In a future where climate change has altered the face of the Earth and dolphins have finally revealed themselves for what they are—super-intelligent creatures—the Vatican has become a superpower simply by doing what it does best: sowing guilt with a generous hand. Not paying for your afterlife insurance has only one dire consequence: forced emigration to an artificial planet where you will work as a slave in the service of immortal billionaires.
Investigations into a terrible and highly suspicious train accident take Lazarus Keaton and Agent Silva to the artificial planet, where they will have to use their wits and put everything they know about the afterlife on the table to save a young woman and a boy turned into an android. Entertaining and thought-provoking, the novel is reminiscent of some of Vonnegut's most successful works.

In this world, climate has changed the world. The coasts have flooded, and sentient dolphins have taken over the areas. Some people love them, and some people hate them, but the world molded around them being there, and incorporated them into their daily lives, letting them completely integrate. Lazarus, our main character, has an family member who has romantically entangled himself with these dolphins, for example. This is a very interesting start to an epic length novel in a futuristic world.

Lazarus has started a new job, keeping track of the afterlife, and collecting souls of the recently departed to keep them online (for a fee of course,) and he is very anxious about life in general, but especially keeping his new job. Though his coworkers don't respect him, he is technically a manager, and has power over them, even if he doesn't apply it. We begin with a mass casualty event, 4000 people unaccounted for in a horrible train accident. One of the people is a saint level afterlife, and Lazarus begins to fall in love with her just from her pictures in the file. But when he arrives to find her soul, he realizes that detectives are all over the place, and there might be something more going on behind the scenes. Rumors of a mass murder have started to spread, instead of the accident it originally claimed to be.

Aside from Lazarus, the book follows four different characters; Silvia, Bill and Bodie, who are all very different from eachother. They each have their own points of view, for example, Silvia is someone who originally was an investigator for the train accident, Bill goes by the name Captain Railgun and is the main character of a tv series on a space station far from Earth, and Bodie is a simple handyman on said space station. I find all their points of view really interesting, giving their own side to the story as a whole, and I really appreciated the break from Lazarus, honestly. He drove me crazy a little.

The story begins with the four characters completely separate from each other, but brings everything together harmoniously by the end. Though it did take me a long time to get through this book, It was more because it was so long, not because I didn't like it. Very unique, I loved the sentient dolphins aspect, and especially life on the space station, Phobos 2. A good novel, I wouldn't say it's my favourite, but I'm not disappointed in it at all, and would absolutely read more by the author.

i enjoyed this book!!! this is something that could definitely be adapted into a super cool anime. it was a little slow at the start for me but overall i am happy it's something i got to read! it kind of gives me cowboy bebop vibes! also!!!! i absolutely love books with queer rep, it makes me so happy!!