X-Message-Number: 29654
From: 
Date: Tue, 17 Jul 2007 17:23:29 EDT
Subject: Positive review of Shannon Vyff's book, "21st Century Kids"

Hello, Fellow Cryoneters!
 
Shannon Vyff is a cryonics, antiaging, and CRAN activist who has been a  

positive force for good in communities readers of this forum tend to care  about
for many years.
 
She has written a children's book with a cryonics theme, called "21st  
Century Kids" which I have enjoyed.
 
This book has been compared to the Harry Potter series, but with a  

technological, not magical, foundation for the wonders explored in the high  
tech 
future described.   
 
The book describes what happens when an auto accident causes several of  
Shannon's kids to be "dead" and cryonically suspended.  While not  having 

pretentions of being "ultra hard edge" science  fiction, Shannon clearly 
understands 
both the science and the ideology  of cryonics.  The value system endemic to 

the book is one which  both life extensionists and cryonicists will relate to.
And would  probably seek to inculcate in their kids. (BTW, my wife and I, 
like a  disproportionate number of cryonicists, are "child free by choice,")
 
She uses her actual children's names in the book...adding a clearly  personal 
touch.  The cryonics community needs books, songs, summer camps,  potluck 

dinners...the whole package that enables communities to become  communities.  
And 
Shannon is doing her part, helping to create a culture in  which kids...in 
this case her kids...view cryonics as something "cool" to  do.  
 
So, in the story the kids NEED their cryonics arrangements...
 
The wonders of the world they wake to are a "singulatarians dream" , in  
which a culture and society based on advanced and mature nanotechnology which  

does the equivalent of magic.  (I kept thinking about Arthur C. Clarke's  famous
phrase, "any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from  
magic" as I was reading the book.)
 
Instead of learning "potions and spells" like in Harry Potter, our  
protaganists must learn to command the technology of the future.  
 
Here is a future which will inspire both children and adults to want to be  
alive to see and participate in...a future as different from ours as ours is  
from the horse and buggy era.  
 
The book is ambitious, and achieves it's goals in some areas better than  

others, but will be a perfect book for a cryonicist parent to read to a bright
child.  Adults will enjoy this book as well.
 
Warm Regards,
 
Rudi
 
Rudi Richard Hoffman CFP CLU ChFC

Board Member Financial  Planning Association fpafla.org
Board Member Salvation Army  salvationarmy.org
Member Alcor Life Extension Foundation  alcor.org
Certified Financial Planner(TM) CFP Board of Standards 
Member  Libertarian Party libertarianparty.org
Member National Rifle Association  nra.org
Member World Transhumanist Association  http://transhumanism.org/
World's Leading Cryonics Insurance Provider  rudihoffman.com



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