Soulsaver (Hardcover)

~ (Author) "God bless us all, San Juan, and bless you for tuning in to W-G-O-D, where we praise the Lord twenty-four hours a day by playing..." (more)
Key Phrases: penance lanes, air litter, reserved lane, Jimmy Divine, Juan Bautista, Brother Jimmy (more...)

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

James Stevens-Arce's Soulsaver has had a long genesis. It began as a short story in Isaac Asimov's Science Fiction Magazinein 1983; in 1997, a novella-length version shared the UPC Prize for Science Fiction. Now comes the novel.

Set in Puerto Rico in 2099, Soulsaver features an all-too-believable future in which the U.S. has become a repressive Christian theocracy whose corrupt leaders use entertainment and technology to cement their power. In this world of televised miracles, overpopulation and poverty tempt ever-increasing numbers of people to suicide. Suicide remains a mortal sin, but most "self-inflicteds" can be restored to life--like it or not--by soulsavers trained in advanced medical procedures. Juan Bautista Lorca is a rookie soulsaver whose faith in the righteousness of his actions is absolute. But his faith is about to be tested by revelations. Or, rather, Revelations--the Biblical kind. The Last Days are at hand, and the Second Coming will be televised, "with extra special guest: Our Lord Jesus Christ!"

Despite its SF trappings and satirical barbs, Stevens-Arce's tale is traditional Christian fare. Far from being the Orwellian satire it appears at first blush to be, Soulsaver comes to praise the Christian God, not to bury Him. Juan Bautista's journey from callow youth to mature manhood, and the concurrent tempering of his faith, may appeal more to young adult than to adult readers. Still, despite faltering at the end through a regrettable literalism that deflates much of what has gone before, Soulsaver is a fast-paced, amusing and often insightful first novel from a talented author. --Emerson Cooper

From Publishers Weekly

Based on a novella that earned the 1997 UPC Prize for Science Fiction (Barcelona), this first novel is a satirical near-future adventure with SF trappings and a clear mission to unmask the money-grubbing, cynical powers behind a particularly pernicious form of fundamentalist Christianity. The world of 2099 is controlled by hellfire-and-brimstone TV preacher Reverend Jimmy Divine and his gorgeous, soul-saving sidekick, the Shepherdess. Divine's secret bastard son, Juan Bautista, has just started a great job with the Suicide Prevention Corps of America, scraping up the bodies of recent suicides and speeding them to Saint Francis of Assisi Resurrection Center for healing and soul-saving. His partner, Fabiola, an SPCA veteran, is far less upbeat about the job. She's old enough to remember when church and state were legally separate, before the "Great Miracle" that "illuminated" the souls of believers of other religions and made them all Christian. When Juan is asked to inform on her by Church leaders hoping to learn the location of the outlawed children known as the Twin Messiahs, he naturally accepts, but soon enough begins to question his own faith as Fabiola reveals to him her point of view. In the end, it comes as no surprise that Reverend Jimmy's Bible-backed crusade is merely a well-disguised attempt to feed his own greed. Stevens-Arce's background as a writer for film and video is obvious from the novel's breakneck pace, convenient plot twists and thin characters. Although there's little here that will be new or surprising for the SF reader, the author's biting humor and sense of the absurd are bound to entertain. (Sept.)
Copyright 2000 Reed Business Information, Inc.

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 272 pages
• Publisher: Harcourt; 1st edition (September 18, 2000)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0151004722
• ISBN-13: 978-0151004720
• Product Dimensions: 9.1 x 6.2 x 1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.2 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 4.8 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (17 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #1,950,899 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

13 of 13 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars For Readers Interested in Writing, January 25, 2002

By	Carolyn Howard-Johnson "Author 'This is the P... (Los Angeles, CA USA) - See all my reviews

A novel that uses first person, present tense is not easy to find, probably because there are not many convincing reasons to use it. In Soulsaver, James Stevens-Arce does it well.

This book is an interesting and fast-paced satire. The protagonist, Juan Bautista Lorca, is a callow youth blinded by the society in which he lives. That Stevens-Arce chooses to tell his story from this little twerp's viewpoint is daring for the reader doesn't take immediately to him. Stevens-Arce carefully mitigates that problem in several ways.

