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


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