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Reincarnation, mad scientists, and identity all play important roles in Lim's latest fiction.

Here, as in his three earlier novels, author, librarian, and Ellipsis Press proprietor Lim asks big questions about identity while simultaneously taking substantial risks concerning structure. There’s a vein of absurdism here—one of the events that sets the novel in motion is a drone enthusiast hearing a woman in a park tell a story about a dog. He comes to the realization "that the pet in the story was actually my deceased friend, Frank Exit." (Readers of Dear Cyborgs will recognize Frank's name, but the two novels stand on their own.) The fact that several sections of this novel are titled "Shaggy Dog" points to the more free-form elements of the novel's structure, which moves between subgenres at a moment's notice, alternating the enthusiast's encounter with the dog (and its aftermath) with ruminations on identity, fiction, and media. Lim is deeply aware of the literary territory he’s working: One chapter title is an homage to Jorge Luis Borges, and one character is a robotic version of Argentinian surrealist César Aira. As befits a book dealing with death and rebirth, the novel oscillates between the uncanny and the philosophical. One moment you’ll find yourself hearing talk of Doctor Y, who “had terraformed the far side of the moon and built a small fortress,” while the next, the narrator will ask deep, searching questions about identity. “Wasn’t my friendship with Frank foundationally based on the fact that we were both Korean American?” the narrator muses midway through the book. Lim’s ability to balance the fantastical with the heartfelt is what ultimately makes this book resonate. It does cover a lot of seemingly random ground, but as the full shape of the narrative takes hold, it becomes thoroughly compelling.

Lim brings together the mundane and the extraordinary to powerful effect.