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Заложници в Рая
В края на двадесет и второто столетие, в безкрайните подземни галерии на Вечния Център, милиарди човешки тела очакват своето възкресение�
240 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1967
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575 people want to read
About the author
Clifford D. Simak
908books1,031followers"He was honored by fans with three Hugo awards and by colleagues with one Nebula award and was named the third Grand Master by the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America (SFWA) in 1977." (Wikipedia)
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 82 reviews
May 21, 2015
Although the concept of cryogenically preserving the bodies of the living had been a trope of Golden Age science fiction from the 1930s and onward, it wasn't until New Jersey-born Robert Ettinger released his hardheaded book on the subject, 1962’s "The Prospect of Immortality," that the idea began to be taken seriously. Ettinger would go on to found the Cryonics Institute in Michigan around 15 years later; over 1,300 folks have subscribed to this facility as of 2015, agreeing to pay $30,000 to have themselves turned into human "corpsicles," and 130 are currently "on ice" there. (And let's not even discuss Boston Red Sox slugger Ted Williams, whose head is currently in deep freeze at the Alcor Life Extension Foundation in Arizona!) But getting back to Ettinger's book: This volume apparently impressed sci-fi author Clifford D. Simak so much that he was inspired to write a book on the cryonics theme himself. The result was the author's 11th sci-fi novel (out of an eventual 26), "Why Call Them Back From Heaven?," which was first released in 1967. Simak, who would ultimately win three Hugo Awards and one Nebula--and be named, by the Science Fiction Writers of America, its third "Grand Master" (following Robert A. Heinlein and Jack Williamson) in 1977--is an author who I had not read in several decades, but who used to be one of my favorites back when, largely by dint of such classic books as "City" (1952), "Ring Around the Sun" (1953) and, especially, "Way Station" (the 1964 Hugo winner). His simple, clean writing style, gentle prose, and rural settings have endeared him to generations of readers, and, I am happy to say, "Why Call..." turns out to be still another of his wondrous creations.
In "Why Call Them Back From Heaven?," the year is 2148. Mankind, inspired by Ettinger's work, has decided that cryogenic freezing of its elderly and hopelessly ill inhabitants, against the day when they might be resuscitated and cured, is assuredly the way to go. Thus, the Forever Center has come into being, a mile-high building where the "living dead" are stored. As the tale begins, Earth holds some 50 billion living souls, with another 100 billion "on ice," as the Forever Center prosecutes its manifold projects; namely, finding an "immortality serum" to keep the newly awakened alive forever; finding habitable planets for living space; and exploring the possibility of dumping all those billions somewhere back in time! Meanwhile, the bulk of humanity lives in a state of penny-pinching frugality, hoarding all their money for use in their "second life," and amusing itself with inexpensive entertainments, such as watching TV and taking legal hallucinatory drugs (perhaps Simak had been reading Philip K. Dick at this point also!).
Against this backdrop, Simak weaves his tale of numerous characters. Foremost, we have the dilemma of Daniel Frost, a PR man at the Forever Center, whose life is turned upside down when he is, for reasons unknown, tried for treason and marked with the ostracism tattoo on his face (in a scene straight out of Franz Kafka's "The Trial"), then framed for murder and forced to take it on the lam into the deserted countryside. Other plot threads involve Franklin Chapman, another Center worker, who, after inadvertently causing the death of a client, is punished by having his "second life" denied him; Ann Harrison, who is Chapman's lawyer and comes to Frost's aid, as well; Mona Campbell, a Forever Center scientist working on time travel, who disappears suddenly; Ogden Russell, a religious hermit seeking God and truth on a Wisconsin river island; Amos Hicklin, who seeks a jade treasure in that same Wisconsin area; and the Holies, a religious band that rejects the Center's "physical immortality" in favor of its more Christian teachings.
"Why Call Them Back From Heaven?" (the title is derived from one of the Holies' many slogans) is a fast-moving yet thoughtful novel, written in Simak's endearingly straightforward style, but one that ultimately feels somewhat unsatisfying. The book could easily have been another 100 pages long, for my money, and given us a larger worldview, a more in-depth weltanschauung, of this unique society. Several plot threads in the book--a young man studying to be in the Forever Center, the rumor that cryogenic freezing allows for bacterial buildup in the brain, and, most especially, a suppressed book that claims the Forever Center is a monstrous fraud--simply peter out. Simak, pro that he was, cannot have forgotten them; more likely, he presented these tantalizing tidbits to make his story more interesting, although the result--for this reader, anyway--is one of frustration. The book is also marred by its dependence on unlikely coincidence (really, what are the odds of Frost and Mona winding up in that same Wisconsin farmhouse?!). Still, there is much to enjoy here.
Frost's story, in particular, is a thrilling one, growing increasingly nightmarish as it proceeds, to the point where he is a mud-caked, naked man stumbling along the road toward his old family farm near Bridgeport, Wisconsin. (Simak, who was born in nearby Millville, Wisconsin, in 1904, would use that rural setting in many of his novels.) The author gives the reader some very convincing thoughts regarding the afterlife (apparently, he has little confidence in the benefits of cryogenics, and pooh-poohs the heaven/hell concept offered by religion, instead opting for a model that equates matter/energy and life/death) and shows us, somewhat cynically, how even the clerics of 2148 are more trusting of the Forever Center than they are of the Bible’s promise of "life eternal." Still, the Holies ARE shown to be the most practical and efficient when it comes to everyday, worldly affairs. And Ogden's assertion, at the book's end, that "God has turned his back on us" is surely undercut by Mona's startling scientific pronouncements. Yes, this is a novel that certainly gives the reader food for thought, in addition to providing action and thrills. With just a little more in the way of detail, "Why Call Them Back From Heaven?" could have been a true classic. Still, what we have here is enough for my reserved recommendation. This is a book that will, at the very least, make you rethink your decision to send off a $30,000 check to Ettinger's Cryonics Institute!
(By this way, this review originally appeared on the FanLit website, a fine destination for all fans of Clifford D. Simak... )
In "Why Call Them Back From Heaven?," the year is 2148. Mankind, inspired by Ettinger's work, has decided that cryogenic freezing of its elderly and hopelessly ill inhabitants, against the day when they might be resuscitated and cured, is assuredly the way to go. Thus, the Forever Center has come into being, a mile-high building where the "living dead" are stored. As the tale begins, Earth holds some 50 billion living souls, with another 100 billion "on ice," as the Forever Center prosecutes its manifold projects; namely, finding an "immortality serum" to keep the newly awakened alive forever; finding habitable planets for living space; and exploring the possibility of dumping all those billions somewhere back in time! Meanwhile, the bulk of humanity lives in a state of penny-pinching frugality, hoarding all their money for use in their "second life," and amusing itself with inexpensive entertainments, such as watching TV and taking legal hallucinatory drugs (perhaps Simak had been reading Philip K. Dick at this point also!).
Against this backdrop, Simak weaves his tale of numerous characters. Foremost, we have the dilemma of Daniel Frost, a PR man at the Forever Center, whose life is turned upside down when he is, for reasons unknown, tried for treason and marked with the ostracism tattoo on his face (in a scene straight out of Franz Kafka's "The Trial"), then framed for murder and forced to take it on the lam into the deserted countryside. Other plot threads involve Franklin Chapman, another Center worker, who, after inadvertently causing the death of a client, is punished by having his "second life" denied him; Ann Harrison, who is Chapman's lawyer and comes to Frost's aid, as well; Mona Campbell, a Forever Center scientist working on time travel, who disappears suddenly; Ogden Russell, a religious hermit seeking God and truth on a Wisconsin river island; Amos Hicklin, who seeks a jade treasure in that same Wisconsin area; and the Holies, a religious band that rejects the Center's "physical immortality" in favor of its more Christian teachings.
"Why Call Them Back From Heaven?" (the title is derived from one of the Holies' many slogans) is a fast-moving yet thoughtful novel, written in Simak's endearingly straightforward style, but one that ultimately feels somewhat unsatisfying. The book could easily have been another 100 pages long, for my money, and given us a larger worldview, a more in-depth weltanschauung, of this unique society. Several plot threads in the book--a young man studying to be in the Forever Center, the rumor that cryogenic freezing allows for bacterial buildup in the brain, and, most especially, a suppressed book that claims the Forever Center is a monstrous fraud--simply peter out. Simak, pro that he was, cannot have forgotten them; more likely, he presented these tantalizing tidbits to make his story more interesting, although the result--for this reader, anyway--is one of frustration. The book is also marred by its dependence on unlikely coincidence (really, what are the odds of Frost and Mona winding up in that same Wisconsin farmhouse?!). Still, there is much to enjoy here.
Frost's story, in particular, is a thrilling one, growing increasingly nightmarish as it proceeds, to the point where he is a mud-caked, naked man stumbling along the road toward his old family farm near Bridgeport, Wisconsin. (Simak, who was born in nearby Millville, Wisconsin, in 1904, would use that rural setting in many of his novels.) The author gives the reader some very convincing thoughts regarding the afterlife (apparently, he has little confidence in the benefits of cryogenics, and pooh-poohs the heaven/hell concept offered by religion, instead opting for a model that equates matter/energy and life/death) and shows us, somewhat cynically, how even the clerics of 2148 are more trusting of the Forever Center than they are of the Bible’s promise of "life eternal." Still, the Holies ARE shown to be the most practical and efficient when it comes to everyday, worldly affairs. And Ogden's assertion, at the book's end, that "God has turned his back on us" is surely undercut by Mona's startling scientific pronouncements. Yes, this is a novel that certainly gives the reader food for thought, in addition to providing action and thrills. With just a little more in the way of detail, "Why Call Them Back From Heaven?" could have been a true classic. Still, what we have here is enough for my reserved recommendation. This is a book that will, at the very least, make you rethink your decision to send off a $30,000 check to Ettinger's Cryonics Institute!
(By this way, this review originally appeared on the FanLit website, a fine destination for all fans of Clifford D. Simak... )
November 4, 2024
Simak had a penchant for trenchant and intriguing titles, and this novel from 1967 is an excellent example of that. I suspect it's from his experience as a long-time journalist assigning headlines to newspaper stories. It's the story of how immortality could affect the relation of science and religion and observes that the less political interference in both bailiwicks the better. His story is primarily set in a pastoral future Wisconsin, rather than a futuristic Utopian metropolis, and his focus is on calm discussion and reason rather than ray guns and fireworks. The center section is action-oriented and is the weakest part of the book, leading to a conclusion that's not completely satisfying. My Ace paperback looks like it's trying to appeal more to the New Wave crowd than to the Old Guard fans, with a blurb from Judith Merril and a cover by Leo & Diane Dillon, but I suspect it was enjoyed equally by both sides of the equation. He does put the story first and never allows the philosophies to overshadow the entertainment.
July 10, 2015
Can science ever replace religion
8 February 2012
I first heard of this book when a friend at Adult College reviewed it for year 11 English and since then I have had a keen interest to read it for myself. One of the things that I like about Science-fiction written around this period is that there seemed to be some philosophical theme around which the story is written. They tended not to be science-fiction for the sake of science-fiction but rather using the genre to explore aspects of our society and where it is heading.
While the plot of this book involves some political intrigue, where a scam is uncovered and the protagonist Daniel Frost suddenly finds himself exiled on the grounds that he may know too much, the book seems to be more interested in the theme of immortality. The story is set about 100 years into the future and revolves around an institution known as the Forever Centre. The concept is that when we die, we are taken to the centre, all of our possessions are held in trust, and we are put on ice until a time when we are able to be unfrozen and all of our ailments cured so that we in effect live forever.
