Tuesday, September 6, 2011

Jackie Calls This "one of the most thought provoking books I've read in a long while."


John Farrell is about to get "The Cure."

Old age can never kill him now.

The only problem is, everything else still can . . .

Imagine a near future where a cure for aging is discovered and-after much political and moral debate-made available to people worldwide. Immortality, however, comes with its own unique problems-including evil green people, government euthanasia programs, a disturbing new religious cult, and other horrors. Witty, eerie, and full of humanity, The Postmortal is an unforgettable thriller that envisions a pre-apocalyptic world so real that it is completely terrifying.



Jackie says:
"This is one of the most thought provoking books I've read in a long while.  The premise of the book is that it's part of a long lost digital diary of one man shortly after the  cure of aging has been discovered and goes through 75ish years, skipping around a bit.  I found it absolutely fascinating, not just because the writing is good (it is), but because of all the issues it brought up.  I had to stop and ponder so many things. Things like:  If no one dies of old age, where are we going to put all the living people?  How do we feed, clothe, water and house a constantly growing population on a planet that is already starting to struggle?  Could a country actually resort to bombing it's own people as a way to control population? Does it change the concept of families when there are no generations anymore, when great great grandmothers can be giving birth in the room next door to their granddaughters?  How would people approach life knowing that it could go on for thousands of years?  What about the marriage vow of 'until death do we part'?  What if you just get tired of living--what's the way out?  This book is terrifying and fascinating in equal degrees, and I find myself still pondering many things about it often.  You could call this a science fiction book, but really, we're only one small slip in a gene research lab away from this being a very real possibility in the not very distant future."

1 comment:

Ben said...

Jose Saramago wrote Death With Interruptions with a similar idea. But Saramago being Saramago, it wasn't exploited too well.