Violent Skies by Joshua Martin

Strangers awaken with no memories and no identities. They can’t move, they can’t cry out, they can’t run. Hooked to an inexplicable machine, they can’t even hide. Their every secret is revealed because each member of the group is body hopping through each other’s individual histories, reliving episodes of their pasts, but who is who, and is any of this real? Is escape possible? If it is, what will be sacrificed in the name of freedom?
 
Meanwhile, a catatonic man is found naked and broken just outside of Toronto in the middle of a Canadian snowstorm. Questions about his origins abound, but none greater than who he is. Someone wants the truth, and whoever they are, they’re willing to go to extraordinary lengths to reach it. With the body count rising and his own mind a mystery, who can be trusted? Or is it all just in his head?
 
Experience Volume I of an epic too large for one book, filled with nonstop action, richly imagined worlds, and a cast of unforgettable characters that includes cops and criminals, prostitutes and doctors, homeless bums and the mentally ill. Here is a novel eight years in the making, extensively researched, meticulously plotted, and in turn heartbreaking and violent. This is science fiction as it should be.