There is obviously a conflict in this book between religion and science as both of them offer people immortality. However, it seems that most people in this world have more faith in science than in religion. It appears that religion is little more than promises which science offers at least some hope that one day we will have physical immortality (however it is quite clear that this is not now, but expected to come about in the near future). As I read the book I was under the impression that the scam was all about the immortality and was under the impression that the crime that the Forever Centre was committing was that they were promising people immortality (and even encouraging them to die earlier) but were unable to deliver it. However, it is clear by the end of the book that this is not the scam, but rather still some vague hope that people have in science (and I won't be telling you what the scam actually is because then I will be spoiling the book).
Science and religion seem to clash a lot these days whether it be in regards to origins, to purpose, or to hope. In the world Simak has created most of the people have shifted away from religion to embrace science. In another way they have also gone out of their way to eliminate accident, that is the only way that somebody who is immune to aging and disease can die. Unfortunately by removing accident society has also removed risk and excitement. In the end everybody is looking forward to the day when they will be revived, and end up working their entire lives to this point, to the extent that they reject all other forms of enjoyment and entertainment. The belief is that since they are going to live for ever they will need the resources to enable them to live forever.
The other aspect of this novel, in relation to immortality, is the question of space. It is clear that space in this world is at a premium, so science is looking for a way to increase that space so that people may be able to live. However this appears to be a fruitless task since not only is the human race currently growing, but with all of the people in deep freeze, there simply is not going to be enough room on Earth for people to live, and even if they can establish colonies, it seems that they will not be able to build them fast enough. Simak does not even go into details on how these billions of people are to be fed since if there is no space for living, how could their possibly be any space for growing food.
It is interesting that the Malthusian crisis is not explored here. This is where the population grows exponentially while food production only rises in a straight line, and the theory that Malthus devised was that food production was not going to be able to grow in line with population growth (and in a way never can) so that the end result will be mass starvation (a sobering thought). This was written around the time of the agricultural revolution, and there is even a debate today as to whether we do actually have enough food to feed the poor (considering the amount thrown away in Western Society), however the further problem is that as the population grows, we begin to take up more and more space, until such a time as there is no arable land to grow anything, and by that time we will be screwed.
8 February 2012
I first heard of this book when a friend at Adult College reviewed it for year 11 English and since then I have had a keen interest to read it for myself. One of the things that I like about Science-fiction written around this period is that there seemed to be some philosophical theme around which the story is written. They tended not to be science-fiction for the sake of science-fiction but rather using the genre to explore aspects of our society and where it is heading.
While the plot of this book involves some political intrigue, where a scam is uncovered and the protagonist Daniel Frost suddenly finds himself exiled on the grounds that he may know too much, the book seems to be more interested in the theme of immortality. The story is set about 100 years into the future and revolves around an institution known as the Forever Centre. The concept is that when we die, we are taken to the centre, all of our possessions are held in trust, and we are put on ice until a time when we are able to be unfrozen and all of our ailments cured so that we in effect live forever.
There is obviously a conflict in this book between religion and science as both of them offer people immortality. However, it seems that most people in this world have more faith in science than in religion. It appears that religion is little more than promises which science offers at least some hope that one day we will have physical immortality (however it is quite clear that this is not now, but expected to come about in the near future). As I read the book I was under the impression that the scam was all about the immortality and was under the impression that the crime that the Forever Centre was committing was that they were promising people immortality (and even encouraging them to die earlier) but were unable to deliver it. However, it is clear by the end of the book that this is not the scam, but rather still some vague hope that people have in science (and I won't be telling you what the scam actually is because then I will be spoiling the book).
Science and religion seem to clash a lot these days whether it be in regards to origins, to purpose, or to hope. In the world Simak has created most of the people have shifted away from religion to embrace science. In another way they have also gone out of their way to eliminate accident, that is the only way that somebody who is immune to aging and disease can die. Unfortunately by removing accident society has also removed risk and excitement. In the end everybody is looking forward to the day when they will be revived, and end up working their entire lives to this point, to the extent that they reject all other forms of enjoyment and entertainment. The belief is that since they are going to live for ever they will need the resources to enable them to live forever.
The other aspect of this novel, in relation to immortality, is the question of space. It is clear that space in this world is at a premium, so science is looking for a way to increase that space so that people may be able to live. However this appears to be a fruitless task since not only is the human race currently growing, but with all of the people in deep freeze, there simply is not going to be enough room on Earth for people to live, and even if they can establish colonies, it seems that they will not be able to build them fast enough. Simak does not even go into details on how these billions of people are to be fed since if there is no space for living, how could their possibly be any space for growing food.
It is interesting that the Malthusian crisis is not explored here. This is where the population grows exponentially while food production only rises in a straight line, and the theory that Malthus devised was that food production was not going to be able to grow in line with population growth (and in a way never can) so that the end result will be mass starvation (a sobering thought). This was written around the time of the agricultural revolution, and there is even a debate today as to whether we do actually have enough food to feed the poor (considering the amount thrown away in Western Society), however the further problem is that as the population grows, we begin to take up more and more space, until such a time as there is no arable land to grow anything, and by that time we will be screwed.
September 2, 2022
В близкото бъдеще Земята се управлява от огромна корпорация, наречена „Вечния� Център�, която замразява телата на умиращите обещавайки, че в скоро ще успее да разкрие тайната на безсмъртието и ще съживи хората за вечен живот. Влиянието на Центъра е толкова голямо, че той контролира правителствата, медиите, съдилищата... а пък човечеството все повече се роботизира и не прави нищо друго, освен да работи усилено, за да спести повече пари за следващия живот...
„Заложниц� в рая� е хубава и мрачна научна фантастика. Романът не е от най-великите творби на Клифърд Саймък, но все пак си заслужава четенето!
„Заложниц� в рая� е хубава и мрачна научна фантастика. Романът не е от най-великите творби на Клифърд Саймък, но все пак си заслужава четенето!
February 9, 2014
Despite the excellent quality of the writing and the well-paced plot, I found this to be an oddly dissatisfying story. Simak simply leaves too many loose ends, and fails to explore deeply the philosophical and sociological potential of his premise.
His premise is that a single company, Forever Center, has obtained a monopoly on cryogenics and the promise of a second life. The bulk of the population has signed up for the program, which entails surgically implanted transmitters so their dead bodies can by scooped up quickly and sent to the deep freeze.
Keeping one's body and finances in good condition have therefore become a paramount objectives, so everyone has given up dangerous pastimes like sports and gambling. A lack of prudent financial investment before death could lead to dire poverty in the second life, so everyone's main goal is to toil their lives away, preparing for the future at the expense of the present.
Paradoxically, the promise of a technologically-enabled hereafter has pushed humanity into a dark age, similar to the Middle Ages, where this life was considered but a brief and nasty prelude to the better life to come. The here and now are nothing but an opportunity to prepare for the next life. Which means that this life can be little more than tedious and unpleasant.
But Forever Center hasn't quite got the answer to immortality yet, or a complete solution to the limited living space available in this terrestrial realm. (Waking up the dead will, of course, cause a tremendous population boom.) So while the Center is busy caching dead bodies, it is also desperately trying to work out the problems of immortality and adequate living space while everyone (both dead and alive) faithfully waits.
A minority group of religious protesters (the Holies, I think it's called) has boycotted the immortality program and lives on the fringes of society. Another dissenting group (pure Luddites, it seems) lives like savages in the countryside.
The central character (Frost) is a PR director for Forever Center, who becomes involved in some internal intrigue because he has unwittingly acquired custody of some documents that may incriminate important officials. He is falsely convicted of a crime; convicted; and ostracized. Officials at Forever Center then try to frame him for murder, so he goes on the lam and heads to a remote farmhouse (in Wisconsin, maybe?) where he used to live as a youth (not sure I got that right - but something like that).
Anyway, the climax of the story and denouement all happen at the farmhouse. (How everyone coincidentally ends up there is not fully explained.) There are some half-baked philosophical and technological revelations, but oddly, it seems as though Frost's name has been cleared, and that he will return to his job. And the established order, which seems highly unsustainable, will remain intact for some time. It seems that Simak did not have the stomach for telling us the story of the ultimate debacle.
Perhaps I missed something. "Why Call Them Back From Heaven?" worked well as an adventure story, but I'm not sure if it worked so well as a science fiction novel.
His premise is that a single company, Forever Center, has obtained a monopoly on cryogenics and the promise of a second life. The bulk of the population has signed up for the program, which entails surgically implanted transmitters so their dead bodies can by scooped up quickly and sent to the deep freeze.
Keeping one's body and finances in good condition have therefore become a paramount objectives, so everyone has given up dangerous pastimes like sports and gambling. A lack of prudent financial investment before death could lead to dire poverty in the second life, so everyone's main goal is to toil their lives away, preparing for the future at the expense of the present.
Paradoxically, the promise of a technologically-enabled hereafter has pushed humanity into a dark age, similar to the Middle Ages, where this life was considered but a brief and nasty prelude to the better life to come. The here and now are nothing but an opportunity to prepare for the next life. Which means that this life can be little more than tedious and unpleasant.
But Forever Center hasn't quite got the answer to immortality yet, or a complete solution to the limited living space available in this terrestrial realm. (Waking up the dead will, of course, cause a tremendous population boom.) So while the Center is busy caching dead bodies, it is also desperately trying to work out the problems of immortality and adequate living space while everyone (both dead and alive) faithfully waits.
A minority group of religious protesters (the Holies, I think it's called) has boycotted the immortality program and lives on the fringes of society. Another dissenting group (pure Luddites, it seems) lives like savages in the countryside.
The central character (Frost) is a PR director for Forever Center, who becomes involved in some internal intrigue because he has unwittingly acquired custody of some documents that may incriminate important officials. He is falsely convicted of a crime; convicted; and ostracized. Officials at Forever Center then try to frame him for murder, so he goes on the lam and heads to a remote farmhouse (in Wisconsin, maybe?) where he used to live as a youth (not sure I got that right - but something like that).
Anyway, the climax of the story and denouement all happen at the farmhouse. (How everyone coincidentally ends up there is not fully explained.) There are some half-baked philosophical and technological revelations, but oddly, it seems as though Frost's name has been cleared, and that he will return to his job. And the established order, which seems highly unsustainable, will remain intact for some time. It seems that Simak did not have the stomach for telling us the story of the ultimate debacle.
Perhaps I missed something. "Why Call Them Back From Heaven?" worked well as an adventure story, but I'm not sure if it worked so well as a science fiction novel.
October 30, 2024
Simak had been on my list of shame for years before 2024, but this last summer I read his novel *All Flesh Is Grass* and got quite a big kick out of its unconventional alien invasion plot and its pastural texture, even if its ending left a bit to be desired. So when it came time to select a book from a great haul I got at the country's oldest independent SF bookshop, and had just been struggling with my reading engagement and felt I needed a short, sharp, and well-done work to get me back on the reading wagon, I selected *Why Call Them back From Heaven?* (What a great title, by the way). Sadly, this book didn't hold my attention, but that wasn't my fault - I just wasn't enjoying reading at this time. I'm over that hump now, but it's still unfortunate that it'll impact my thoughts about this book for the rest of time. Still, it's a good read, and there are a few things I really want to nerd out about after my customary summary.
