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The First Immortal

by James L. Halperin

Summary

Physician Benjamin Smith agrees to be cryogenically frozen in 1988, and then is awakened in the 21st century by his great-grandson, Trip Grace.

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Cryonics the freezing of human beings for later reanimation has become commonplace in the 21st century imagined in this innovative but fact-heavy, utopian techno-thriller. Physician Benjamin Smith dumbfounds his family in 1988 when he allows his body to be put into cold storage and wills himself a trust fund to cover his next-life expenses. A court battle over the trust nearly tears the Smith family apart and proves a touchstone for the problematic legal and social issues that cryonic preservation raises. As explained by Ben's great-grandson Trip Grace (whose mastery of nanotechnology proves the key to successful resuscitations in the 21st century), cryonics helps to redefine death. Halperin ruminates on the subject through fictional cameos of such real-life luminaries as Jack Kevorkian and the pope. Halperin stretches credibility by suggesting that people today would agree to costly experimental freezing with no guarantee of revival, but he plots the book with thoroughness and imagination. His depiction of a future in which suspended animation is a civil right is convincing. However, the thick bulwark of scientific fact and fancy he uses to support it prevents all but the most superficial examination of character. After Ben's "death," the narrative turns into a dense fabric of historical and scientific speculation, rich with data but bereft of soul. Readers who enjoyed the extrapolations of Halperin's first novel, The Truth Machine, will warm to the ideas of this novel. Others may find it as cold as its title character. (Jan.)

   -- Publishers Weekly

YA-A family saga spanning 200 years. The catch is that most of the relatives remain on the scene throughout this whole time period, or show up again by the end. This remarkable feat is accomplished through cryogenics, the science of freezing a person in liquid nitrogen shortly before death, with the hope of resurrection at some later date. Ben Smith, born in 1925, marries his high school sweetheart, fathers four children, and becomes an advocate of cryogenics. After his "death," his children squabble among themselves and institute a suit against the estate in an attempt to unfreeze both their father's body and his assets. Each new period is introduced by what reads like a CNN clip of current news through the year 2125. The scientific ideas and possibilities presented capture the imagination, and YAs are sure to ponder and question the images with which they are left. What happens to the soul? Would anyone want to clone dead parents and raise them as their children? How is immortality to be lived? An afterword gives information about cryogenics. A challenging and fascinating glimpse of one possible future.-Carol DeAngelo, American Chemical Society Library, Washington, DC

   -- School Library Journal

Bibliographic Details

Publisher: Ballantine Books
Published date: 1998
Size: 7 x 9.75 inches
Weight: 1.45 pounds
Pages: 342

Publisher's Notes

In his astonishing first novel, James L. Halperin wrote of humanitys epoch-making achievement of truth and justice at the dawn of the twenty-first century. Now Halperin takes his luminous vision a leap further into the future as he unfolds this magnificent saga of our triumph over death itself.At the age of sixty-three, Benjamin Smith, accomplished physician, loving father and grandfather, brilliantly original thinker, is in the prime of his life. He is too vital, too gifted, to die of the massive heart attack that overwhelms his system on a rain-soaked spring day in 1988.But Ben Smith will not die. A pioneering advocate of the infant science of cryonics, Ben has arranged to have his body frozen until the day when humanity will possess the knowledge, the technology, and the courage to revive him.That day arrives far more quickly--and far more strangely--than anyone could possibly imagine. For when Ben resumes life after a frozen interval of eighty-three years, the world is altered beyond recognition. Thanks to the cutting-edge science of nanotechnology, as practiced by Bens brilliant great-grandson, Trip Crane III, eternal youth, beauty, and good health are universally available. And the perfection of cloning gives humanity the godlike power to recreate living beings from a single cell.As one by one, Ben's mother, children, even a semblance of his beloved wife return to life in the mid-twenty-first century, the Smiths experience a complex reunion that reaches across and through generations. But as they marvel at the miracles of future science, Ben and his family will come to realize that the deepest ethical and emotional dilemmas of humankind--and of their own entangled lives--remain unsolved.

Other Editions

• Hardcover - Ballantine Books (1998) - from $1.00
• Paperback Reissue - Ballantine Books (1998) - from $1.00

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