Dead Souls

Song’s surreal and byzantine conclusion to the Hospital trilogy (after Exorcism) returns to a topsy-turvy sci-fi world. The timeline is so unclear that the characters themselves debate whether it is 1976, 2049, or 2066, but 3D printing technology has advanced enough to produce human beings and, readers are told, Vincent van Gogh died in 1989 after producing both Starry Night and Hayao Miyazaki’s Princess Mononoke. Against this impossible backdrop, 40-year-old Yang Wei, whose narrative unfolds in second person, is reintroduced following his drowning death after the sinking of a hospital ship affiliated with the Allied forces in a world war. His resurrection comes through immersion in the Pool of Dead Souls, which “looks like a massive piece of gauze soaked in blood and pus” but is actually a medicinal liquid polymer. The meandering plot, which also involves space travel, is exhausting, and the lead, an admitted murderer and necrophiliac, is too repellent for most readers to be invested in his bizarre odyssey. This is strictly for series completists. (Jan.)