*WCTBFH?* opens up with a court case where a rescue driver (or something like that) failed to rescue one of his charges. His prosecutor Ann Harrison makes a good case for him, but it ultimately fails and the cleverly-written "Jury" sentences him to a heinous sentence: . We then change perspective to Daniel Frost's, who's something like the Head of Public Relations at the Forever Centre, the international company which has become more powerful than any government due to its promise of storing everybody's bodies upon death and reviving them to not only cure their earthly ailments but also grant them immortality at some point in the future. This has made them more-or-less the ruler of the 2150's *50 billion* inhabitants, although the CEO is pretty worried about a certain technician from their Timesearch team - their scientists trying to figure out how to colonize the past in order to find room for the *100 billion* men, women, and presumably children they have stored - who goes missing, as he believes she has answers about time travel. During the meeting the head of security, Appleton, throws him under a bus in front of the CEO, and after a little while Frost thinks he's figured out why;
*WCTBFH?* opens up with a court case where a rescue driver (or something like that) failed to rescue one of his charges. His prosecutor Ann Harrison makes a good case for him, but it ultimately fails and the cleverly-written "Jury" sentences him to a heinous sentence: . We then change perspective to Daniel Frost's, who's something like the Head of Public Relations at the Forever Centre, the international company which has become more powerful than any government due to its promise of storing everybody's bodies upon death and reviving them to not only cure their earthly ailments but also grant them immortality at some point in the future. This has made them more-or-less the ruler of the 2150's *50 billion* inhabitants, although the CEO is pretty worried about a certain technician from their Timesearch team - their scientists trying to figure out how to colonize the past in order to find room for the *100 billion* men, women, and presumably children they have stored - who goes missing, as he believes she has answers about time travel. During the meeting the head of security, Appleton, throws him under a bus in front of the CEO, and after a little while Frost thinks he's figured out why;
May 18, 2019
Zanimljiva knjiga, ideja je super, mozda malo sa tom politickom akcijom bi bilo i bolje.
January 16, 2020
In the late 70s and early 80s, I was reading through the backlog of Clifford Simak novels.
Read
May 19, 2013My first Clifford Simak novel. In style as well as subject, it's not really different from any Philip Dick novel of the period, except there's no flying cars, white teeth, and the philosophy behind the science fiction seems a little different, though hard to say exactly how just yet.
The plot is pretty silly- sort of a Life Alert Nanny State to the extreme, and maybe dealing with the biggest Ponzi Scheme in history- but there are moments, concerning a man trying to keep a cross erect on an island, that are pretty literary. I do wish, however, that the man sentenced to "die" and have no second life was more of a character in the book, as the back cover implied him to be the main protagonist when he is really a very minor character. Along those lines there are a great many subjects and situations that could have been addressed with the premise of the book, and I left feeling that it only skimmed the surface. As it is, though, there were some great if frustrating angles to this future, such as the idea of people hording stocks in this one great monopoly for some future eternity, thus shirking from enjoying the life they have to live now.
The plot is pretty silly- sort of a Life Alert Nanny State to the extreme, and maybe dealing with the biggest Ponzi Scheme in history- but there are moments, concerning a man trying to keep a cross erect on an island, that are pretty literary. I do wish, however, that the man sentenced to "die" and have no second life was more of a character in the book, as the back cover implied him to be the main protagonist when he is really a very minor character. Along those lines there are a great many subjects and situations that could have been addressed with the premise of the book, and I left feeling that it only skimmed the surface. As it is, though, there were some great if frustrating angles to this future, such as the idea of people hording stocks in this one great monopoly for some future eternity, thus shirking from enjoying the life they have to live now.
February 19, 2011
The Forever Center is the leading medical research corporation on the planet. They offer to freeze your body before death and then revive you later when they are able to heal you. The catch is that you have to sign all your wealth over to them while you are frozen, setting up a snowball effect as the company grows bigger, researches more, and fills building after building after building with frozen bodies. This is interesting! Near immortality + monopoly == massive social change! However, after setting up the situation the book gives up on exploring the consequences and becomes an oddball Fugitive plot where a Forever Center executive is framed for a crime. Sadly disappointing.
October 9, 2024
Clifford Simak is one of the most important voices of 20th-century science fiction, and he is largely forgotten outside of serious SF circles. His books crowd the shelves at used bookstores, and several are considered classics. I prefer his work to Ray Bradbury but he doesn’t have the cultural impact or name recognition. Not even as well-known as Heinlein or Asimov whom he inspired. Bradbury’s reputation for pastoral fantasy comes from a short part of his childhood in the Midwest but he was a Los Angelino really. Simak on the other hand was a lifelong Midwesterner.
Simak was publishing SF when Asimov was a teenager. He went to high school on a horse before his Wisconsin village had roads for cars. His very far-out idea-driven SF has a unique feel because of how midwestern his point of view was. His novel City is one of the most singular novels about our species dying because the end was inspired by Simak’s loathing of city life.
SWCTBH was written and released five decades into his SF career, an amazing accomplishment for any writer. So one of the reasons this book was ALREADY on my TBR was a desire for a picture of what Simak was doing in 1967, a time when the New Wave dominated. Philip K. Dick wrote Galactic Pot Healer that year, and Brunner was doing edits on Stand on Zanzibar. Leguin was two years from releasing Left Hand of Darkness, and Vonnegut was moving mainstream. Heinlein won the Hugo for Moon is a Harsh Mistress beating a more deserving Babel-17 by Delany (in my opinion) Exciting time in SF and mostly in the next generation.
Three years after winning the Hugo award himself for the pastoral Way Station Simak wrote a thought-provoking philosophical surrealist SF novel Why Call Them Back From Heaven? It is not an action novel, it doesn’t have the pulp strength of City, and for my money, this might be my second favorite of Simak’s novels.
I read this novel because fellow Sci-fi historian Jochim Boaz brought up this novel during a podcast we recorded about Simak, and I knew I was going to bump it up my list of stuff to read. The Link to that episode is here� You can hear the moment that I decided to read this book, and of course get lots of Simak talk.
WCTBFH is about immortality, and more specifically economics and capitalism. The details of how immortality reminds me of the current affordable housing crisis in the U.S. Tons of people are having children but no one is building housing for them.
The Forever Center in the context of the novel has not figured out how immortality works, but it is close. This starts a race for people to put themselves on ice, the problem is there are not enough resources to wake them up. This presents the core conflict of the novel. Unlike the majority of his novels, the future is not natural or pastoral. The society is urban and overcrowded. Worse much like our society is a capitalist race towards acquiring things. In this future, it is about amassing capital for your death/afterlife.
“A man had to live, this first life, as long as he was able, it was the only opportunity that he had to lay away competence for his second wife. And when every effort of the society in which he lived was bent towards the end of the prolongation of his life, it would never do to let a piece of carelessness or an exaggerated sense of economy (such as flinching at the cost of a piece of padding or the reorganizing of a buffer) to rob him of the years needed to talk away the capital he would need in the life to come.�
Much of the novel is built around the impacts of a world trying to adapt to civilization, think about how hard we have to work for our short lives now live thousands of years. Of course, the novel touches briefly on the resources it would take.
“� it doesn't matter that it's a little swampy. The human race will need every foot of land there is upon the earth. There will come a time perhaps, when the earth will be just one big building and…�
“But there's space travel, too.� the woman said. “All those planets out there…�
“Madam,� said the salesman, “let's be realistic for a moment they've been out there 100 years or more and they have found no planets that a man could live on…�
Simak doesn’t often idealize the space frontier, this trap even the typically pessimistic PKD fell into in the fifties. But much like Kim Stanley Robinson made the point recently in Aurora, Simak suggests that Earth is rare in the ability to support human life, and the price or immorality may be a crowded Earth.
The collection of wealth takes on a whole new meaning when life never ends.
“No! No! Protested Gibbons. “Not apply for death they'd suspect something if you did arrange your death. A very natural death. Give me ten thousand of the loot and I'll get it done for you. That's the going rate. Very neat and easy. And the investment, of course, couldn't be in forever center stock. Something you could stash away a bunch of paintings, maybe.�
Another interesting part of this equation that Simak builds is the divide that would develop between those who would engineer a death that preserved them for immortality and those born to it.
“And now I understand, said the grizzled man, “that in just a few years a man need not even go through the ritual of death to attain immortality. Once Forever Center has this immortality business all written down and the methods all worked out, a man will be made immortal out of hand. So just stay young and go on living and there won't be any death once you get born, then you will live forever.�
The writing itself is great, and playful at times. Chapter 9 is a single sentence that doesn’t get paid off or explained until nearly the end. Chapter 23 is a beautiful meditation on the whole scope of the novel through the eyes of an older woman in a rocking chair thinking about the next thousand.
“Would the lilacs smell as sweet, Mona Campbell wondered, when spring came around a thousand years from now? Could one still catch the breath in wonder at the sight of a meadow filled with daffodils a thousand years from now. If it were a thousand years from now would any room remain on earth for lilac or for daffodil?�
I mean the entire chapter is beautiful. I kind of wanted to post the whole thing. I don’t think most Sci-fi critics or fans consider this top-tier Simak, but I love this novel. This is a must-read for any fans of 20th-century SF who want to read works from a more literary angle.
Simak was publishing SF when Asimov was a teenager. He went to high school on a horse before his Wisconsin village had roads for cars. His very far-out idea-driven SF has a unique feel because of how midwestern his point of view was. His novel City is one of the most singular novels about our species dying because the end was inspired by Simak’s loathing of city life.
SWCTBH was written and released five decades into his SF career, an amazing accomplishment for any writer. So one of the reasons this book was ALREADY on my TBR was a desire for a picture of what Simak was doing in 1967, a time when the New Wave dominated. Philip K. Dick wrote Galactic Pot Healer that year, and Brunner was doing edits on Stand on Zanzibar. Leguin was two years from releasing Left Hand of Darkness, and Vonnegut was moving mainstream. Heinlein won the Hugo for Moon is a Harsh Mistress beating a more deserving Babel-17 by Delany (in my opinion) Exciting time in SF and mostly in the next generation.
Three years after winning the Hugo award himself for the pastoral Way Station Simak wrote a thought-provoking philosophical surrealist SF novel Why Call Them Back From Heaven? It is not an action novel, it doesn’t have the pulp strength of City, and for my money, this might be my second favorite of Simak’s novels.
I read this novel because fellow Sci-fi historian Jochim Boaz brought up this novel during a podcast we recorded about Simak, and I knew I was going to bump it up my list of stuff to read. The Link to that episode is here� You can hear the moment that I decided to read this book, and of course get lots of Simak talk.
WCTBFH is about immortality, and more specifically economics and capitalism. The details of how immortality reminds me of the current affordable housing crisis in the U.S. Tons of people are having children but no one is building housing for them.
The Forever Center in the context of the novel has not figured out how immortality works, but it is close. This starts a race for people to put themselves on ice, the problem is there are not enough resources to wake them up. This presents the core conflict of the novel. Unlike the majority of his novels, the future is not natural or pastoral. The society is urban and overcrowded. Worse much like our society is a capitalist race towards acquiring things. In this future, it is about amassing capital for your death/afterlife.
“A man had to live, this first life, as long as he was able, it was the only opportunity that he had to lay away competence for his second wife. And when every effort of the society in which he lived was bent towards the end of the prolongation of his life, it would never do to let a piece of carelessness or an exaggerated sense of economy (such as flinching at the cost of a piece of padding or the reorganizing of a buffer) to rob him of the years needed to talk away the capital he would need in the life to come.�
Much of the novel is built around the impacts of a world trying to adapt to civilization, think about how hard we have to work for our short lives now live thousands of years. Of course, the novel touches briefly on the resources it would take.
