Materia Gris

WWIII has devastated most of the world, but life is still good for the lucky rich few hundred who had their brains preserved in an automated conservatory. Altho they have no bodies to move around with, they're free to mentally visit any of the other residents, engage in all the emotional, intellectual pseudo-sexual congress that they desire.

This is the story of a projection of life in the 25th century. People have been reduced to Cerebromorphs--disembodied brains stored in tanks in huge Depositories wired up to computers, memory files mammoth study programmes. In the tanks they're supposed to pass thru various levels of understanding before they are liberated, implanted in hatchery-nurtured perfect bodies sent back into a pastoral paradise flourishing outside. The novel follows a small group of these brains: that of a 12-year-old boy killed in an air crash; an ex-movie queen, fastidious, rich lethal; a former Nigerian sculptor the last of the great humanists.