A fascinating blend of science and speculative fiction, Robert Wilson Morgan’s novel explores
 the social, psychological, and ethical consequences of scientists being able to transplant a brain
 into a fully functional donor body.
 Set just before the COVID pandemic hit, the narrative revolves around Roger Scully, a Denver-
 based doctor and recent widower who, while travelling in Tibet, was involved in a horrific car
 accident that left his lower body a “pulpy mess.” Taken to the Chinese city of Chengdu for
 emergency surgery, he finds himself without his pelvis, hips—and everything below.
 Facing a radically diminished quality of life, Scully opts to become what is essentially a medical
 guinea pig. The high-risk surgery would transplant Scully’s brain into the body of a donor: a
 condemned prisoner who opted to donate his body to science for the opportunity to die under an
 anesthetic instead of via a bullet to the brain. Once inside his new body—which is of Uyghur
 descent—Scully begins a new life in China with a new name. But his ultimate goal is to make it
 back to the States, regain his identity as Roger Scully, and restart his medical career.
 Morgan raises numerous questions throughout, namely about the ethics surrounding organ
 donations from condemned criminals and China’s highly experimental medical procedures
 involving animals and humans. He also touches on the Uyghur’s plight in China, some
 Americans’ distrust of Asiatic people, and the question of why America doesn’t have a
 functioning national system of organ donation.