“� it doesn't matter that it's a little swampy. The human race will need every foot of land there is upon the earth. There will come a time perhaps, when the earth will be just one big building and…�
“But there's space travel, too.� the woman said. “All those planets out there…�
“Madam,� said the salesman, “let's be realistic for a moment they've been out there 100 years or more and they have found no planets that a man could live on…�
Simak doesn’t often idealize the space frontier, this trap even the typically pessimistic PKD fell into in the fifties. But much like Kim Stanley Robinson made the point recently in Aurora, Simak suggests that Earth is rare in the ability to support human life, and the price or immorality may be a crowded Earth.
The collection of wealth takes on a whole new meaning when life never ends.
“No! No! Protested Gibbons. “Not apply for death they'd suspect something if you did arrange your death. A very natural death. Give me ten thousand of the loot and I'll get it done for you. That's the going rate. Very neat and easy. And the investment, of course, couldn't be in forever center stock. Something you could stash away a bunch of paintings, maybe.�
Another interesting part of this equation that Simak builds is the divide that would develop between those who would engineer a death that preserved them for immortality and those born to it.
“And now I understand, said the grizzled man, “that in just a few years a man need not even go through the ritual of death to attain immortality. Once Forever Center has this immortality business all written down and the methods all worked out, a man will be made immortal out of hand. So just stay young and go on living and there won't be any death once you get born, then you will live forever.�
The writing itself is great, and playful at times. Chapter 9 is a single sentence that doesn’t get paid off or explained until nearly the end. Chapter 23 is a beautiful meditation on the whole scope of the novel through the eyes of an older woman in a rocking chair thinking about the next thousand.
“Would the lilacs smell as sweet, Mona Campbell wondered, when spring came around a thousand years from now? Could one still catch the breath in wonder at the sight of a meadow filled with daffodils a thousand years from now. If it were a thousand years from now would any room remain on earth for lilac or for daffodil?�
I mean the entire chapter is beautiful. I kind of wanted to post the whole thing. I don’t think most Sci-fi critics or fans consider this top-tier Simak, but I love this novel. This is a must-read for any fans of 20th-century SF who want to read works from a more literary angle.
August 25, 2019
' Immortality - The ultimate reward: To come back to life - and never die again - that's what Forever Center promises the human race. And that's why, in the year 2148, people spend their whole lives in poverty, giving all their money to Forever Center to ensure their happiness and comfort in the next eternal life.
Daniel Frost is a key man at Forever Center. When he accidentally stumbles onto some classified documents, Dan incurs the wrath of an unseen enemy who has him framed and denounced as a social outcast. With the notorious mark of ostracization on his forehead, he is condemned to the desperate life of a hunted animal. But a few people will risk their lives to help him: Ann Harrison, the beautiful renegade lawyer who is convinced of his innocence, and Mona Campbell, the brilliant mathematician who has discovered some shattering information about Forever Center...and the essence of life itself.'
Blurb from the 1985 Methuen edition
Daniel Frost is on the board of the Forever Centre. They provide cryogenic services worldwide. Everyone is fitted with what are essentially homing devices which send a signal when death occurs. A team is sent out and the body immediately frozen for future revival when both medical science has advanced and man has solved the secrets of time travel, immortality and journeys to habitable exoplanets.
Many people choose a form of euthanasia, investing their money in Forever stock so that they will amass a large amount by the time they are awakened.
An underground group, The Holies, oppose the corporation as they feel that Man should have his reward in Heaven.
Frost finds himself the target of a smear campaign by one of his colleagues, and is puzzled as to why. He can only deduce that it is something to do with a sheet of paper he accidentally acquired some time ago. This sheet of paper is the Maguffin and does not reveal its import until the denouement.
He has to go on the run, and somehow outwit his enemies before he is killed.
The chapters are interspersed with vignettes of various ordinary people and how their lives fit in to the world of the Forever company.
It's quite a dark piece of work for Simak, and the plot is fairly similar to that of 'Time Is The Simplest Thing' in that a high level employee of a company has to go on the run. The companies are both organisations that set out with altruistic motives but have now grown to control society and government to the detriment of those they originally aimed to serve and employ.
It's not clear what point Simak is making here, if he is trying to make any point at all, other than the dangers of multinational companies controlling the world, and dictating government policy and law. Not one of Simak's best.
Daniel Frost is a key man at Forever Center. When he accidentally stumbles onto some classified documents, Dan incurs the wrath of an unseen enemy who has him framed and denounced as a social outcast. With the notorious mark of ostracization on his forehead, he is condemned to the desperate life of a hunted animal. But a few people will risk their lives to help him: Ann Harrison, the beautiful renegade lawyer who is convinced of his innocence, and Mona Campbell, the brilliant mathematician who has discovered some shattering information about Forever Center...and the essence of life itself.'
Blurb from the 1985 Methuen edition
Daniel Frost is on the board of the Forever Centre. They provide cryogenic services worldwide. Everyone is fitted with what are essentially homing devices which send a signal when death occurs. A team is sent out and the body immediately frozen for future revival when both medical science has advanced and man has solved the secrets of time travel, immortality and journeys to habitable exoplanets.
Many people choose a form of euthanasia, investing their money in Forever stock so that they will amass a large amount by the time they are awakened.
An underground group, The Holies, oppose the corporation as they feel that Man should have his reward in Heaven.
Frost finds himself the target of a smear campaign by one of his colleagues, and is puzzled as to why. He can only deduce that it is something to do with a sheet of paper he accidentally acquired some time ago. This sheet of paper is the Maguffin and does not reveal its import until the denouement.
He has to go on the run, and somehow outwit his enemies before he is killed.
The chapters are interspersed with vignettes of various ordinary people and how their lives fit in to the world of the Forever company.
It's quite a dark piece of work for Simak, and the plot is fairly similar to that of 'Time Is The Simplest Thing' in that a high level employee of a company has to go on the run. The companies are both organisations that set out with altruistic motives but have now grown to control society and government to the detriment of those they originally aimed to serve and employ.
It's not clear what point Simak is making here, if he is trying to make any point at all, other than the dangers of multinational companies controlling the world, and dictating government policy and law. Not one of Simak's best.
June 4, 2020
Full review:
"I have found that the most successful science fiction novels on the theme of immortality are not about the immortals themselves or the state of “being immortal.� Novels like Raymond Z. Gallun’s The Eden Cycle (1974) might attempt to convey, at moments effectively, the ennui of an endless existence with endless possibilities but, as with mind of the immortal in question, the reader too feels the effects of endless, repetitive inundation. Rather, the most successful and evocative novels � for example [...]"
"I have found that the most successful science fiction novels on the theme of immortality are not about the immortals themselves or the state of “being immortal.� Novels like Raymond Z. Gallun’s The Eden Cycle (1974) might attempt to convey, at moments effectively, the ennui of an endless existence with endless possibilities but, as with mind of the immortal in question, the reader too feels the effects of endless, repetitive inundation. Rather, the most successful and evocative novels � for example [...]"
January 4, 2024
Ще в 1967 році автор задавався питаннями, які досі не вирішені (а деякі ще й досі актуальні). Пошук вічності та власне місце людини в ній. Чи важлива природна зміна людей внаслідок смерті? Смерті, яку згодом перетворюють на товар. Людина втрачає свою особистість перетворюючись лише на сировину, яку використовує корпорація для власного збагачення.
Брехня про вічне життя, яка тягнеться вже два століття. Цікаво, що при (навіть умовній) вічності, Бог втрачає своє місце, як разом з ним і позбувається свого домінуюючого статусу релігія. Чи можна знайти духовну вічність, продовжуючи чіплятися за вічність фізичну? Та якщо помирати не обов'язково, то яка тоді користь від Бога?
Why should people read the Bible any more or believe in it or believe in anything at all if they have the legal � not the spiritual, mind you, but the legal � promise of immortality?
Це світ, де стрімкий розвиток людства знаходиться поруч з крахом цілої цивілізації. Заграбастання монополістами влади призводить до середньовічного рівня "справедливості".
А головне, як можна зруйнувати ідею припинення війн..
Це роман про свідому нереалізацію поставлених цілей та про те, що сама надія (віра) може стати не тільки сенсом життя, а його ціллю.
Доволі незвичний філософський роман для Кліффа (схожий чимось на Діка та Сільверберга), хоча, на жаль, один з найнедооціненіших у його творчості
Брехня про вічне життя, яка тягнеться вже два століття. Цікаво, що при (навіть умовній) вічності, Бог втрачає своє місце, як разом з ним і позбувається свого домінуюючого статусу релігія. Чи можна знайти духовну вічність, продовжуючи чіплятися за вічність фізичну? Та якщо помирати не обов'язково, то яка тоді користь від Бога?
Why should people read the Bible any more or believe in it or believe in anything at all if they have the legal � not the spiritual, mind you, but the legal � promise of immortality?
Це світ, де стрімкий розвиток людства знаходиться поруч з крахом цілої цивілізації. Заграбастання монополістами влади призводить до середньовічного рівня "справедливості".
А головне, як можна зруйнувати ідею припинення війн..
Це роман про свідому нереалізацію поставлених цілей та про те, що сама надія (віра) може стати не тільки сенсом життя, а його ціллю.
Доволі незвичний філософський роман для Кліффа (схожий чимось на Діка та Сільверберга), хоча, на жаль, один з найнедооціненіших у його творчості
February 19, 2024
It has been a while since I have read Simak. This book had all of ingredients of a classic Simak: Rural Wisconsin, stamp collecting, newspapers, and publishing. There was actually a female lawyer, attractive to the protagonist and yet when he invites her to dinner SHE cooks for him at his place. LOL. Dated as this story is (which is why I find them so charming) it still deals with age old questions of immortality, man's soul and faith.
February 3, 2024
Great story. Enjoyed it very much. Only distractions was the poor editing. So many mistakes.
February 22, 2025
Simak’s structure and storytelling to start this tale of corporate cryogenic society are brilliant, but loses focus of the complicated ideas he precipitated and becomes a standard man-on-the-run-versus-the-world story, couched in his beloved nostalgic Wisconsin-of-the-future, and fails to become the incredible novel it could have been, despite being highly enjoyable.
March 2, 2025
Αθανασία, το άπιαστο όνειρο του ανθρώπου� όχι, όχι αν το αναλάβει ο αγαπημένος Simak και ρίξει μια βαθιά και φιλοσοφημένη ματιά πέρα από τη νηπιακή λαχτάρα του είδους μας (του μόνου που με σιγουριά γνωρίζει ότι το μοιραίο επέρχεται) για αθανασία.
Στο υπό κρίση πόνημα, ο θάνατος δεν είναι το τελευταίο σύνορο (ούτε το Star Trek, αλλά δε θα μας απασχολήσει εδώ), αλλά� κάτι στο οποίο επενδύει κανείς για την ασφαλή επιστροφή του στο μέλλον. Ο κοινωνικός, οικονομικός κ.π. σχεδιασμός είναι γύρω από την υπόσχεση της ανάστασης νεκρών, όχι από κάποια σέχτα, αλλά από την ίδια την επιστήμη. Ωστόσο� δε θα είχαμε βιβλίο αν όλα ήταν ρόδινα. Μια σκοτεινή αλήθεια κρύβεται πίσω από την υπόσχεση για αθανασία και την τοποθέτηση ανθρώπων στο «ψυγείο» (εντελώς συμπτωματικά ο ήρωας ονομάζεται� Frost).
