X-Message-Number: 2078
Date: 07 Apr 93 17:28:17 EDT
From: Charles Platt <>
Subject: CRYONICS Cryonics in Science Fiction

To: Cryonet

April 7, 1993


Steve Jackson asks if there is or has been a catalogue of 
science fiction stories/novels using cryonics as a theme. 
Consulting THE ENCYCLOPEDIA OF SCIENCE FICTION (edited by 
Nicholls and Clute, published 1979, new edition due later 
this year) I find there is, in fact, an entry under Cryonics, 
written by Brian Stableford (a British bibliophile), 
correctly attributing the term "cryonics" to one-time CSNY 
member Karl Werner. 

Stableford picks out these landmarks in cryonics fiction 
(capitalized titles are books, titles in quotes are short 
stories): 

     THE FROZEN PIRATE by W. Clark Russell (1887). A 
shipwrecked man builds a fire on an icebound pirate ship and 
inadvertantly revives one of its crewmen. 
     10,000 YEARS IN A BLOCK OF ICE by Louis Boussenard 
(1889, trans. 1898). A man is revived in the future after 
being accidentally frozen. 
     "The Resurrection of Jimber Jaw" by Edgar Rice Burroughs 
(1937). Satirical account of the resuscitation of a 
prehistoric man and his experiences in the civilized world. 
     NOTES FROM THE FUTURE by Nikolai Amosov (1967, USSR; 
trans. 1970). 
     FREEZING DOWN by Anders Bodelsen (1969, Denmark; trans. 
1971). 
     WHY CALL THEM BACK FROM HEAVEN by Clifford D. Simak 
(1967), foresees the possibility that a man might be accused 
of murder as a result of delaying the freezing of a person 
who is "dead" by old-fashioned parameters. 
     "The Defenseless Dead" by Larry Niven (1973), portraying 
cryonic patients as an exploitable resource. 
     ABSOLUTE ZERO by Ernest Tidyman (1971), a satirical 
thriller in which a financier, whose parents are frozen in a 
blizzard, is motivated to create a large cryonics industry. 
     THE AGE OF THE PUSSYFOOT by Frederik Pohl (1969), using 
cryonics as a form of time travel. 
     LOOKING BACKWARD FROM THE YEAR 2000 by Mack Reynolds 
(1973), again, cryonics as time travel. 
     THE DREAM MILLENNIUM by James White (1974), explores 
psychological effects of freezing/resuscitation. 

The encyclopedia also includes a longish entry under the 
heading IMMORTALITY, again written by Brian Stableford, in 
which we find references to fiction which tackles the general 
theme without specifically using cryonics as the method of 
preservation. Here we find, for example: 

     GULLIVER'S TRAVELS by Jonathan Swift (1726) 
     MELMOTH THE WANDERER by Charles Maturin (1820) 
     SHE by H. Rider Haggard (1887) 
     BACK TO METHUSELAH by George Bernard Shaw (1921) 
     "The Jameson Satellite" by Neil R. Jones (1931, the 
          story that inspired Robert Ettinger) 
     TO LIVE FOREVER by Jack Vance (1956) 
     DRUNKARD'S WALK by Frederik Pohl (1960) 
     WAY STATION by Clifford D. Simak (1963) 
     THIS IMMORTAL by Roger Zelazny (1966) 
     BUG JACK BARRON by Norman Spinrad (1969) 
     TIME ENOUGH FOR LOVE by Robert A. Heinlein (1973) 

This may seem like a lot of material. Bear in mind, however, 
that it is a tiny list compared to the number of novels 
written around concepts such as time travel or telepathy. The 
fact is, immortality/cryonics has not been a popular theme in 
fiction, just as it is not a popular endeavor in real life. 

I also find it interesting that, while a few authors have 
tackled cryonics/immortality as the major theme of an 
individual novel, it has hardly ever appeared as a minor 
theme. In other words, the subject does not crop up as part 
of the scenery in the consensual science-fictional vision of 
the future, shared by many different authors. By comparison, 
faster-than-light travel crops up in literally tens of 
thousands of stories and novels, even though it is arguably 
less plausible than immortality/cryonics. I think the main 
reason for this is laziness. It's easy to describe someone 
riding in a faster-than-light space vehicle (very little 
different from riding in an airplane). It's much harder to 
visualize an entire society with the cryonics/immortality 
component changing many fundamental aspects of the human 
condition. Moreover, when the human condition has been 
substantially revised in this way, it's harder for the author 
to create characters whom we can readily identify with. 

All of this leads me to a conclusion which I have reached 
many times over the years: conceptually, science fiction is 
more comfortable playing the literary equivalent of action-
packed video games than tackling serious questions about 
human transcendence. Thus even in this area of supposedly 
unfettered speculation, we tend to find the same resistance 
to "selling" the serious prospect of longevity as we find 
when trying to "sell" the real-life concept of cryonics. 

--Charles Platt

[ Charles, Stableford apparently missed Heinlein's "Door Into Summer".
  Wasn't that the story with a cryonics organization in Riverside? - KQB ]

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