly go wrong. And Jane Rogers takes us on a tour of all the moral, legal and scientific issues – one by one.

There is a plot of sorts, but mostly it is just a vehicle for exploring the issues. The characters have only a finite space in which to live, which makes the multiple point of view narrative feel more like a series of connected short stories than a novel per se. Of the continuing characters, Luke is a rather engaging medical scientist who is too enthusiastic (or too lazy) to think through the moral problems even when they blow up in front of him. He is the pivot around whom everything else revolves. But the real beauty comes in the short vignettes presented by the reanimated and their families – the rock star and his father; the teacher who died while under suspicion of child abuse; the mad scientist…

Body Tourists is a short and fast read, but it packs plenty of ideas between its covers.

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.)

I haven't read any Jane Rogers books before,
however on the strength of this one she definitely has a new fan.
The concept is really interesting and raises many fundamental questions about identity and being human ;
are we the same person if our mind returns to a different body?
Would we want to return to life after death for two weeks just because someone else summoned us?
Would I accept £10000 to allow someone else to use my body, and never know what they had done with it.
Would it be my fault if the guest committed a crime in my body?
Do we have souls?
And many others which I think I will continue to reflect on for a long time to come.
Well framed in a page turning narrative - a book to be recommended
Thank you to netgalley and Hodder and Stoughton for an advance copy of this book.

I found the concept of this book super interesting: people renting out their bodies for the consciences of rich dead people to be uploaded into for a fortnight. The hosts get £10,000 and the Tourists get to live again for those two weeks. What could go wrong?

The writing and execution were fine, but like many dystopian books these days it leaned a little too heavily on the concept to carry it. Also, one of the characters' POV is written in northern dialect (subtly, not Hagrid-level) but it made me cringe a little and want to skim over his chapters. I suppose this means it was done well, as I was able to identify the accent, but it put me off.

Overall., this book was good and I'd maybe be interested in reading more from this author in the future.

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.