A novel that mixes fact with fiction in a way that in some ways goes beyond conventional SF, but in other aspects is far too conservative for what we may now realistically expect well before the end of the 21st Century. A time is explored, several hundred years from now, when the clones of cryonicists frozen in the early 21st Century are empowered to make decisions about when their earlier twins are to be reanimated, and how this is to be done. The world, by then, is expected to have gone through many challenges. Aging has been "cured" and uploading minds into cybernetic forms is as yet a very controversal idea. Most humans are still biological. The world faces two cosmic disasters in a row. This story, as far reaching as it might seem, is nonetheless tame as compared with what we humans can actually expect over the next two or three decades. Think of this book as one for "children" who are going to have to "grow up" in a hurry as the Singularity of Ray Kurzweil takes place. This novel is a soft and comfortable way to prepare for the greater "future shock" which most humans will now appear to have to endure, prior to the Mid-21st Century
About the Author: Fred Chamberlain began his life at Fort Monroe, Virginia in 1935, shortly before World War II, when searchlights and listening horns were used to search for enemy aircraft in the skies. In 1958, after an education in electrical engineering, he first served as Electrical Division Officer aboard the USS Saratoga (CVA-60) and then spent five years in Navy bomb and nuclear weapons disposal, then transferring to the Air Force and performing R&D on optical fusing for hypervelocity reentry vehicles. After that, he spent ten+ years at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory with project team responsibilities in connection with Mariner '73 (Venus-Mercury), '79 Voyager, and other interplanetary space efforts. During the 1970's, the author and his partner Linda Chamberlain founded the Alcor Life Extension Foundation, oriented toward high-tech cryonics procedures. In 1976 his father became Alcor' first cryonics-suspendee, as well as the first of its neurosuspension patients. During the 1980's Fred and Linda wrote and published numerous cryonics and transhumanist short stories in seven collections titled "LifeQuest", now available as a consolidated volume on Amazon.com. In 1990, Linda 's mother was the focus of the most highly organized cryonics standby and suspension of that time. In the late 1990's, both Fred and Linda served at different times as Presidents of Alcor, a second time for both of them; at present both of them are deeply involved with the activities of the Terasem Movement, a leader in developments anticipated to enable humans to accomplish transfers of personal identity into cybernetic form with full self-consciousness and continuation of their lives in cyberspace. The fiction you may (now) choose to read, however far-reaching you might think it might be, pales in comparison to the reality that seems likely to now challenge Humanity before the midpoint of this century. Think of this book as one for "children" who are going to have to "grow up" in a hurry as the Singularity of Ray Kurzweil takes place.