Soulsaver

by James Stevens-Arce

Juan Bautista and his partner Fabiola Mu–oz drive a FreezVan for the Suicide Prevention Corps of America. Their job is to race to the scene of a suicide, put the body on ice, and rush it, siren yowling, to the Saint Francis of Assisi Resurrection Center in time for repair and resuscitation. Usually this works and the former suicide promises to sin no more, if for no other reason than the pain of being resurrected is even worse than that of committing suicide. Still, the suicide rate seems to be climbing. Juan loves his job, and he loves the spiritual leaders who created it, Reverend Jimmy Divine and the beautiful woman called the Shepherdess. But when he's asked by them to spy on his partner, suspected of being a heretic believer in the Twin Messiahs, he's no longer sure who or even what to believe-and he's no longer sure that all the suicides are really suicides.

Genres: Science Fiction, Fiction, Dystopia

272 pages, Hardcover

First published September 18, 2000

About the author

He has also published as James A. Stevens (his real name).

Reviews

[Kirsten · Rating 3 out of 5]

I read this book for a challenge prompting for a book recommended by an author you love. The author who recommended it was the terrific science fiction author Connie Willis. However, I didn't get much out of it.

It was well written, I guess. It wasn't bad. It was a little weird. A future dystopia where there are 54 states in the Union (including Puerto Rico). It is also a Christian dystopia with elements of evangelicals and Catholics ruling the country in a world that believes it is hurtling towards the Second Coming of Christ. (Though, if Christ came, I think He'd want to take the return flight immediately!)

It's a crazy world with sequined cassocks and ambulances that rush people to "rejuvenation centers" to bring them back from suicides so they can be punished for their "sins".

It is a good read. But not as entertaining as I was hoping for.

[K.J. Charles]

A completely bonkers, highly prescient satire given it was written in 2000, in which the US/Puerto Rico are now an evangelical "Americhristian" theocracy. Juan is a soulsaver, aka part of a squad that retrieves recent suicides so they can be forcibly resurrected and then punished for their crime. The parallel to the Evangelical pro-birth movement is clear (people must be forced to stay in a horrible polluted overcrowded world where nobody gives a damn about their quality of life, least of all the people ordering that they must live whether they like it or not). The tacky excesses of Americhristianity are hilariously done, and Juan especially starts off a gloriously smug, stupid, hatefully self-righteous little prick whose annoying non-sweary slang means my main regret about this book is he doesn't get brutally beaten in the early pages, possibly to death.

A wild ride--it isn't, surprisingly, in any way an atheistic look at the horrors of religious extremism, and it all gets very eschatological. I can safely say I did not expect the ending.

[Wendy S. Delmater · Rating 5 out of 5]

I was so engrossed in reading this book, I walked off the subway in NYC without my purse! I got my handbag back later minus $5, but still, that gives you an idea of how good this book is.

Imagine the Catholic church gets to run the USA as a theocracy, and that they enforce their ruling about suicide being tabu by reviving people who've killed themselves. The main character in Soulsaver is a medical technician whose job it is to help bring back those to life who have offed themselves. The first victim we see him doing this for is a woman who cannot use contraception (again Catholic Church rules) and can't handle the fact that she has far, far too many children and is locked and grinding poverty in a domestic role.

I don't want to give away the plot except to say the second coming of Christ is not exactly what you'd expect it to be. Not hardly. This is perhaps one of the most innovative and engrossing books I've read in quite some time, and I can't recommend it highly enough.

[Ernest Hogan · Rating 5 out of 5]

Just a relevant now as it was when it first came out in the year 2000. Maybe even more so. Latinx spirituality meets Evangelical religion in a futuristic Puerto Rico. This is a multiverse that SFF had only began to explore. Like I keep saying, magic realism from a sufficiently technologically advanced culture becomes indistinguishable from science fiction.

[Heather · Rating 5 out of 5]

My only negative is that the condemnation of this organized religion comes on awfully strong. It’s pretty transparently despotic, particularly when the Shepherdess casually suspends the Bill of Rights. Other than that, however, this is a really fascinating tale. It has a lot of style, a stark contrast between the lives of the elite and the squalor of the downtrodden. The contrast between resurrected suicides and yet casually killing blasphemers is striking. The worldbuilding has a fair amount of detail to it–Juan, for example, has just entered his “marriage year”, and this causes him to make some rather precipitous decisions.

Once Juan gets sucked into the high-flash world of Jimmy Divine, evangelist and television preacher, and even meets the Shepherdess, things get wild. It’s believed that the end of the world is coming–in scant days, forcing events to pile on top of each other as everyone races to reach the end-game. The end of the world is a huge stage production, and it delivers. Juan is our proxy, just trying to do the right thing as he navigates his new world. While sometimes the right thing seems obvious, Juan’s prevarication is made understandable. He has a greater role to play in the end of the world than seems to be the case, and what he decides matters. I also appreciate the fact that the girl he suddenly marries has some depth to her, and she doesn’t always do what we expect, either.

While a little one-sided, this is a fascinating depiction of what a very one-sided religious nation might be like, and how income disparity can lead to horrible conditions. It’s something worth reading given where we are at today.


Consider my rating a 4.5
Original review posted on my blog: http://www.errantdreams.com/2019/03/r...

[Sierra · Rating 3 out of 5]

James Stevens-Arce's novel is a satirical took at a future in which everyone is Christian. There is no separation of church and state and the world follows the directives of the sexy Shepherdess and The Reveren Jimmy Divine.

Juan Baptista is a faithful Christian until he becomes connected with the New Christers through a co-worker.The New Christers believe the messiah has returned in the form of twin siblings.

Baptista is the son of the "celibate" Divine; his mother was one of the lucky women to be "saved" by the reverend. Divine has little to do with Baptista until after the Shepherdess declares the New Christer faith illegalband the twin messiahs to be the Antichrist.. They seduce Baptista into ferreting out the twins' location. In the process. Baptista starts to question his faith and the twins' purpose.

An allegorical look at our Western world, James Stevens Arce's Soulsaver may ask you to reassess your take on
region, but it will make you laugh while doing so.

This is a reprint of my original review in the Aug/Sep 2000 issue of Explorations.