Product Description

Los Angeles, 2006: Dr Nate Sheehan is casually murdered in a parking lot. His wife, also a doctor, hopes to rescue at least a part of him for cryonic preservation. She performs an unprecedented operation.

Gamma Gulch Penitentiary, California, 2069: twenty-six-year-old Duane Williams is about to be sent to the death chamber for the rape and murder of a young woman.

Icor Regrowth Programme, Arizona, 2070: sixty-four years after his own violent death, Nate is resuscitated using the body of an anonymous donor. Despite the advances in science, neurotechnologist Dr Persis Bandelier and her colleague Garth Bannerman never expected their covert operation to be a success. So when the patient responds to their treatment, no one is ready. And all too soon, an investigative journalist blows the cover of the sensational “waking”. The news story threatens both to expose the identity of the mysterious donor and unravel the truth behind Sheehan’s murder all those years ago . . .

'Riveting. Think Tess Gerritsen meets Philip K. Dick' Mo Hayder

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #47327 in Books
• Published on: 2007-08-03
• Original language: English
• Binding: Paperback
• 400 pages

Daily Mail, April 28th, 2006
'T.M. Jenkins has written a cracking first novel which is an interesting amalgam of science fiction, political intrigue and crime'

Peter James, Author
'A startling, original novel. A provocative, credible story that grips, fascinates and disturbs right to the very last line.

From the Author
To me, science is the most glorious 'final frontier.' There is so much talk of destruction and demise, I think the most dynamic, inventive place to look for hope in these perilous times is among the laboratories and lecture halls of universities and scientific foundations. That is where my interests currently lie and where I was most wanted to set a thriller.

I was asked by my friend the science writer Rita Carter ('Mapping the Mind') to go to a conference in Jamaica all about the brain. How bad could that be? Sipping rum punches while soaking up information about the latest developments in the workings of the body's most mysterious organ. That's really where the idea first came to me. I don't know if it was a flash or a dream - but the process of coming back to life was irrisistable. And it seemed that with the knowledge that we are gathering now, that it might one day be possible.

They are already implementing some of the things I have written about, from the mouse held in suspended animation to gene therapy. And then there is nano technology, with computers that are 1/10th the size of a human hair that will be able to alter the structure of a single cell. Who cannot be enthralled by all this potential?

There was something else I wanted to coney in The Waking. We spend so much time worrying about global warming, listening to so many predictions then doing nothing about it that I sincerely wanted to dress up the most diar warning as entertainment. I was so drawn to the big question: what would it be like to live in a time when global warming has actually arrived and we are well and truly beyond the tipping point? Will it be biblical in its proportions? How would the human race adapt? These ponderings played into my deepest fears about the future and I couldn't resist but look down into that deep, dark well and imagine what might be lying at the bottom.

Customer Reviews

A fantastic read!
Everything we hear about today is GLOBAL WARMING. This book takes a look at what would happen if a person woke up one day and found out that all the predictions we most fear had actually come true. That's the experience a Los Angeles doctor, Nate Sheehan, goes through in this extraordinary book.

Dr. Sheehan is murdered in 2006 and his wife, who is part of the "cryonics" movement, freezes his head so that she can someday be re-united with him. But technology doesn't become available until 2069, when a group of scientists in Phoenix, Arizona bring him back to life and attach his head to a "donor body." The story, one that is amazingly well-researched, deals with all the problems the scientists face in reviving human flesh. It's also a kind of "reincarnation" story (without being metaphysical), as Nate's consciousness reignites.

The authorities don't know about his existence at first - he's flying "under the radar." Then begins a new adventure, that of learning how to use a stranger's body, and how peculiar it is to imagine that the body once belonged to someone else. And then the crushing reality that the world is coping with the arrival of global warming, and not the place that Nate remotely recognizes from his former life as a rich, privileged doctor in turn-of-the-century L.A. With this as a background, he must find out what happened to his beloved wife and family.

This is a fascinating, engrossing story. I loved all the science and recovery part. Once I started reading it I couldn't put it down. It has that Da Vinci Code gallop of pace, which I like in thrillers. And there are some extraordinary things that happen to Nate that I won't say, or I'll reveal too much.

Buy it. Read it. Pass it on to others. This has bestseller written all over it.

Teriffic Thriller!
I love thrillers by Peter James and when I saw that he had personally recommended this book, I was eager to give it a try. Just like he said, I was impressed from the first page, at the speed and pace of this extraordinary thriller. I don't think I've read anything quite like it for some time. It involves a doctor who is shot and killed in the present day. His wife cryonically freezes his head and he's brought back to life towards the end of the century. But he needs a body to complete the operation, so they find one from a dubious source. It's a real tour de force, part medical thriller, part sci fi, part horror. And the docotr goes on an incredible journey, waking up when global warming has got a grip on the world and oil has finally run out. If there's ever a book that we should be reading that captures just what the future is going to look like, The Waking is it. I can't wait to see what T.M. Jenkins is going to do next.

Superbly done.
I'm not a fan of science fiction. I'm sceptical of novels set in the not-too-distant future, and more sceptical of novels set in the distant future. When I saw that The Waking, a medical thriller, was partly set in `Arizona, 2070', it nearly put me off altogether.

But I'm glad I persevered, because this book is riveting - especially for a sceptic. Not only intelligent, challenging and highly original, TM Jenkins' debut novel is also an utter page-turner.

We're on the brink of a real fuel crisis, with the threat of global warming beating down stronger every day, and The Waking combines our damaged world with Frankenstein's old innovation, cryonic preservation, to take us to a place that is terrifying in its plausibility.

This novel has `bestseller' scrawled all over it, because it is paced like The Da Vinci Code, with research that is just as good and controversy that is just as credible. For me, it goes one better: it is extremely well-written and disturbing down to the very last line.