Awakening(2010)

William Campbell

Imagine a world where death is merely an inconvenience.

A new body awaits and we resume living, fully aware of the past. Every love, talent and distaste, retained from one life to the next. But this immortal paradise has a price -- eternal life as slaves, oppressed by masters who forbid individuality, creative expression, and free thinking.

A band of rebels refuses to conform, but for a population that reincarnates, the government is powerless to eliminate insurgents. Putting them to death is useless. The rebels will return, again and again. The final solution -- perpetual amnesia. Kill their memory of past lives, and banish the rebels to a lonely corner of the galaxy.

Robbed of his identity and purpose, a reluctant hero is dumped into a transient existence, and he regards himself as insignificant. But he is of great interest to agents in black who come to collect him. His decision to flee begins a journey of rediscovery, but some of it he would rather leave buried. When an oddball crew of fellow rebels comes to his rescue, the boundaries of reality are tested, and who to trust is anyone's guess.

Eager to arouse his memory, a flirtatious member of the rebel team shows him the life he once enjoyed, and more, as he returns to a strange world where bodies are manufactured and childhood is obsolete. If only he could be a child again. First he'll have to remember how to reincarnate.

Awakening begins the Dead Forever trilogy, followed by Apotheosis and Resonance.