Honorable mention: Roger Zelazny https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roger_Zelazny
It's a sad irony that an author who's work was so focused on immortality died at 58.
Ask HN: Which scifi authors to interview about immortality?
31–40 of 62 posts
Re: Ask HN: Which scifi authors to interview about immortality?
#32Daniel Suarez in Daemon and Freedom (tm) writes about a game designer that creates an AI that restructures the world. Very similar in idea to Ready Player One, but a very different take.
Interesting choice since the “AI” in the first book was grounded in reality, and was explicitly neither sentient nor sapient.
Re: Ask HN: Which scifi authors to interview about immortality?
#33Although not very known outside of Russian-speaking people, I would recommend Sergey Lukyanenko. He deals with mortality/immortality in several of his novels: "Line of Delirium" [1] and "The Stars are Cold Toys" [2] dilogies immediately come to mind.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Line_of_Delirium [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Stars_Are_Cold_Toys
Re: Ask HN: Which scifi authors to interview about immortality?
#34Peter F. Hamilton Besides writing marvelous sci-fi which I would recommend everyone to read, many of his books center around a world where humans rejuvenate. Basically you go to a clinic where your body's age is turned back to whatever age you desire (or maybe a new body is grown, can't remember). When you are there your "brain" (memories, thinking patterns etc) is backed up meaning if you are killed the clinic will…
And there is in Hamilton's books, IIRC, that idea that one unique sentient entity could share it's consciousness across multiple human bodies, in real-time, so you could add new young bodies and let the older one dies and still, as a sentient entity, never really die.
That works across long distances, and even when different bodies travelling at different percentage of speed of light, thus experiencing different 'speed of time' (but that's marked as 'a rather unsettling experience' iirc).
Re: Ask HN: Which scifi authors to interview about immortality?
#35John Scalzi
Why? I mean I like his books a lot but he doesn't exactly ponder immortality all that much. "Old man's war" maybe touches on this a little - but I think it's more about regaining youth than immortality.
Re: Ask HN: Which scifi authors to interview about immortality?
#36Peter F. Hamilton Besides writing marvelous sci-fi which I would recommend everyone to read, many of his books center around a world where humans rejuvenate. Basically you go to a clinic where your body's age is turned back to whatever age you desire (or maybe a new body is grown, can't remember). When you are there your "brain" (memories, thinking patterns etc) is backed up meaning if you are killed the clinic will…
I'm so glad to see this as the top comment. In particular, his "Fallen Dragon" really resonated with me.
If I may, I'd also like to suggest Richard K. Morgan for his Takeshi Kovacs trilogy, which is currently being turned into a TV series named after the first book, "Altered Carbon".
It is premised on backing up human consciousness to a "cortical stack" that can be recovered when a person is killed or dies, and downloading them into a new body, or "sleeve". It covers the rich overclass that effectively lives forever with a clone bank, criminal punishment being "put on ice" while someone else uses your body, and crack soldiers being deployed across planets digitally by being downloaded into new bodies. The whole series is a must read if you are contemplating the ethics and implications of immortality via digital backup.
Re: Ask HN: Which scifi authors to interview about immortality?
#37A close related subject is the technological singularity because it would mean we would more or less melt together with technology. People like Ray Kurzweil and the writer Vernor Vinge are famous for this.
What broadcasting company is this? VPRO?
Re: Ask HN: Which scifi authors to interview about immortality?
#38As a fairly recent author in the genre, look at Dennis E. Taylor and the "We Are Bob" trilogy revolving around brain scanning and self-replicating von Neumann probes. I thought it was a great series.
Re: Ask HN: Which scifi authors to interview about immortality?
#39As a fairly recent author in the genre, look at Dennis E. Taylor and the "We Are Bob" trilogy revolving around brain scanning and self-replicating von Neumann probes. I thought it was a great series.
Way to many pop culture references for my taste. There are a few plot holes, especially in the first book.
Still worth reading.
Re: Ask HN: Which scifi authors to interview about immortality?
#40I was going to say that Heinlein did a wonderful and poetic try at immortality with 'Time enough for love', before quicly realizing that, alas, this great soul has passed away almost 20 years ago.
There's authors that achieve a sort of personnal connection with readers through their stories. Heinlein did that for me, along with the also greatly regretted Iain M. Banks.