Reincarnation Blues by Michael Poore
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Eastern metaphysics meets science fiction in Michael Poore's Reincarnation Blues, a highly-inventive, tragicomedic tour of human life and the afterlife.

Milo is an old soul, the oldest, in fact. He's used up almost all of his 10,000 lives and has yet to achieve Perfection, although he's often gotten close. Perhaps what's holding him back is love for Death, or Suzie, as she likes to be called. Suzie is one of the incarnations of death that collects souls and meets them in the afterlife. Suzie and Milo hit it off immediately and are friends for his first 1,000 visits to the afterlife, but after that, they are lovers. (The afterlife, it turns out, has a lot in common with daily life, like eating, sleeping, working, and having sex.)

Time is not linear, and reincarnating souls can live in any time in history. Old souls like Milo go back and forth and sometimes experience their past lives as voices in their heads. The reader is treated to many of Milo's lives, a few in great detail, which is where you can just feel author Michael Poore flexing his imagination. He's clearly thought far into the future, and some of Milo's lives are mini dystopian novellas. (Happily, the overall arc of history is positive.)

This may be the most original boy-meets-girl story I have come across, and I quite enjoyed it. It would have been nice, although less honest, if life weren't so often violent and painful, but alas, we are not treated to Milo's happiest lives in any detail.

Well-written, humorous, and engrossing, Reincarnation Blues should entertain readers willing to delve into speculative fiction with a touch of mysticism.

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