Immortality Inc.

183 pages

English language

Published April 2, 1978 by Penguin.

ISBN:
978-0-14-047138-0
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OCLC Number:
16426454

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3 stars (2 reviews)

A man wakes up after a fatal car accident—in someone else’s body—in this ahead-of-its-time Hugo Award–nominated classic.

Thomas Blaine remembered the car accident that killed him—and then he woke up in the hospital. A nurse told him where he was. “You’d call it being in the future.” A future where bodies are sold to the highest bidder as new homes for the minds of the rich, who are greedy for more life when their own bodies wear out or are damaged. Suddenly, keeping body and soul together has taken on a new, and very sinister, meaning.

From the very beginning of his career, Robert Sheckley was recognized by fans, reviewers, and fellow authors as a master storyteller and the wittiest satirist working in the science fiction field. Open Road is proud to republish his acclaimed body of work, with nearly thirty volumes of full-length fiction and short story collections. Rediscover, …

5 editions

Review of 'Immortality Inc.' on 'Goodreads'

3 stars

Originally serialized as Time Killer, this is Robert Sheckley's first novel. Making the assumption that there is something after life, he looks at how society changes, from suicide booths to legalized person hunts. Very influential to the television show Futurama, and loosely so to a movie called Freejack.

The exploration of future society is good, and the characters are interesting. One key part of the plot, the time travel mechanism that brings the consciousness of our protagonist to the future of 2110, is never explained. This is a problem when the novel focuses on it towards the end.

I confess I have never seen Freejack, and based on the reviews, probably never will. Sheckley gained a reputation for writing humorous science fiction, and there are hints of that here. I look forward to reading more.

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3 stars

Subjects

  • Fiction in English.