Resurrection

by Katharine Kerr

THE CHOICE OF A LIFETIME...

Tiffany can hardly remember how she died: the fiery crash that took her life and ended her career as a combat pilot. Now, in a rehab center on the California coast, she tries to put together her shattered memory and her shattered body only to find the missing pieces in a chance meeting with an unlikely pair of messengers. Their stories agree in but a single detail: that reality is far less "real" than anything Tiffany could ever imagine. Now she must choose what to believe and what to do in a story with a thousand possible endings. But no matter which choice she makes, the cost will be the same: nothing less than her life.

Genres: Science Fiction, Fiction, Fantasy

Mass Market Paperback

First published January 1, 1992

About the author

Born in Ohio, 1944. Moved to San Francisco Bay Area in 1962 and has lived there ever since. Katharine Kerr has read extensively in the fields of classical archeology, and medieval and dark ages history and literature, and these influences are clear in her work. Her epic Deverry series has won widespread praise and millions of fans around the world.

Reviews

[Craig · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is a novella set in a post-collapse San Francisco in the not-too-distant future of a war-torn world. Tiffany is a former military pilot who has died twice, been resuscitated, and now suffers severe physical and mental traumas. She gets around as well as she can, but has trouble distinguishing reality and, in short, she's a very unreliable narrator. She's visited by representatives of God and Satan, told to choose between staying where she is and returning to the alternate world that an atomic explosion blew her out of... or is she? How can she tell if they're really there, or delusions from her imagination? Perhaps the answer lies in the pages of an obscure science fiction novel she started to read before her accident but now can't seem to find. Or maybe it doesn't. It's a coin flip; is the Kerr novel under discussion science fiction or fantasy? It's a little hard to follow and some of the characters become a little tiresome, but it's a thought-provoking short novel.

[Dannica · Rating 2 out of 5]

Mostly just kind of boring.

[Brittany · Rating 4 out of 5]

While parts of the writing were confusing (running towards stream of consciousness style) I enjoyed this book as a whole, it was an interesting story, that asked deep questions.

[Secret · Rating 3 out of 5]

Not what I expected, but still a decent book that just needed something more.

[Andreas · Rating 1 out of 5]

This one is thankfully short. A novelette of just over a hundred pages in large-ish print. Even so I kept thinking that someone like Niven could have told the same story in less than thirty pages. Our hero has been “resurrected” after a plane crash incurred in combat. Her brain is still recovering from the injuries and she is having a hard time telling the truth from hallucination. Or is she?

I was quite dissapointed with this. So much interesting stuff to work with, such as the multiple realities, the Devil and the Rabbi, the process of medical resurrection itself. But it’s all quite bland really. Our protagonist Tiffany wanders about a predictable and very poor San Francisco in a confused daze. Her boyfriend is bland. Her family is bland. The Devil and the Rabbi are kind of interesting but not enough to redeem the story. If it had been any longer, I would not have finished it.

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