First, he doesn't get inside his head much until the character begins to change, and to grow. We can never be certain but I believe this was a conscious decision because poor Juan doesn't have a deep thought stored anywhere in there, anyway. It is a perfect approach to this kind of character building.

One of the difficulties of using this method is that the reader gets less insight into the character than we have become accustomed to. Any we do get comes from the dialogue and/or what is happening around Juan. There is an advantage here, as well. The action moves forward very quickly and we find ourselves immersed in the time (The Year of Our Lord 2099) and the place (San Juan, the capitol city of our 52nd state). And, surprising, this is enough. The author has carefully balanced what the reader is likely to miss with what she gets.

As Juan develops and finds his own depth, we find that Steven-Arce is a writer with a first-class instinct for words as well. For those of us who long to see, hear, and feel when we read, this novel is not a disappointment. We must wait, but we get wonderful similes like, "...the sun...looks like a communion wafer pasted against the sky," and "...the Swiss cheese of pigeon holes cut into the ancient wall..." Stevens-Arce has crafted a book where there is only straightforward, uncluttered writing until the reader is hooked. Only then do we find passages that are pure poetry. By that time we find ourselves literally gobbling it up.

Stevens-Arce has one more trick to keep the reader hanging in there while this shallow youth ogles breasts, bounces to the music blasting into his headphones and relishes his own benign happiness with himself and the god-awful world he doesn't see around himself. He uses present tense. I hate present tense. Yet I hardly noticed. It propels the novel forward when it needs momentum. After it has done its job the reader becomes so used to it, it is no longer a factor.

If I were still teaching English, this book would become one of my texts. It's not often that one finds first person, present tense put to such carefully crafted use. It's also not often that one finds a book that lauds the often-maligned ability of thinking for oneself. Next to Holden Caulfield, Juan Bautista Lorca may be the best literary example for youth in recent times.

11 of 11 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Beyond 1984....dunn...dunn...dunn!!, August 19, 2000

By	Brian Rose (West Bend, WI) - See all my reviews

I had heard about this book from someone I know and was rather anxious to read this "incredible story"... SO...After managing to get my hands on a coveted copy of James Stevens-Arce's 'Soulsaver' I dove into the pages with a tremendous amount of excitement. I had heard good things about the book and I was anxious to see if Soulsaver was able to live up to the expectation I had blatantly placed upon it. It took me ONE day to read this fantastic book. Now, I'm an extremely picky reader and I usually don't thoroughly enjoy books the way I did enjoy 'Soulsaver'. I read Sci-fi often enough but my true love lies with the classics. Jim Stevens has himself here a classic with this spectacular fable of a world on an extreme edge. The book is not too fantastic that it's unbelieveable, this book hits so close to home that I had chills knowing that the world he portrayed is only but a few years away. If anybody reading this loves dystopian stories like: 1984, Brave New World and is also a fan of religious lore and representation...this novel has it! Don't be pushed away by the sci-fi shroud that surrounds it. Just try picking it up and reading it if you're a fan of reading good..nay...excellent stories. This one is a definite keeper!

10 of 10 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A great read, August 21, 2000

By	Morris E. Schorr (Los Angeles, CA USA) - See all my reviews

I was fortunate enough to see the bound galleys for James Stevens-Arce's first novel, "Soulsaver." I remember reading a short story of his by the same title in Isaac Asimov's Science Fiction Magazine in the early '80s. Stevens-Arce has developed that original intriguing glimpse of a dystopic future into a dizzying journey to the end of the 21st century, when Puerto Rico is the 52nd state in an America taken over by a televangelistic theocracy.

The world Stevens-Arce evokes is richly textured and detailed. The book's narrator, Juan Bautista Lorca, is a rookie technician in a squad whose mission it is to quick-freeze suicides for subsequent "re-animation." The fascinating, fast-paced, occasionally sexy and frequently hilarious narrative tracks Juan's voyage of discovery as all the tenets of his faith and sense of self are challenged and rearranged. The book's climax hinges on the most outrageous second coming since "A Canticle for Lebowitz."

In the grand tradition of Orwell, Huxley and Brunner, Stevens-Arce has given us a terrible, fascinating and convincing vision of a future that just might be only a hundred years away.