The Book of Skulls (1999) Robert Silverberg

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The Book of Skulls by Robert Silverberg
is a very peculiar novel; it should be classified as "Fantasy," yet it as a very "mainstreamish" tone, very matter-of fact.

Here are the protagonists: Timothy the aristocratic WASP, Ely the intellectual Hebrew scholar, Oliver the ex-farmboy turned medicine student and Ned, the learned, cynical homosexual.

Ely discovers an ancient manuscript of the book of a mysterious sect in the Arizona desert; the book has the secret of immortality. He convinces his closest friends, Oliver, Ned and Timothy, to join him in a quest to be admitted by the sect.

All accept with varying degrees of skepticism, but only then does Ely reveals the fine print: One of the four should voluntarily take his own life, while another one of will have to be killed by the remaining two.

Even so, the curiously assorted quartet goes to their holiday in the desert, destination: immortality.

The voyage is narrated alternatively by each traveler, and you can compare their different motivations and point of view. The question: Who shall survive? This question is answered with a surprising and unexpected solution.

This is a fascinating and intriguing novel, with a flavor of the occult and a strange reminiscence of Lost Horizon. Not to mention that Inceptions to strange sects in hidden desert places will remind something to Wraeththu fans.