X-Message-Number: 12409 Date: Sun, 12 Sep 1999 23:45:30 -0400 From: "Stephen W. Bridge" <> Subject: Book suggestions To CryoNet From Steve Bridge September12, 1999 A couple of books many of you would enjoy. 1. *Flash Forward* by Robert Sawyer. (TOR Books, 1999. hardcover) This clever and thought-provoking science fiction novel is a solid combination of hard physics, philosophy, and characters, with a great "what if" premise. Due to a physics experiment gone wrong, everyone in the human race has his consciousness thrown forward approximately 21 years for 1 minute and 41 seconds. They actually see one tiny chunk of their personal futures. As people compare notes, they realize this is a coherent future - many of the "visions" can be confirmed by other people -- and gradually a mosaic of that future is built up. But not all is happiness. Thousands of people are driving cars or otherwise in vulnerable positions when the visions come and are killed in accidents. Millions see nothing at all - does this mean they will die in the next 21 years? Others see only failure in their future. The big question is: is the future immutable? Can new choices made today alter that future? Are there multiple futures? The main characters, mostly physicists, argue these questions, using theories from physics and from writers like Frank Tipler. And we can all contemplate the question, if you were given the opportunity to see a tiny chunk of your life in the future, what would you do? It's a lot of fun. 2. *Poison Widows* by George Cooper. (St. Martin's Press, 1999. hardcover) If you've dealt with life insurance for cryonics, you've no doubt come up against the concept of "insurable interest." This basically means that a person taking out an insurance policy on the life of a second person must have a greater interest in that person being alive than in that person being dead. Presumably this lessens the chance of murder for insurance money or simple gambling on the lives of others. It has created occasional problems for cryonicists, when some insurance companies have questioned whether a cryonics company can have an insurable interest in the life of a member. To understand why insurance companies might be a bit nervous about cryonics, I recommend reading this entertaining true mystery book about an insurance/murder scheme in a south Philadelphia immigrant neighborhood in 1931-1938. Several less than honest insurance agents participated in a scheme whereby a crazy Jewish "sorcerer" and several Italian hoodlums claimed they could cure any illness with their special formula - as long as the victim - I mean "patient" - had a suitable life insurance policy with one of the hoodlums as beneficiary. A number of lonely wives of unpleasant husbands were sucked into the scheme. The "cure" was short on curative properties and long on arsenic, and several people were soon making a comfortable living with it. Interestingly, among the 30 people eventually brought to trial in this case, none were the insurance agents. Supplying the gun isn't a crime if the guy doesn't tell you he's going to rob a bank with it. Steve Bridge Rate This Message: http://www.cryonet.org/cgi-bin/rate.cgi?msg=12409