Η Forever Center έχει πείσει τους πάντες ότι ο θάνατος είναι.. προσωρινός. Ένα μικρό εμπόδιο μόνο, καθώς� όσοι έχουν την οικονομική δυνατότητα δίνουν ένα φιλάκι στους μηδέν Κέλβιν (εντάξει, απλώς ψύχονται) και η επιστήμη υπόσχεται να τους επαναφέρει αργότερα στη ζωή, νεότερους, σφριγηλότερους, κ.λπ. (κάτι τέτοια κόλπα έκανε και η Μήδεια και είδαμε πού κατέληξε ο Πελίας). Τέλος πάντων, η «δεύτερη ζωή» είναι εδώ, δηλαδή� εκεί, στο μέλλον, α δεν ξέρουμε πότε ακριβώς, αλλά, ναι, δηλαδή, σίγουρα πράματα, γκαραντί, στο σταυρό που σου κάνω, στ� ορκίζομαι στα παιδιά μου (-μα, δεν έχεις παιδιά -άλλο αυτό, μην αλλάζεις θέμα), θα σας φέρουμε γεφύρια και αν χρειαστεί θα βάλουμε και ποτάμια από κάτω, παρακαλώ τα λεφτά μπροστάντζα, ο τζάμπας πέθανε (και γιατί δεν τον επαναφέετε;)
Καλές οι υποσχέσεις, αλλά αυτή η ιστορία έχει πλήξει καίρια την κοινωνία, όπως λέγαμε, με τον κόσμο να μη ζει στο παρόν, ή έστω για το παρόν, αλλά να επενδύει σε ένα μέλλον� λίγο ασαφές (που θυμίζει επικίνδυνα τις διαβεβαιώσεις των περισσοτέρων θρησκειών για μεταθανάτια ζωή, πιλάφια, παρθένες, άρπες και λιβάδια).
Φυσικά, όπως για κάθε θαυματουργή εικόνα που πιτσιλίζει βυσσινάδα (ή λικέρ μαστίχα) με το πάτημα ενός κρυφού κουμπιού, υπάρχει και ένας νεωκόρος που ξέρει την απάτη, έτσι κι εδώ υπάρχει ο Ντάνιελ Φροστ (καμία σχέση με τον Ρόμπερτ) που έχει πληροφορίες από μέσα κι αυτό τον καθιστά επικίνδυνο. Και τι γίνονται οι επικίνδυνοι για τα συμφέροντα μεμονωμένοι άνθρωποι; Κυνηγημένοι� ενώ το ίδιο το μέλλον της ανθρωπότητας παίζεται κορώνα-γράμματα (κορώνα κερδίζουν / γράμματα χάνεις).
Πέρα από έργο Ε.Φ. που προφανώς είναι (κρυογονική νάρκη, μέλλον, το όνομα «Simak» στο εξώφυλλο), είναι παράλληλα και υπαρξιακοπολιτικό θρίλερ με φιλοσοφικές προεκτάσεις και ερωτήματα γύρω από την ελευθερία (ή την καταπίεση) και τα όρια της εξουσίας. Εν ολίγοις, η αιώνια ζωή, συνεπάγεται αυτομάτως και πραγματική ελευθερία άπαξ και ο άνθρωπος απαλλαγεί από το άγχος και το φόβο του τελειωτικού θανάτου ή θα μετατραπεί σε υποχείριο όποιου υπόσχεται ακριβώς αυτή την μελλοντική μεταθανάτια ζωή (ακούνε κάτι θρησκόληπτοι στα πίσω θρανία ή μασουλάνε λιβανωτό και κάνουν φούσκες;) κάτω από το σχετικό ή απόλυτο έλεγχό του, είτε πρόκειται για άνθρωπο, είτε για εταιρία, είτε για κράτος, είτε για� εχμ� θρησκεία;
Ξεπερνώντας το σκόπελο του αν η αθανασία είναι τεχνικά εφικτή (κάτι που ξέρω από τελομεράση -όταν για πάντα θα σ� έχει χάσει- είναι ότι πάνω από 150 δεν πιάνουμε ούτε με ούριο άνεμο στον κατήφορο) ο αγαπημένος Clifford εστιάζει στο τι συμβαίνει σε μια κοινωνία από την αναμονή για την αθανασία, για μια εχμ� δεύτερη παρουσία, για μια (το λέει ξεκάθαρα ο άνθρωπος) ΜΕΤΑ ΘΑΝΑΤΟΝ ΖΩΗ. Πόση σημασία δίνει ο άνθρωπος στο τι γίνεται ΤΩΡΑ; Στο τι συμβαίνει γύρω του; Πώς η «υπόσχεση της αθανασίας» (πώς δεν τον αφόρισε κανένα Βατικανό τον φίλο Κλιφόρδο, απορώ) καταστρέφει τη σημασία της ίδιας της ζωής μετατρέποντάς τη σε επένδυση για ένα μελλοντικό εαυτό σε εχμ� (βήχω πολύ σήμερα) πιο χλοερούς τόπους αντί για καθημερινό βίωμα, κάθε ανάσα να μετράει;
Κατά συνέπεια, φίλε αναγνώστη, ρούφα μελλοντική δυστοπία διά χειρός ενός από τους καλύτερους, με το μείζον «προσόν» η δυστοπική εικόνα να μην είναι απόρροια μιας καταπιεστικής ελίτ απόλυτα, αλλά της εμμονής των ανθρώπων με την (γκουχ γκουχ, κάτι θα κόλλησα) αποκατάσταση σε μεταθανάτιο βίο και τη συνεπαγόμενη εξαπάτησή τους (ΕΒΗΞΑ ΠΡΙΝ ΛΙΓΟ Ε;) από καλοθελητές.
Κατάφερα μέχρι στιγμής να μη μιλήσω για την πλοκή και να μην πετάξω και κανένα σοβαρό σπόιλερ και θα το αφήσω έτσι. Η ιστορία κυλάει σχετικά αργά, υπάρχει μια διάχυτη δυστοπική μελαγχολία και φυσικά ένας λατρεμένος average Joe που προσπαθεί να βγάλει τα κάστανα από τη φωτιά. Αλλά το σημαντικό είναι ότι τα κάστανα τα έχει ρίξει μέσα η ίδια η ανθρωπότητα, ο καθένας το δικό του καστανάκι� Η τεχνολογία (που ποτέ δεν ήταν στις προτεραιότητες του C.D.S. αν και� κορυφαίος συγγραφές επιστημονικής φαντασίας) σήμερα δείχνει απλή και αφελής, αλλά, δεν ήταν ποτέ σημαντικό στοιχείο του έργου.
Στο υπό κρίση πόνημα, ο θάνατος δεν είναι το τελευταίο σύνορο (ούτε το Star Trek, αλλά δε θα μας απασχολήσει εδώ), αλλά� κάτι στο οποίο επενδύει κανείς για την ασφαλή επιστροφή του στο μέλλον. Ο κοινωνικός, οικονομικός κ.π. σχεδιασμός είναι γύρω από την υπόσχεση της ανάστασης νεκρών, όχι από κάποια σέχτα, αλλά από την ίδια την επιστήμη. Ωστόσο� δε θα είχαμε βιβλίο αν όλα ήταν ρόδινα. Μια σκοτεινή αλήθεια κρύβεται πίσω από την υπόσχεση για αθανασία και την τοποθέτηση ανθρώπων στο «ψυγείο» (εντελώς συμπτωματικά ο ήρωας ονομάζεται� Frost).
Η Forever Center έχει πείσει τους πάντες ότι ο θάνατος είναι.. προσωρινός. Ένα μικρό εμπόδιο μόνο, καθώς� όσοι έχουν την οικονομική δυνατότητα δίνουν ένα φιλάκι στους μηδέν Κέλβιν (εντάξει, απλώς ψύχονται) και η επιστήμη υπόσχεται να τους επαναφέρει αργότερα στη ζωή, νεότερους, σφριγηλότερους, κ.λπ. (κάτι τέτοια κόλπα έκανε και η Μήδεια και είδαμε πού κατέληξε ο Πελίας). Τέλος πάντων, η «δεύτερη ζωή» είναι εδώ, δηλαδή� εκεί, στο μέλλον, α δεν ξέρουμε πότε ακριβώς, αλλά, ναι, δηλαδή, σίγουρα πράματα, γκαραντί, στο σταυρό που σου κάνω, στ� ορκίζομαι στα παιδιά μου (-μα, δεν έχεις παιδιά -άλλο αυτό, μην αλλάζεις θέμα), θα σας φέρουμε γεφύρια και αν χρειαστεί θα βάλουμε και ποτάμια από κάτω, παρακαλώ τα λεφτά μπροστάντζα, ο τζάμπας πέθανε (και γιατί δεν τον επαναφέετε;)
Καλές οι υποσχέσεις, αλλά αυτή η ιστορία έχει πλήξει καίρια την κοινωνία, όπως λέγαμε, με τον κόσμο να μη ζει στο παρόν, ή έστω για το παρόν, αλλά να επενδύει σε ένα μέλλον� λίγο ασαφές (που θυμίζει επικίνδυνα τις διαβεβαιώσεις των περισσοτέρων θρησκειών για μεταθανάτια ζωή, πιλάφια, παρθένες, άρπες και λιβάδια).
Φυσικά, όπως για κάθε θαυματουργή εικόνα που πιτσιλίζει βυσσινάδα (ή λικέρ μαστίχα) με το πάτημα ενός κρυφού κουμπιού, υπάρχει και ένας νεωκόρος που ξέρει την απάτη, έτσι κι εδώ υπάρχει ο Ντάνιελ Φροστ (καμία σχέση με τον Ρόμπερτ) που έχει πληροφορίες από μέσα κι αυτό τον καθιστά επικίνδυνο. Και τι γίνονται οι επικίνδυνοι για τα συμφέροντα μεμονωμένοι άνθρωποι; Κυνηγημένοι� ενώ το ίδιο το μέλλον της ανθρωπότητας παίζεται κορώνα-γράμματα (κορώνα κερδίζουν / γράμματα χάνεις).
Πέρα από έργο Ε.Φ. που προφανώς είναι (κρυογονική νάρκη, μέλλον, το όνομα «Simak» στο εξώφυλλο), είναι παράλληλα και υπαρξιακοπολιτικό θρίλερ με φιλοσοφικές προεκτάσεις και ερωτήματα γύρω από την ελευθερία (ή την καταπίεση) και τα όρια της εξουσίας. Εν ολίγοις, η αιώνια ζωή, συνεπάγεται αυτομάτως και πραγματική ελευθερία άπαξ και ο άνθρωπος απαλλαγεί από το άγχος και το φόβο του τελειωτικού θανάτου ή θα μετατραπεί σε υποχείριο όποιου υπόσχεται ακριβώς αυτή την μελλοντική μεταθανάτια ζωή (ακούνε κάτι θρησκόληπτοι στα πίσω θρανία ή μασουλάνε λιβανωτό και κάνουν φούσκες;) κάτω από το σχετικό ή απόλυτο έλεγχό του, είτε πρόκειται για άνθρωπο, είτε για εταιρία, είτε για κράτος, είτε για� εχμ� θρησκεία;
Ξεπερνώντας το σκόπελο του αν η αθανασία είναι τεχνικά εφικτή (κάτι που ξέρω από τελομεράση -όταν για πάντα θα σ� έχει χάσει- είναι ότι πάνω από 150 δεν πιάνουμε ούτε με ούριο άνεμο στον κατήφορο) ο αγαπημένος Clifford εστιάζει στο τι συμβαίνει σε μια κοινωνία από την αναμονή για την αθανασία, για μια εχμ� δεύτερη παρουσία, για μια (το λέει ξεκάθαρα ο άνθρωπος) ΜΕΤΑ ΘΑΝΑΤΟΝ ΖΩΗ. Πόση σημασία δίνει ο άνθρωπος στο τι γίνεται ΤΩΡΑ; Στο τι συμβαίνει γύρω του; Πώς η «υπόσχεση της αθανασίας» (πώς δεν τον αφόρισε κανένα Βατικανό τον φίλο Κλιφόρδο, απορώ) καταστρέφει τη σημασία της ίδιας της ζωής μετατρέποντάς τη σε επένδυση για ένα μελλοντικό εαυτό σε εχμ� (βήχω πολύ σήμερα) πιο χλοερούς τόπους αντί για καθημερινό βίωμα, κάθε ανάσα να μετράει;
Κατά συνέπεια, φίλε αναγνώστη, ρούφα μελλοντική δυστοπία διά χειρός ενός από τους καλύτερους, με το μείζον «προσόν» η δυστοπική εικόνα να μην είναι απόρροια μιας καταπιεστικής ελίτ απόλυτα, αλλά της εμμονής των ανθρώπων με την (γκουχ γκουχ, κάτι θα κόλλησα) αποκατάσταση σε μεταθανάτιο βίο και τη συνεπαγόμενη εξαπάτησή τους (ΕΒΗΞΑ ΠΡΙΝ ΛΙΓΟ Ε;) από καλοθελητές.
