Bernard Werber’s "Thanatonauts" (Summary)

A French explorer of the afterlife confronts the mechanics of human fate after death, mapping territories beyond the physical shell. Bernard Werber completed the novel in 1994, basing the plot line on years of journalistic research into the phenomenon of near-death experiences, the mythology of ancient cultures, and astrophysics. The book opens the Thanatonautes duology, which also includes the second novel, Empire of the Angels (2000), which prefaces the larger cycle, We the Gods.

Laboratory in the prison basement

Michel Pinçon learned about nonexistence as a child, after being hit by a sports car on a Parisian street. Later, at Père Lachaise Cemetery, he met Raoul Razorbak. The son of a philosopher who hanged himself, he dreamed of the mysteries of the ancient Egyptian barque of Ra. The boys’ friendship blossomed into joint scientific endeavors years later, when Michel, an adult, became an anesthesiologist, and Raoul experimented with marmot hibernation in a laboratory at the National Center.

The assassination attempt on French President Jean Lucinder in Versailles served as the pretext for state funding. After surviving clinical death from an assassin’s bullet, the politician demanded proof of the existence of a celestial continent from Science Minister Benoît Mercassier. The project, codenamed "Paradise," was launched at Fleury-Mérogis Prison. Death-row prisoners were seated in a shabby dentist’s chair and injected with a lethal mixture of thiopental and potassium chloride. The researchers were assisted by nurse Amandine Ballu, for whom Michel harbored unrequited feelings.

The experimental prisoners perished one after another. Marcellin died in his chair, leaving the doctors in a panic. Another prisoner, Hugo, turned into a motionless, comatose plant. A third volunteer went mad with terror of devils and cauldrons.

Felix Kerboz celebrated his first triumph. A hideous, thuggish recidivist, he agreed to a blood transfusion to reduce his sentence by 28 years. Upon awakening, Kerboz described a rotating blue vortex of light sucking in the dead. Raoul Razorbak drew the first line of defense on a plastic tablet with a felt-tip pen: the comatose wall "Moss 1."

Experiment in front of the public

A newspaper scandal nearly crushed Lucinder. The press exposed the death factory in Fleury-Mérogis, and Minister Mercassier fled to Australia. The cornered president proposed a public demonstration at the Palais des Congrès. In front of television cameras from sixty countries, Kerboz was induced into a terminal state before the eyes of incredulous experts. When the cardiograph traced a straight line, police handcuffed the researchers. An accidental strike from a lighting fixture brought Félix out of his coma just as law enforcement officers were escorting the team offstage. The jubilant audience applauded the Thanatonautes, who spoke of a step of the soul and a leap for humanity.

The heroes were housed in a new, luxurious thanatodrome on the Straw Hill in Paris. Félix became a favorite of society salons, became infatuated with prostitutes and an ingrown toenail, and forgot all about Amandine. He never overcame the second obstacle: during one of his flights, his silver umbilical cord stretched to its limit and snapped forever. The dead idol was replaced by the cool stuntman Jean Bresson.

Bresson broke through the first comatose wall. Returning alive from the Black Zone, Jean began convulsing with unbearable terror. The former daredevil locked himself in an underground reinforced concrete bunker, setting the trend for universal panic-induced thanatophobia.

Black light and star vortices

An Italian woman, Stefania Cicelli, proposed a way out of the impasse. Drawing on Tibetan Buddhist practices and meditation, the obese woman crossed the black space. Beyond the barrier lay a realm of rampant personal memories. Stefania managed to calm her demons, proving that the monsters of the black streak were generated by the explorer’s unpurified conscience.

Then Cicelli broke through the "Moss 2" barrier. Beyond the second wall lay a red realm of carnal passions. Souls drowned in an ocean of forbidden pleasures and fantasies. Seductive illusions held the ectoplasms back, preventing them from moving forward.

Astrophysicist Rosa Solal established the precise celestial coordinates of the Outer Continent. An ultra-long-wave receiver on the roof of the thanatodrome registered signals from an outgoing soul at a frequency of 86.4 kilohertz. The trail led directly to the center of the Milky Way. The destination turned out to be a black hole in the constellation Sagittarius.

The blind Rabbi Freddy Meyer of Strasbourg brought the group flight technique. Six Talmudists wove silver umbilical cords like a strong rope, holding the pioneer at the tip of the ligament. Together, the group overcame the red temptations and entered the orange territory of patience ("Moss 3"), where billions of the departed had slowly trudged for centuries in a single, endless line.

The following barriers were overcome thanks to the alliance of world faiths:

• The yellow zone (“Moss 4”) bestowed universal knowledge and revealed the meaning of the formulas of being.
• The green area (“Moss 5”) dazzled with the unbearable perfection of natural beauty.
• The seventh heaven greeted travelers with absolute whiteness and figures of angels.

Battle for the Seventh Heaven

Peaceful exploration was interrupted by religious fanatics. The Hashishin sect, led by the Mountain Elder, declared a holy war in the heavens, severing the umbilical cords of the European Thanatonautes. A battle of souls ensued at the vortex of a black hole. The warring camps resorted to astral karate moves and Eastern grips until monstrous visions of the red zone demoralized the aggressors.

After the armistice, a commercial frenzy ensued. Rosa Solal was injured by robbers in a street crush and fell into a terminal state in her hospital bed. Michel Pinson, trying to save his wife, became an IV drug addict himself.

The explorer squadron swept through all seven worlds, heading for the shining Mount of the Last Judgment. Michel managed to intercept Rose’s soul from three archangels during the weighing of good and evil deeds. The judges allowed the woman to be returned to earth, but on the return journey, the squad was ambushed by the Mountain Elder. The old, blind Rabbi Meyer sacrificed himself, cutting the umbilical cords of several enemies and buying his friends time to escape.

Returning to Paris, the team discovered the decay of Earthly society. Journalist Maxime Villian published the transcript of the trial of Charles Donahue, a commoner. It was revealed that breaking the cycle of reincarnation required accumulating exactly six hundred righteousness points. Earthlings frantically rushed to perform good deeds to save their personal karma. Wars ceased, prisons emptied, but people’s lives became dreary and hypocritical. The rebellious Stefania Cicelli formed a gang of motorcycle hooligans, seeking to restore the world’s sense of danger through pogroms. During the assault on the laboratory, the bandit Martinez hacked the unarmed Raoul Razorbak to death with an axe.

The end came suddenly. At two in the morning, an uncontrollable Boeing 747 passenger plane crashed into the thanatodrome. Michel Pinson, Amandine, and Rose died instantly. The disembodied souls of the explorers appeared before the Archangels Michael, Gabriel, and Raphael. Higher powers shattered the earthly thanatodromes with lightning bolts and erased humanity’s memory of the afterlife, consigning the project to oblivion. Michel and his companions were sent on another earthly reincarnation, allowed a final glimpse of the dazzling underbelly of paradise before their departure to the cradle.