Adam Roberts' Land of the Headless

Not many books see their protagonist beheaded in the first chapter. But that's precisely what happens at the beginning of Adam Roberts' Land of the Headless. Jon Cavala is a poet who lives on a far-future colony world that's governed by a strict theocracy. There are only three crimes on Pluse: murder, adultery, and blasphemy. The punishment is the same for all three: the perpetrator is beheaded and immediately fitted with a life-support computer on his neck-stump, then released back into society as a walking warning to others. The conventional wisdom on this world is that this form of beheading is a scripturally-mandated* punishment rendered humane by technology. Before the neck-stump "ordinators," the headless were sentenced to death as well as decapitation; now they're allowed to carry on with their lives once they've paid their debt to society.

The headless form an oppressed underclass on Pluse. They suffer under pretty severe discrimination, and have few options other than serving as cannon fodder in one of the world's many wars. Land of the Headless becomes a sort of bleakly comic picaresque as Cavala embarks on a quest through this dystopian landscape to be reunited with his former lover (on whose behalf he suffered his punishment), enduring numerous trials and misadventures along the way. In terms of its treatment of religion, Land of the Headless reminded me of Margaret Atwood's The Handmaid's Tale. On the one hand, both novels paint a dark picture of religious tyranny, showing the tragic consequences of following the letter at the expense of the spirit. But both show a silver lining as well: the "Underground Femaleroad" of Handmaid's Tale is operated by Quakers, and Land of the Headless also has some positive religious figures, if you look closely enough. Throughout the novel we see churches and charities devoted to showing compassion to the victims of Pluse's cruel justice. It's still highly critical of religion—those charities aren't out to change the system, just to clean up the mess it leaves—but it's always nice in stories like this to see some indication that the author sees light at the end of ultraconservative religion's tunnel.

*What scripture mandates decapitation is never explicitly stated.