Κατάφερα μέχρι στιγμής να μη μιλήσω για την πλοκή και να μην πετάξω και κανένα σοβαρό σπόιλερ και θα το αφήσω έτσι. Η ιστορία κυλάει σχετικά αργά, υπάρχει μια διάχυτη δυστοπική μελαγχολία και φυσικά ένας λατρεμένος average Joe που προσπαθεί να βγάλει τα κάστανα από τη φωτιά. Αλλά το σημαντικό είναι ότι τα κάστανα τα έχει ρίξει μέσα η ίδια η ανθρωπότητα, ο καθένας το δικό του καστανάκι� Η τεχνολογία (που ποτέ δεν ήταν στις προτεραιότητες του C.D.S. αν και� κορυφαίος συγγραφές επιστημονικής φαντασίας) σήμερα δείχνει απλή και αφελής, αλλά, δεν ήταν ποτέ σημαντικό στοιχείο του έργου.
December 23, 2024
Сладкодумен Саймък, с интересна история и философски разсъждения за бъдещето на човечеството, но не успя да ме грабна така силно, както в други романи ("Всичко живо е трева", "Резерватът на таласъмите").
ПС: Книгата има редактор, но той явно си е бъркал в носа, защото текстът изобилства от печатни и граматически грешки.
ПС: Книгата има редактор, но той явно си е бъркал в носа, защото текстът изобилства от печатни и граматически грешки.
July 14, 2017
Clifford Simak often has a religious cloaking about his stories. The Fellowship of the Talisman centers around an Aramaic manuscript detailing the ministry of Jesus in a more objective manner than the gospels (all written for a specific kerygmatic purpose other than history per se). A Choice of Gods featured a group of robots who studied religion and tried to understand an authentic meaning of “god,� while I picked up the book because of the wonderful “robot monk� on the cover of my edition. Why Call Them Back from Heaven? has religious themes common to Simak, as well as elements of his so-called pastoral sf novels and his cautionary tales about immortality (Way Station) and overpopulation (Cemetery Planet). Maybe it should be called “pastoral apocalyptic� as some have styled it.
In Why Call them Back from Heaven?, “immortality� is a given “fact.� Well, it is according to the global megacorporation known as the Forever Center. The Forever Center is a combination cryogenics provider, insurance company, para-governmental entity, and “religious� institution. Ironically, it is the latter because its promise of immortality seems to have precluded any necessity for people to believe in “eternal� life beyond what science can provide. Indeed, one quickly realizes that recalcitrant religious conservatives are pretty much the lone dissenters from this (to borrow from Voltaire) “best of all possible worlds.� And, in a somewhat Orwellian fashion, something was very rotten at the core of the Forever Center such that they were forced to have their own propaganda, surveillance, and covert action group within the super-corporation.
The weakness of this novel is that it is relatively short to require jumping from prospective protagonist to another. As in an epic, these characters do become intertwined, but I always felt defensive about getting involved with one character or another because it was hard to tell whose story this was. Could it have been “society’s� story? Is it really the story of characters far away from the urban setting with the little teasers of their stories? Is it the guy who starts as a victim (or is it his attractive and idealistic lawyer?) or is it the guy who starts as a potential antagonist and ends up serving as a potential protagonist? I usually like to be emotionally invested in a particular character in order to experience a vicarious catharsis, but this “shotgun� character approach didn’t assist me in this way.
But while I didn’t like the point-of-view obfuscation (not during the scenes, but in the mix of scenes), I was very intrigued by the philosophical and religious questions posited by the novel. If everyone were saving up for (imagine the largest combination insurance scam and social security boondoggle possible) the best possible “immortal life,� would that mean that people would eschew cultural experiences such as the arts, film, legitimate theater, musical performances, and participatory or professional spectator sports? Is deprivation of immediate experience in favor of deferred satisfaction a slam at the promise of an afterlife for people who give up certain pleasures for “eternal� gain? I thought this briefly, but Simak makes it clear that this is not where he is going.
In a way, Simak is like (but not overtly so) me. He perceives that life lived under the limitations of one’s human life and continuing under the basis of the consequences of one’s previous failures (and poor choices) would not be welcome as a never-ending existence. Life, and indeed, personhood (the “Me� in Simak’s novel) needs more than existence. Meaning and relationships which underscore that meaning are required (as witness the struggles of a literal hermit who appears from time-to-time). Please check out some of the salient quotations from the book which resonated with me.
“There was about him an attitude of worship, as if he might have come seeking refuge and comfort. And this, in itself, was something unusual. For today few men came worshipfully. They came nonchalantly or with a calm assurance that said there was nothing here they needed, that they were only paying homage by an empty gesture to a thing that had become a cultural habit and very little more.� (pp. 41-42)
And more to the thesis of the book, “The man laughed—a low, vicious, brutal laugh. ‘But we have that already. We have everlasting life. And we do not need the faith.� ‘Not everlasting life,� said Knight, ‘Just continued life. Beyond that continued life there is another life, a different kind of life, a better life.’� (p. 43)
Again, in a later scene, “’Faith is all man has,� the man told him, quietly. ‘You take faith,� Frost said, ‘and make a virtue of it. A virtue of not knowing…� ‘If we knew,� the man said, ‘there would be no faith. And we need the faith.’� I’m not entirely in agreement with the sentiment. I consider faith to be more than blind belief. It is taking one step at a time with the limited “light� available, a lifestyle rather than an isolated act. But that’s just me and I enjoyed the discussion in the fiction, recognizing that many people want their “faith� to be out there and largely imperceptible. This is said in a more amusing way (with more subtlety) much later in the novel when a character asks, “Could he play at cards with God and have an ace tucked up his sleeve?� (p. 153) That’s a thought-provoking perspective on some people’s theology.
Then, there was the issue of “continued life� versus “eternal life.� Many people don’t realize that “eternal� deals with a quality of experience beyond the temporal, not just unlimited “time.� Simak touches on this when a character considers: “What kind of world could there be, or would there be, when all of humankind lived eternally and in the flesh and guise of youth? Would wisdom come without gray hair and wrinkled brow? Would the old, long thoughts of aged people disappear and die in the exuberance of flesh and gland and muscle that renewed itself? Would the gentleness and the tolerance and the long reflective thought no longer be with mankind?� (pp. 113-114)
For all its powerful social and theological speculation, Why Call Them Back from Heaven? is only slightly above average as a novel. It was enjoyable and thought-provoking, but the characters failed to give me the catharsis I would generally expect from such a story. Indeed, the rather literal deus ex machina of the conclusion (for at least one of the characters, but certainly not all) seemed hurried and unsatisfying. I’m glad I read Why Call Them Back from Heaven?, but it doesn’t meet the bar I felt Simak set in Fellowship of the Talisman and A Choice of Gods. It won’t stop me from seeking out more of his work, though.
In Why Call them Back from Heaven?, “immortality� is a given “fact.� Well, it is according to the global megacorporation known as the Forever Center. The Forever Center is a combination cryogenics provider, insurance company, para-governmental entity, and “religious� institution. Ironically, it is the latter because its promise of immortality seems to have precluded any necessity for people to believe in “eternal� life beyond what science can provide. Indeed, one quickly realizes that recalcitrant religious conservatives are pretty much the lone dissenters from this (to borrow from Voltaire) “best of all possible worlds.� And, in a somewhat Orwellian fashion, something was very rotten at the core of the Forever Center such that they were forced to have their own propaganda, surveillance, and covert action group within the super-corporation.
The weakness of this novel is that it is relatively short to require jumping from prospective protagonist to another. As in an epic, these characters do become intertwined, but I always felt defensive about getting involved with one character or another because it was hard to tell whose story this was. Could it have been “society’s� story? Is it really the story of characters far away from the urban setting with the little teasers of their stories? Is it the guy who starts as a victim (or is it his attractive and idealistic lawyer?) or is it the guy who starts as a potential antagonist and ends up serving as a potential protagonist? I usually like to be emotionally invested in a particular character in order to experience a vicarious catharsis, but this “shotgun� character approach didn’t assist me in this way.
But while I didn’t like the point-of-view obfuscation (not during the scenes, but in the mix of scenes), I was very intrigued by the philosophical and religious questions posited by the novel. If everyone were saving up for (imagine the largest combination insurance scam and social security boondoggle possible) the best possible “immortal life,� would that mean that people would eschew cultural experiences such as the arts, film, legitimate theater, musical performances, and participatory or professional spectator sports? Is deprivation of immediate experience in favor of deferred satisfaction a slam at the promise of an afterlife for people who give up certain pleasures for “eternal� gain? I thought this briefly, but Simak makes it clear that this is not where he is going.
In a way, Simak is like (but not overtly so) me. He perceives that life lived under the limitations of one’s human life and continuing under the basis of the consequences of one’s previous failures (and poor choices) would not be welcome as a never-ending existence. Life, and indeed, personhood (the “Me� in Simak’s novel) needs more than existence. Meaning and relationships which underscore that meaning are required (as witness the struggles of a literal hermit who appears from time-to-time). Please check out some of the salient quotations from the book which resonated with me.
“There was about him an attitude of worship, as if he might have come seeking refuge and comfort. And this, in itself, was something unusual. For today few men came worshipfully. They came nonchalantly or with a calm assurance that said there was nothing here they needed, that they were only paying homage by an empty gesture to a thing that had become a cultural habit and very little more.� (pp. 41-42)
And more to the thesis of the book, “The man laughed—a low, vicious, brutal laugh. ‘But we have that already. We have everlasting life. And we do not need the faith.� ‘Not everlasting life,� said Knight, ‘Just continued life. Beyond that continued life there is another life, a different kind of life, a better life.’� (p. 43)
Again, in a later scene, “’Faith is all man has,� the man told him, quietly. ‘You take faith,� Frost said, ‘and make a virtue of it. A virtue of not knowing…� ‘If we knew,� the man said, ‘there would be no faith. And we need the faith.’� I’m not entirely in agreement with the sentiment. I consider faith to be more than blind belief. It is taking one step at a time with the limited “light� available, a lifestyle rather than an isolated act. But that’s just me and I enjoyed the discussion in the fiction, recognizing that many people want their “faith� to be out there and largely imperceptible. This is said in a more amusing way (with more subtlety) much later in the novel when a character asks, “Could he play at cards with God and have an ace tucked up his sleeve?� (p. 153) That’s a thought-provoking perspective on some people’s theology.
