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• Pro-immortality science fiction

  LazarusLong > December 11th, 2022, 07:01 PM

  Hello everyone,
  
  So far I have only come across one science fiction book that has a positive outlook on immortality. Please help me find science fiction books that have a positive outlook on immortality, that which is pro-immortality, instead of anti-immortality. If you know of any that have immortality in the book, but has neither pro or con, then I would like a neutral book like that to be recommended. All of science fiction I know of has a bad outlook on immortality, I suppose because they think it will drive the story , and be more interesting or something. But that’s not the truth anymore because after reading the book I’m going to mention it was totally pro-immortality and still fantastic! Here is the great book that has a positive outlook on immortality, it’s pro-immortality : 
  
  ‘The Transhumanist Wager’ by Zoltan Istvan. 
  
  Thanks in advance if you know of any or can find any. 
  
  
  LL

• RE: Pro-immortality science fiction

  august > December 12th, 2022, 03:41 PM

  This Immortal by Roger Zelazy
  
  One Immortal Man by Richard Geis

• RE: Pro-immortality science fiction

  Michael > December 12th, 2022, 03:45 PM

  The only book that comes immediately to mind (for me) is an old Larry Niven novel called A World Out of Time. A man who dies in the 20th century is cryogenically frozen. His body cannot be revived in the future but his mind is copied and transferred to a living body by a brutal state government. They send him out into the galaxy to search for worlds to colonize, but he hijacks the ship and goes on a 3-million-year journey through the stars. When he returns to Earth many things have changed.
  
  The State had evolved into a culture dominated by a Dictator class of people who had developed a process for making themselves immortal. But they eventually experimented with a process that made their children immortal in pre-puberty states. The new class of immortals became known as the Boys and the Girls, and they eventually moved apart philosophically. Eventually they fought a war that resulted in the destruction of the Girls.
  
  The Boys enslaved what survived of the Dictators and used them for breeding stock (not allowing them to utilize their old technology). So the Boys continued to increase their numbers slowly until Corbell (the resurrected 20th century man) returned. His arrival on future Earth led to a new revolution in society, and he was able to discover the old Dictator immortality technology.
  
  So while that's not necessarily a "positive" outlook, it doesn't pre-suppose that immortality is a bad thing. It does explore the negative consequences of locking people into certain social castes for millennia (or millions of years), but it also offers the hope that mankind can learn from its mistakes and benefit from immoirtality.

• RE: Pro-immortality science fiction

  Alvin Eriol > December 13th, 2022, 12:48 AM

  I was thinking of suggesting A World Out of Time, until I saw your last post here!
  
  One of Niven's main themes in this book was an exploration of the various theoretical kinds of 'immortality' or cheating time/death that had been posited and their ramifications. They include being frozen, transfer of consciousness and memories to a new body or to a computer, extreme time dilation by travel very close to the speed of light, and a few others, including the one the protagonist eventually rediscovered (and his new adversary/new significant other). Long life thanks to technology was an element in many of Nivens' series/universes, especially "Known Space". IIRC he once said of that something like, "I can't help it, I want to live a long time!"
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