eda Hubbard is a forensic anthropologist, a woman with a firm and prosaic career and unfulfilled dreams of becoming an Egyptologist. The chance of her realizing these ambitions is minimal ... until she is
recruited by an old friend to identify any human remains found on a dig underway in Alexandria. The friend has massive corporate backing and a client desperate to locate the DNA of the ancient world's most famous queen, Cleopatra.
The search for Cleopatra's genetic material is more urgent than a mere quest for exotic necrobilia. Leda's friend, Chimera, has pioneered a means of using a deceased person's DNA to recreate their personality and memories in a live and willing host. The recipient of the doctored tissue becomes a
merged entity, expressing the traits both of the host and the tissue donor. This scientifically induced possession is a tightly kept secret; the Islamic government of Egypt would be certain, Leda is told, to frown on the purpose of the tissue hunt if it were known. Within the select circle of people in the know, furthermore, a wealthy stockholder of Chimera's employer has demanded they abuse the process to extend his life. Leda must find Cleopatra, positively identify her remains, and then slip a usable
sample of her tissue out of the country ... all without being detected.
To ensure her safety, Leda enlists the aid of her father, a womanizing motorcycle collector named Duke who just happens to have extensive military and security experience. The two of them travel to Egypt, encounter an old flame of Leda's on the dig, and promptly find themselves neck-deep in intrigue. Everybody in Alexandria is interested in Cleopatra's DNA, and some of them are more than willing to use violence to get their hands on it.
Light, bubbly and romantic
Elizabeth Ann Scarborough's Channeling Cleopatra is a bright and funny read, the sort of book that insists its audience move through its plot at a breakneck pace. Its particular strength is the character of Duke, a 72-year-old cut-up who bangs along in a good-tempered state of arrested development, chasing women and lusting after particularly sharp motorcycles and aircraft, all while zealously guarding his daughter and the dangerous loot she is seeking. When Duke runs afoul of the forces seeking to steal Cleopatra's tissue sample, his own genetic material ends up in the body of an unhappily married woman doctor, and the results are entirely hilarious.
Significant suspension of disbelief is a requisite for Channeling Cleopatra. The Chimera process is implausibly powerful, restoring as it does not only donors' base personality traits but their lives' memories too. Scarborough gleefully mixes this flimsy science with the stuff of psychic fantasy—astral projection and prophecy. Readers looking for hard SF or a serious treatment of the metaphysics of possession will not find it here; this is a playful novel which brushes up against many interesting questions and does not bother itself to answer any of them. How does the ultra-masculine Duke fare in a woman's body? Just fine, thank you very much. How does Cleopatra adjust to the high-tech world into which she is reborn? Easily, and with plenty of verve to spare for important occupations
like flirting.
Channeling Cleopatra offers the fulfillment of two cherished human fantasies. On one hand, it offers its characters the potential to live forever. On the other, it lets them re-establish contact with the dead, whether they are deceased loved ones or the great icons of history. It does so in a completely whimsical fashion, creating a cheering and optimistic story with little darkness and no nasty side effects.