Then, there was the issue of “continued life� versus “eternal life.� Many people don’t realize that “eternal� deals with a quality of experience beyond the temporal, not just unlimited “time.� Simak touches on this when a character considers: “What kind of world could there be, or would there be, when all of humankind lived eternally and in the flesh and guise of youth? Would wisdom come without gray hair and wrinkled brow? Would the old, long thoughts of aged people disappear and die in the exuberance of flesh and gland and muscle that renewed itself? Would the gentleness and the tolerance and the long reflective thought no longer be with mankind?� (pp. 113-114)
For all its powerful social and theological speculation, Why Call Them Back from Heaven? is only slightly above average as a novel. It was enjoyable and thought-provoking, but the characters failed to give me the catharsis I would generally expect from such a story. Indeed, the rather literal deus ex machina of the conclusion (for at least one of the characters, but certainly not all) seemed hurried and unsatisfying. I’m glad I read Why Call Them Back from Heaven?, but it doesn’t meet the bar I felt Simak set in Fellowship of the Talisman and A Choice of Gods. It won’t stop me from seeking out more of his work, though.
July 6, 2015
Why Call Them Back from Heaven? by Clifford Simak was originally published in 1967. It’s a dystopian story with an interesting concept. Cryogenics has become a massive movement which nearly everybody participates in. Most people have their bodies frozen at the time of death in order to be revived at a later date. The Forever Center is in charge of this process and people who participate leave their wealth in the hands of Forever Center at the time of their death. Allowing the company to invest the money and use it to carry out research in order to make reviving all their patrons a reality. When the people are revived, Forever Center will return the money, but Forever Center hasn’t started reviving people yet. Instead, it has become the dominate economic force on the globe and the de facto owner of every government on the planet.
I found the concept of this book very interesting, but it did let me down a little bit. There are two parallel plots in the book, an action-adventure type plot following Daniel Frost � the man in charge of PR at Forever Center who gets charged with a crime he didn’t commit for accidentally uncovering something he shouldn’t have � and a metaphysical type plot which deals with some of the philosophical ramifications of life in this dystopian future. I liked the world building and the metaphysical plot was interesting; unfortunately I thought the action-adventure plot was kind of boring and forced. The resolution of this plot line was very strange as well, and not at all what I was expecting. An interesting idea, but the execution of the story fell flat for me.
For more of my science fiction and fantasy book reviews check out my blog:
I found the concept of this book very interesting, but it did let me down a little bit. There are two parallel plots in the book, an action-adventure type plot following Daniel Frost � the man in charge of PR at Forever Center who gets charged with a crime he didn’t commit for accidentally uncovering something he shouldn’t have � and a metaphysical type plot which deals with some of the philosophical ramifications of life in this dystopian future. I liked the world building and the metaphysical plot was interesting; unfortunately I thought the action-adventure plot was kind of boring and forced. The resolution of this plot line was very strange as well, and not at all what I was expecting. An interesting idea, but the execution of the story fell flat for me.
For more of my science fiction and fantasy book reviews check out my blog:
April 6, 2023
3.9
Parts of this are possibly Simak at peak clunky, and the dialogue can be very expository, but the premise is fantastic. The larger narrative and themes explored elevate this above its shortcomings.
On initial reading, I think I was thrown by the structure of the novel, how it bounces between different perspectives that don't necessarily have a larger part to play in the story. Going in with a better understanding of their thematic role made for a better experience. The representation of gender and technology is dated, but this is a small thing in contrast to the big questions Simak asks: the nature of faith and the capacity for the spiritual to survive in a world where flesh may obtain a premature immortality.
What role does an afterlife play in a world where physical existence need not be terminated? What encouragement can a man of faith give to a convicted man who has been denied his right to a second physical existence? What value does that faith have when the religious too invest in the promise of a physical immortality? What value does the first life hold, when its entire focus becomes a preparation for eternity? And is our notion of eternity as real and secure as we think it is?
The main narrative "wrap-up" feels pulled straight out of an old b movie, sickly quaint and convenient with a romance begging soft filter and melodramatic strings. But the closing chapter, the "true" ending, is a haunting reflection on an unresolved question. The matter of faith and the search for truth.
Parts of this are possibly Simak at peak clunky, and the dialogue can be very expository, but the premise is fantastic. The larger narrative and themes explored elevate this above its shortcomings.
On initial reading, I think I was thrown by the structure of the novel, how it bounces between different perspectives that don't necessarily have a larger part to play in the story. Going in with a better understanding of their thematic role made for a better experience. The representation of gender and technology is dated, but this is a small thing in contrast to the big questions Simak asks: the nature of faith and the capacity for the spiritual to survive in a world where flesh may obtain a premature immortality.
What role does an afterlife play in a world where physical existence need not be terminated? What encouragement can a man of faith give to a convicted man who has been denied his right to a second physical existence? What value does that faith have when the religious too invest in the promise of a physical immortality? What value does the first life hold, when its entire focus becomes a preparation for eternity? And is our notion of eternity as real and secure as we think it is?
The main narrative "wrap-up" feels pulled straight out of an old b movie, sickly quaint and convenient with a romance begging soft filter and melodramatic strings. But the closing chapter, the "true" ending, is a haunting reflection on an unresolved question. The matter of faith and the search for truth.
September 24, 2015
A somewhat underdeveloped effort by Simak, but darker in theme than the other books I have read by him, more serious and prescient, in which dead have all been frozen with the promise of a future regeneration when society can support them, but do the living really want them back?
Daniel Frost works at the Forever Centre, the corporation responsible for the preserving of the bodies of the dead. By accident he discovers some dark secrets and has to go on the run from the authorities and his own employers, finding refuge with a militant underclass that want to expose the folly and greed behind the dream of forever.
The story is reminiscent of some previous classics of the genre, such as The Time Machine and Brave New world, but it has some original features to it that could be buffed up a little and still considered fairly novel today.
The same cannot be said of the characters though, they are most certainly from a time before the cultural revolution of the late sixties.
Simak is certainly a better writer than most of the science fiction authors that straddled the golden and silver ages, managing to keep the pulp fiction weaknesses of his contemporaries in check to some degree.
He also has a certain quirkiness which has brought me back to him time and again.
Daniel Frost works at the Forever Centre, the corporation responsible for the preserving of the bodies of the dead. By accident he discovers some dark secrets and has to go on the run from the authorities and his own employers, finding refuge with a militant underclass that want to expose the folly and greed behind the dream of forever.
The story is reminiscent of some previous classics of the genre, such as The Time Machine and Brave New world, but it has some original features to it that could be buffed up a little and still considered fairly novel today.
The same cannot be said of the characters though, they are most certainly from a time before the cultural revolution of the late sixties.
Simak is certainly a better writer than most of the science fiction authors that straddled the golden and silver ages, managing to keep the pulp fiction weaknesses of his contemporaries in check to some degree.
He also has a certain quirkiness which has brought me back to him time and again.
September 7, 2016
Simak writes a strange tale of an America that has discovered how to bring bodies back to life. At least a private company claims to have unlatched this secret. As a result people are pouring all their resources and savings into a place to store their frozen body in order to be "resurrected" in a better future. The problem is that they are destroying their present one for the sake of what may or may not be.
There are questions: Is it true? How do we know? And even if it is true, what is this future world going to do with all these bodies? How about the millions of bodies stored in third world countries who face hunger, poverty, and other deprivation? Will they not simply reawake to another lifetime of the same predicament?
Then there are the Religious Ones. Why continue in a sinful, corrupt world when one can die and live forever in Paradise with God? Who wants to spend eternity in a fallen world?
For the rest of the review cut and paste the link to my blog post:
There are questions: Is it true? How do we know? And even if it is true, what is this future world going to do with all these bodies? How about the millions of bodies stored in third world countries who face hunger, poverty, and other deprivation? Will they not simply reawake to another lifetime of the same predicament?
Then there are the Religious Ones. Why continue in a sinful, corrupt world when one can die and live forever in Paradise with God? Who wants to spend eternity in a fallen world?
For the rest of the review cut and paste the link to my blog post:
September 29, 2009
Simak, again one of my favorites and an un-sung classic sci-fi writer, produced a short novel that is high on concept, low on plot. It's really a glimpse at a world where a type of immortality has been made possible, with some sort-of mystery plot in the middle of it. The resolution of the big mystery takes only two pages and is honestly less interesting then the plight of the hermit who keeps trying to rebuild a cross he buries in the sand. It's a good, quick read to get you thinking.
July 25, 2018
★★★☆� (3/5)
A selection of my favourite passages from the book
Aphorisms
� It had solitude, all right, but it had little else.
� Memories don't run that long or bitter.
� There is no way of winning. But our conscience tells us that we must bear witness.
� "You take faith," Frost said, "and make a virtue of it. A virtue of not knowing�"
� Hell, that's all we're doing—filling up the hours.
� Man had fled from this land and now it should be left alone, it should be allowed to rest from man's long tenancy.
� There was never more than one way and now it doesn't work.
Humanity & the Self
� Standing there, he wrestled with his conscience and tried to look into his soul and into the immutable mystery of that area which stretched beyond his soul, and which still remained illusive of any understanding. And there was still no insight and there was no answer, as there had never been an answer.
� And I further contend that in any mechanical contrivance there is one lacking quality essential to all justice—the sense of mercy and of human worth.
� The newsmen sat in the front row seats, watching for the slightest flicker of emotion, for the tiny gesture of significance, for the slightest crumb upon which to build a story.
� And he knew it was this woman sitting in the room who gave it warmth and light, but a dying warmth and light, like the warmth and light given off by a dying fire. In time, when she had left, once the memory had worn thin, the room again would become cold and dingy, as it had been before.
� It was too nice a night, he told himself, to go back into his room. But even as he told it to himself, he knew that it was not the beauty of the night, for here, in this ramshackle neighborhood, there was nothing that held any claim to beauty. It was not, he knew, the attractiveness of the night that had turned him back, but a strange reluctance to go back into the room. Wait a while, perhaps, and its emptiness might wear off a little, or his memory might become slightly dulled so that he could accept the emptiness the better.
� He had fled from people. He had turned his back on life. He had come to this place where he'd be safe from both life and people. But the world intrudes even so, he thought, in the form of a man paddling a canoe up and down the river
� Once you've touched reality, once you've felt the reality of the naked land, once you've lived with dawn and sunset�
� And lost causes. She was a sucker for lost causes, an inevitable and unremitting champion of misfortune. And what had it gotten her?
� And that is right, he thought. We are we? A mere dot of consciousness that stood up in arrogance against the vastness and the coldness and the emptiness and the uncaring of the universe? A thing (a thing?) that thought it mattered when it did not matter? A tiny, flickering ego that imagined the universe revolved around it—imagined this when the universe did not know that it existed, nor cared that it existed?
� She had fled, not to protect herself, but to protect the world. She walked the lonely road because she could not bear to let mankind know it had been wrong for almost two centuries.
� Cautiously, he straightened up and fear touched one corner of his brain, whispering a suspicion of what had caused the pain.
� There was no sign that he was aware of her and her heart welled up with pity at the sight of him, for there was about him a lostness and an emptiness that robbed existence of all meaning.
Faith & Science
� There were times, on stormy mornings, when the view was cut off by the clouds that swirled about its top, but on a clear morning such as this the great slab of masonry went up and up until its topmost stories were lost in the blue haze of the sky. A man grew dizzy looking at it and the mind reeled at the thought of what the hand of man had raised.
� Hurry and huddle—hurry so that one could gather all the assets he could manage, then huddle in his idle time so that he would not spend a single penny of those assets.
� Could he seek for a spiritual eternity while he still clung to the promise of a physical eternity?
� With cars powered by longlife storage batteries, there was no longer any need of service stations.
