Why Call Them Back from Heaven? by Clifford D. Simak
I read this as part of my ongoing investigation of life extension in science fiction. In this book's future, everyone is frozen upon death; the society hasn't figured out resurrection yet, but they're sure that bit is coming.
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Published: 1967 Acquired: October 2021 Read: November 2021 |
What really works are the novel's various ideas about how society would change around such a development. People live very frugally, saving all their money for the second life; preventing someone from being frozen, even inadvertently, is a crime because you're essentially killing them; investors buy swampland because they know the Earth will need tons of room for all these people upon resurrection so even worthless land ought to have value.
It's very 1950s/60s sf: kind of off-kilter, a dose of spiritualism, a lot of discussion of marketing, an ending that doesn't quite come together. We follow a group of parallel characters in this future society, but I felt like their stories petered out in the end. Simak had great worldbuilding, but I am not entirely convinced he really knew what the book was about thematically.
It is short, and probably would be pretty fun to teach in my putative course, but hasn't been in print since 1988! There's an ebook from Gollancz, but you can only get it in the UK.
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