THE PROSPECT OF IMMORTALITY

by Robert C.W. Ettinger ‧ RELEASE DATE: June 5, 1964

Mr. Ettinger has excellent sponsors, credentials, and, it would seem, research evidence on which this book, a predictive vista of immortality for everyone achieved through a freezing program for the sick or the dead, is based. Dormitories will replace cemeteries, and cold storage will make possible the resuscitation of all corpses at some future date when medical science will be equal to their repair. There is already the remarkable example of the Russian physicist who has died 4 times in 14 months and is now recuperating. Mr. Ettinger's ""American way of living on"" is full of versatile conjecture, but he is already prepared to deal with religious rebuttals (it is theologically acceptable); economic considerations from the costs of a freezer program to its influence on the population rise (birth control will have to be more stringent); as well as the reluctance of some of the people who may not want to live forever and do not think they will enjoy his brave new world. While there are still some unsettled questions, for instance who will raise who from the dead, he does explore all kinds of marginal problems -- insurance policies, trust funds, suicide, euthanasia, etc. etc. and much of his very educated guesswork is extrapolated from known achievements.... There are times when the reader, still in possession of all his faculties, may suspect this (hoax or hokum?); and again, he may take cold comfort or none at all from this kind of programmed frigor mortis. But still, it's an ingenious application of a vanguard concept.

Pub Date: June 5, 1964

ISBN: N/A

Page Count: -

Publisher: Doubleday

Review Posted Online: N/A

Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 1, 1964

Categories: NONFICTION