� We either colonize other planets or we build satellite cities out in space or we turn the earth into one huge apartment house—or we may have to do all these things. Time was the easy way, of course. That's why Forever Center was so interested�
� They dug into the fact and the purpose of the universe and to do this they developed mathematics that they used not only to support their logic but as logic tools.
� And that kind of thinking, he told himself, could have been justified at one time. But not any longer. Not if what Mona Campbell said was true. For if what she said was true, then each little flickering ego was a basic part of the universe and a fundamental expression of the purpose of the universe.
� Would there be no end to it? he asked himself. Would there ever be an end? Was there no limit to the debasement that a man must heap upon himself?
� And in that awful moment he knew that he had lost, that he was wanting in that essential capacity for humility that would unlock the gates of understanding he had sought so earnestly and, now it seemed apparent, priced at a cost too high—a cost that his basic brute humanity would never let him pay.
A selection of my favourite passages from the book
Aphorisms
� It had solitude, all right, but it had little else.
� Memories don't run that long or bitter.
� There is no way of winning. But our conscience tells us that we must bear witness.
� "You take faith," Frost said, "and make a virtue of it. A virtue of not knowing�"
� Hell, that's all we're doing—filling up the hours.
� Man had fled from this land and now it should be left alone, it should be allowed to rest from man's long tenancy.
� There was never more than one way and now it doesn't work.
Humanity & the Self
� Standing there, he wrestled with his conscience and tried to look into his soul and into the immutable mystery of that area which stretched beyond his soul, and which still remained illusive of any understanding. And there was still no insight and there was no answer, as there had never been an answer.
� And I further contend that in any mechanical contrivance there is one lacking quality essential to all justice—the sense of mercy and of human worth.
� The newsmen sat in the front row seats, watching for the slightest flicker of emotion, for the tiny gesture of significance, for the slightest crumb upon which to build a story.
� And he knew it was this woman sitting in the room who gave it warmth and light, but a dying warmth and light, like the warmth and light given off by a dying fire. In time, when she had left, once the memory had worn thin, the room again would become cold and dingy, as it had been before.
� It was too nice a night, he told himself, to go back into his room. But even as he told it to himself, he knew that it was not the beauty of the night, for here, in this ramshackle neighborhood, there was nothing that held any claim to beauty. It was not, he knew, the attractiveness of the night that had turned him back, but a strange reluctance to go back into the room. Wait a while, perhaps, and its emptiness might wear off a little, or his memory might become slightly dulled so that he could accept the emptiness the better.
� He had fled from people. He had turned his back on life. He had come to this place where he'd be safe from both life and people. But the world intrudes even so, he thought, in the form of a man paddling a canoe up and down the river
� Once you've touched reality, once you've felt the reality of the naked land, once you've lived with dawn and sunset�
� And lost causes. She was a sucker for lost causes, an inevitable and unremitting champion of misfortune. And what had it gotten her?
� And that is right, he thought. We are we? A mere dot of consciousness that stood up in arrogance against the vastness and the coldness and the emptiness and the uncaring of the universe? A thing (a thing?) that thought it mattered when it did not matter? A tiny, flickering ego that imagined the universe revolved around it—imagined this when the universe did not know that it existed, nor cared that it existed?
� She had fled, not to protect herself, but to protect the world. She walked the lonely road because she could not bear to let mankind know it had been wrong for almost two centuries.
� Cautiously, he straightened up and fear touched one corner of his brain, whispering a suspicion of what had caused the pain.
� There was no sign that he was aware of her and her heart welled up with pity at the sight of him, for there was about him a lostness and an emptiness that robbed existence of all meaning.
Faith & Science
� There were times, on stormy mornings, when the view was cut off by the clouds that swirled about its top, but on a clear morning such as this the great slab of masonry went up and up until its topmost stories were lost in the blue haze of the sky. A man grew dizzy looking at it and the mind reeled at the thought of what the hand of man had raised.
� Hurry and huddle—hurry so that one could gather all the assets he could manage, then huddle in his idle time so that he would not spend a single penny of those assets.
� Could he seek for a spiritual eternity while he still clung to the promise of a physical eternity?
� With cars powered by longlife storage batteries, there was no longer any need of service stations.
� We either colonize other planets or we build satellite cities out in space or we turn the earth into one huge apartment house—or we may have to do all these things. Time was the easy way, of course. That's why Forever Center was so interested�
� They dug into the fact and the purpose of the universe and to do this they developed mathematics that they used not only to support their logic but as logic tools.
� And that kind of thinking, he told himself, could have been justified at one time. But not any longer. Not if what Mona Campbell said was true. For if what she said was true, then each little flickering ego was a basic part of the universe and a fundamental expression of the purpose of the universe.
� Would there be no end to it? he asked himself. Would there ever be an end? Was there no limit to the debasement that a man must heap upon himself?
� And in that awful moment he knew that he had lost, that he was wanting in that essential capacity for humility that would unlock the gates of understanding he had sought so earnestly and, now it seemed apparent, priced at a cost too high—a cost that his basic brute humanity would never let him pay.
August 20, 2017
funny to read, but intellectually dull as if Trump wrote it by arrranging randomly his tweets into novell.
Character says hes afraind of winter but then leaving town heads north.
Also girl solves meaning of life but then dont want to go public for fear of offending some people.
What kind of utter bullshit is that?
Character says hes afraind of winter but then leaving town heads north.
Also girl solves meaning of life but then dont want to go public for fear of offending some people.
What kind of utter bullshit is that?
February 26, 2018
Simak posits a future society that institutes a universal guarantee of cryonic preservation at death which he uses to create a somewhat standard-issue dystopia where those not subscribing to the dominant paradigm are marginalized or criminalized.
There are some interesting ideas about the technical and financial aspects of this scheme, but none are rigorously examined. The mechanics and logistics of the large scale cryonic project depicted are not examined in any great detail, with questions such as the continuous power supply needed being unmentioned. I found it difficult to credit the idea that practically all citizens would consent to hoarding savings in order to finance their “second lives� after resuscitation - which they have been assured will occur only when a formula for physical immortality has been developed. Similarly, while Simak touches on some of the philosophical aspects of his idea � a major group of dissenters are “the Holies� who adhere to a belief system retaining aspects of the Christian afterlife - he does not explore how the technological promises offered by the Forever Center are apparently as “faith based� as any promise of supernatural salvation.
The protagonist Daniel Frost, as in , is an insider with the powers-that-be who loses his position and finds himself the lowest of outcasts. The main plot is a tale of corporate skullduggery and betrayal within the Forever Center, the corporate entity in charge of the cryonics operation; the plot is vaguely reminiscent of , and not particularly SF-dependent. SF concepts such as human juries replaced by computer and interstellar travel are thrown in without great elaboration - both of these developments would seem to be at least as society-altering as the cryonics issues, but the speculative focus is kept strictly on effect of the latter.
There are some interesting ideas about the technical and financial aspects of this scheme, but none are rigorously examined. The mechanics and logistics of the large scale cryonic project depicted are not examined in any great detail, with questions such as the continuous power supply needed being unmentioned. I found it difficult to credit the idea that practically all citizens would consent to hoarding savings in order to finance their “second lives� after resuscitation - which they have been assured will occur only when a formula for physical immortality has been developed. Similarly, while Simak touches on some of the philosophical aspects of his idea � a major group of dissenters are “the Holies� who adhere to a belief system retaining aspects of the Christian afterlife - he does not explore how the technological promises offered by the Forever Center are apparently as “faith based� as any promise of supernatural salvation.
The protagonist Daniel Frost, as in , is an insider with the powers-that-be who loses his position and finds himself the lowest of outcasts. The main plot is a tale of corporate skullduggery and betrayal within the Forever Center, the corporate entity in charge of the cryonics operation; the plot is vaguely reminiscent of , and not particularly SF-dependent. SF concepts such as human juries replaced by computer and interstellar travel are thrown in without great elaboration - both of these developments would seem to be at least as society-altering as the cryonics issues, but the speculative focus is kept strictly on effect of the latter.
August 16, 2021
This 1967 novel by Science Fiction Grand Master Clifford D. Simak takes on the matter of immortality. The idea is that the quest of medical and biological sciences has always been physical immortality. Simak contrasts this thematically with the immortality offered by religion through the afterlife. Two hundred years in the future, the science of cryonics has become one big world-wide monopoly gobbling the entire economy. Just about everyone wants a chance at immortality, to be frozen just before death in the hope of resurrection later. The Forever Center controls the entire enterprise. So desperate are the people for immortality that they turn over virtually their entire income to the Forever Center, which promises them that their fortunes will be there for them when they are revived in the form of "stock" that they have purchased from the Forever Center. However, the Forever Center has yet to find that golden path to immortality, "still working on it." They do realize, however, that all those revived people will create a massive population problem, so they have turned their efforts into finding space for all those people, by either terraforming Earthlike planets (which takes a long time) or by inventing time travel and colonizing the past. This is merely the background in which the story operates. The main story itself is a kind of Hitchcock thriller in which middle manager at the Forever Center Dan Frost accidentally sees a piece of paper that he does not know reveals a fraud within the company. Those who want to keep the fraud concealed, mainly head of security Marcus Appleton, concoct a plot to disgrace Frost so they can extract the piece of paper from him and then kill him without anyone really noticing or caring. Frost becomes a man on the run, eventually reduced to nothing, naked in the wilderness, seemingly without friends or resources. It's an entertaining enough read. The trouble for me is that the main plot does not have a strong enough connection to the themes Simak wants to explore. Frost's dilemma is a side matter that does not interrogate the question of whether immortality is worth what people are willing to pay for it. Therefore, Simak has to write a few side vignettes that more directly address the themes of his premise. There are some other typical Simak touches. For example, there is a sojourn in the Wisconsin wilderness, men peacefully fishing, the idea that time travel to the past is impossible, and the religious theme. I am not sure whether Simak was Catholic, but the religious touches tend in this direction. Simak definitely wants to argue that the pursuit of worldly immortality requires giving up the "true" immortality of the heavenly afterlife. However, Simak is never preachy about this, and in the fashion of many Catholic writers his spokespeople for the religious view are all themselves struggling with their faith, strongly tempted by the world and its promised rewards. This novel is the most religious in theme and dialogue of all Simak's work that I have read, including "Project Pope." For me, the problem of the novel is that he has chosen a main story that does not directly confront the issues he wants to make central.
January 23, 2020
Obviously, Why Call Them Back from Heaven? by Clifford D. Simak could’ve made a good first impression if the title is “Why Call Them Back from the Dead� or something more, edgy.
This story touches on the subject of religion and science. In terms of science, it is like the phrase: “Scientists always think what they could do, instead of what they shouldn’t do�. In this case, it is preserving someone’s life so they can be reincarnated again. Some religions believe in reincarnation. If you do good in life, you will be reincarnated to someone good, and so is vice versa.
But in this story, the society feels the world is as good as it is, so they don’t want to risk anymore “new people� to be born in their world. Hence, everyone started to save money to sign up for the preservation service. However, they had to make a deal that when they start their second life, they no longer feel as a human. It’s tricky and confusing, but that’s how the story goes.
This story touches on the subject of religion and science. In terms of science, it is like the phrase: “Scientists always think what they could do, instead of what they shouldn’t do�. In this case, it is preserving someone’s life so they can be reincarnated again. Some religions believe in reincarnation. If you do good in life, you will be reincarnated to someone good, and so is vice versa.
But in this story, the society feels the world is as good as it is, so they don’t want to risk anymore “new people� to be born in their world. Hence, everyone started to save money to sign up for the preservation service. However, they had to make a deal that when they start their second life, they no longer feel as a human. It’s tricky and confusing, but that’s how the story goes.
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