X-Message-Number: 4198 From: (Patricia Shaw) Newsgroups: sci.cryonics Subject: Public awareness through fiction Date: Wed, 12 Apr 1995 06:49:25 Message-ID: <> I have been following the group's postings for a month or so and although I have not participated until now, I have been intrigued. I was pleased to see so many familiar names - familiar, because I have been following the cryonics movement since 1986 when I first sent for information from Trans Time and received Ettinger's book. Actually one of the reasons I joined the information highway was to make contacts with people seriously involved in cryonics. I am in the proccess of writing an anthology of cryonics stories. In fact, I have sent one to OMNI and daily I try to imagine the editor shaking the story above her head and screaming, "This is it team! We have a winner!" Oh well, fantasy can be as satisfying as reality! Anyway, I believe it is easier to reach the public through fiction - fiction based on fact, of course. Few lay persons are going to read the technical, medical and legal aspects of cryonics if it is presented in dry, textbook format. It it is didactic they won't read it either. I believe this anthology could answer every question a lay person may have while entertaining them (thus they keep reading) and at the same time sell cryonics to the public. I realize the efforts of authors like Ettinger are aimed at the scientific community in order to gain credibility, but if it were sold to the public profits would be boosted, creating more funds for research and it would gain credibility through sheer numbers of people. I am also extremely interested in lobbying for cryonics, but happen to be far away from the hub of it all. I live in a suburb about 30 miles southwest of Chicago and feel very alone in this endeavor. However, I did travel to Kenosha, Wisconsin to hear Paul Wakfer speak. It was really nice to be able to converse with someone who did not look at me sideways (although my family seems to be slowly converting to the idea of immortality). I can't imagine anything else, since I have hundreds of years of plans ahead of me which my short life span cannot accommodate...yet. I am a journalist/writer with four years of college English behind me and a degree in biology. I think I could be an asset to the cryonics community. Does anyone have some suggestions about how I can become involved as an advocate and/or an opinion on the anthology idea? Also, from time to time, it would be nice if I could validate the cryonics information in my stories by 'bothering' the experts...yes? For example, in one of my stories a small boy is being re-animated and when they enter the cryo-nursery they detache his 'pod' from the wall after adjusting valves. Will there always have to be a source of liquid nitrogen and so would this be accurate? Trish Rate This Message: http://www.cryonet.org/cgi-bin/rate.cgi?msg=4198