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Date: 02 Sep 90 02:45:36 EDT
From: Steve Bridge <>
To: KEVIN <>
Subject: CRYONICS updates/ book notes
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TO: Kevin

Hearing Update

     The hearing on the suit against the California Department of Health 
Services scheduled for August 23 has been postponed for one month. 
Apparently the judge in the case has been involved in another case and
has not had time to review all of the material in our situation.  These
delays are aggravating because this case is expected to establish the 
legality of cryonics in California, provide a basis for its regulation, 
and get certain bureaucrats off of our backs.  We can't complain too
much, though, since this particular judge has been quite fair with Alcor
so far.

     This will put the hearing in the same week in September (not the same
DAY, we hope) as the hearing on Thomas Donaldson's lawsuit.


Book Notes

     Some upcoming books to watch for:

     Due in September or October: THE GREAT MAMBO CHICKEN AND THE 
TRANSHUMAN CONDITION by Ed Regis, Addison-Wesley Pub., $18.95.  This is a 
somewhat tongue in cheek but supposedly accurate look at the fringes of 
science.  The emphasis is on those areas of the fringe that appear bizarre 
on the surface, but which actually have a sound scientific base.  It 
includes chapters on cryonics, nanotechnology, space colonization, uploading, 
and other topics of interest to most of us.  People like Keith Henson, Mike
Darwin, Eric Drexler, Paul Segall, and Hans Moravec are only a few of the
figures profiled in the book.

     _Booklist_ (a library review periodical) thought it was bizarre, but
well-written.  Dan Chow of _Locus_ (science fiction review publication)  
said, "The scientists, slightly mad or not, who are brought to us in these
pages are the stuff of legend.  The book is nothing less than _Rolling
Stone_ meets _Weird Science_.  It's great."

     Available now: QUEEN OF ANGELS by Greg Bear, Warner Books, $19.95.  
This is perhaps the best novel so far which deals in a believable way with 
nanotechnology and the changes it might cause.  If you want to get some idea 
of what it might be like to wake up in the future and be thrust into that 
world with no preparation, then read this book.  The language and culture 
are changed enough to provide plenty of emotional churning, but enough 
detail is left from the past to provide connections for you if you 
persevere.  The novel also contains an intriguing psychological murder 
mystery.  Not at all an easy book, but very rewarding.

     Due out in September, possibly only in Great Britain, another title
by Greg Bear.  HEADS, Century-Legend (0-7126-3671-1, L-8.99 hard cover;
0-7126-2174-1, L-4.99 trade paperback).  I'm giving you the book numbers
because this may hard to get in the United States unless you go to a 
specialty SF store or book importer.  This is a short novel about politics
on the moon, complicated by a (to quote the review in _Locus_ magazine) "job
lot of frozen heads bought from a bankrupt preservation society on Earth."
Note: Bear does not write sarcastic or cute stories.  This will be a serious
look at culture, politics, and identity and is sure to be extremely well
written.  It is reportedly set in the same universe as QUEEN OF ANGELS.  
(If you find a source for this, please let Alcor and I know.)

     Available now: THE DEATH OF SLEEP by Anne McCaffrey and Jody Lynn Nye.
Baen Books, $4.95 pb.  This is not one of McCaffrey's fantasies, but
instead a look at the adjustment problems of people who have been trapped
in cold sleep for 62 years after a disaster happens on their space ship.  
To again quote a review from _Locus_, "THE DEATH OF SLEEP paints an excellent
and humanistic portrait of a society that has to adjust to the physical 
returns of ancestors younger than themselves, and the re-adjustment and re-
education of those whose fields have changed utterly during the time they 
lost."  The rest of the review is very complimentary.

     Good reading to you.

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