When Doctor Nagashima loses his wife in a mysterious car crash, he is overwhelmed with grief but also an eerie sense of purpose; he becomes obsessed with the idea that he must reincarnate his dead wife. Her donated kidney is transplanted into a young girl with a debilitating disorder, but the good doctor also feels compelled to keep a small sample of his wife's liver in his personal laboratory. When these cells start mutating rapidly, a very old and primal consciousness bent on determining its own fate awakens, with a plan to destroy humanity as humans know it.

Filled with scientific acuity and existential challenges (See Ghost in the shell or Frankenstein) this medical phantasmagoria is a disorienting look into consciousness, survival, love and obsession. It just may make you question the future of human evolution or indeed what it means to be human. This novel was also the basis of the hugely popular video game it took its name from. It has been cinematized in Japan, where the novel's smashing success helped set off a sci-fi horror boom lasting many a year.