A young man with mysterious powers is thrust into an epic battle of good versus evil as he attempts to save the world from a cloned “messiah.”

In a futuristic city called San Angeles, Joshua Salvador lives a quiet life. After discovering strange powers as a child, including the ability to walk on water, he has been on medication ever since to “silence the divine voice inside him.” Meanwhile, a new messiah has recently emerged by the name of Michael Fairchild, a cybernetic clone of Christ made from DNA extracted from his 2,000-year-old shroud. Michael wields his spiritual power to convince the masses that “Digital Ascension” is the way to salvation. But when Joshua discovers the truth behind the process, he sets out—alongside a group of like-minded rebels, including a young woman named Mae Lin and her eerily perceptive little girl, Zen—to stop Michael. The messiah proves a formidable foe, however; he attempts to stop the rebels by whatever increasingly violent means are necessary. When a shocking connection between Michael, Mae Lin, and Zen is revealed, Joshua will have to finally tap into his latent powers if he’s to save the ones he loves—and the world. Zalewski weaves together religion and science to create a kind of parable both entertaining and philosophical. While allusions to Christianity largely form the book’s backbone, they can occasionally be too on the nose (Joshua’s mothers are named Maria and Josephine, a character wears a “neural crown,” etc.). However, the story’s sheer imagination—combined with Zalewski’s smooth narrative voice—propels the story forward with a delicious sense of mounting dread: “From the recesses beneath the altar, articulated mechanical arms emerged like the limbs of some deep-sea creature, moving with an almost elegant precision born of advanced engineering and dread aesthetics.” The book’s climax, while not particularly surprising, provides a satisfying conclusion to a fun, gripping tale of religious dystopia.

This unlikely mashup of SF tech and religious faith makes for an involving adventure with heart.