Zero K

Abstract

Zero K is narrated by Jeffrey, the son of a billionaire, and extremely influential and powerful man, named Ross Lockhart. Ross is married to Artis Martineu, Jeffrey’s stepmother, who is considerably younger than him, but is sick and dying. The novel primarily explores Ross’s investment in a secret project – Convergence –, which seeks to preserve bodies so as to return them to life in a future where such a thing may be possible, with medical advancements that may allow to do so. Artis willingly chooses to participate in the project and surrender her sick body to cryopreservation, in a remote facility in Asia (where the project is being developed) furnished with cutting-edge technological and scientific methods and tools that allow bodies to be perfectly preserved. Ultimately, Ross chooses this same fate, while Jeffrey continually rejects the idea of cryogenic preservation throughout the entire novel, preferring instead to focus on the present, and question his father’s ideas, which he deems to be idealistic and even unethical.