X-Message-Number: 19100
Date: Fri, 17 May 2002 11:59:27 +1000
From: Damien Broderick <>
Subject: Re:  #19083: science-fiction writers [Charles Platt]

It might be more effective to talk some of the high-visibility techie sf
writers into speaking up (and signing up). People like Larry Niven, who can
clearly afford it and has, I gather, no children; and his frequent writing
partner Jerry Pournelle. 

It's true that speaking up for cryonics might taint Pournelle's reputation
among decision makers who found nothing odd in his support for, say,
spaceships driven by exploding nuclear bombs, or SDI missile shields.
Still, who knows? Last night I was reading Charles Platt's wonderful 1987
book of interviews with sf writers, DREAM MAKERS (London: Xanadu). I'd read
the first pb volume in 1981 but never found the second; the 1987 edition
collects both and adds some updates. In Pournelle's comments, I (re-?)read
the following remark with a certain dazed feeling: 

`Hell, ours may be the last generation not to be immortal!' 

Makes me wonder if I stole this resonant phrase when I titled my 1999 book
on radical life extension THE LAST MORTAL GENERATION.

In any event, maybe he'd be interested. Any of you LA people know him or
Niven?

Damien Broderick

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