The Fountains of Youth [Hardcover]

Brian Stableford (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: May 5, 2000

This is a science fiction novel of enormous scope and ambition, filled with wonders that expands Brian Stableford's on-going future history series. Hundreds of years in the future, further ahead than the settings of Inherit the Earth and Architects of Emortality, Mortimer Gray is born into a world where he can potentially live forever.

But after a traumatic natural disaster that kills millions, Gray devotes the next five hundred years of his life to the study of death and its effects on human civilization, viewed from a post-death perspective. Through it all we see the broad, large-scale accumulation of change and the growth of humanity on Earth and out to the stars as Gray experiences his boundless lifetime.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Credibly written but lacking in emotional range, this third installment in Stableford's Living in the Future series imagines a time when most humans--nearly immortal--aren't much preoccupied with the subject of death. Born more than five centuries ago, in 2520, Mortimer Gray is an emortal, a sturdy genetic composite who was raised in the Himalayas by the standard group of eight adults. These days, unlike most of his contemporaries, Gray--who long ago discovered his potential mortality when he barely survived a massive underwater volcanic eruption--is obsessed with death, and in fact has undertaken a massive study of how human's ideas about it have affected history. Well before completing the work, several centuries and nine volumes later, he became both famous as a popular scholar and notorious as an influence on the Thanaticists, militant believers in keeping death a part of the human condition to the point of organizing ritual suicides and creating "recreational diseases." (Meanwhile, Gray's world has remained in flux--experiments are turning humans into cyborgs or genetically altered beings with four hands; interstellar probes have encountered intelligent aliens.) Gray is in some ways a fine narrator, able to reflect on the events circling around him with a historian's critical eye--but because he's rather detached, it's hard to get involved in his story. Moreover, Stableford has written much of this book as if he was composing a literary essay (complete with excessive foreshadowing)--which makes reading it a bit of a chore. (May)
Copyright 2000 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From Library Journal

When Mortimer Gray, one of the first "emortals"--humans transformed into a state of near immortality--narrowly escapes a planetary disaster that kills millions of people, he decides to undertake a massive study of the history of death--a process that carries him through 500 years of his own life. This latest novel by the author of Inherit the Earth is less a plot-driven story than a grand meditation on the state of human mortality. Thoughtful without being grim, this leisurely tale of one man's lifelong quest belongs in most sf collections.
Copyright 2000 Reed Business Information, Inc.

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 352 pages
• Publisher: Tor Books; 1st edition (May 5, 2000)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0312872062
• ISBN-13: 978-0312872069
• Product Dimensions: 9 x 6 x 1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.4 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 4.2 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (4 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,478,078 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

19 of 20 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars thought-provoking science fiction, April 23, 2000

By 

Harriet Klausner - See all my reviews
(#1 Hall OF FAME REVIEWER)    (TOP 1000 REVIEWER)    (REAL NAME)   

This review is from: The Fountains of Youth (Hardcover)

The Emortals that the human race has evolved into wonder why Mortimer Gray would write his epic tome, "The History of Death". It is to answer that question that he has posed to himself that has led Mr. Gray to write this autobiography of his five centuries of life.

Mortimer was born in 2520 with nothing in his background to suggest he would become so famous for the epic work that has shaken humanity. In 2535, Mortimer climbs a Tibetan mountain where he meets world leader Julius Ngomi inside an ancient ruin. Julius explains that the dead past resides side by side with the Emortals. Not too long after that encounter, Mortimer tastes but survives death due to a shipwreck that shows that mankind may have defeated aging and disease, but accidents can still kill. Mortimer becomes obsessed with the way the past coped with death and begins his treatise that leads to many fringe groups claiming him as their guru and chronicler.

THE FOUNTAINS OF YOUTH is a deep, thought-provoking science fiction tale that is not for everyone. Fans who enjoy action at the rate of "Stars Wars" need to pass on this tale. However, those readers who gain pleasure from a cerebral, philosophic futuristic look at mankind will relish this novel. Written more like an autobiography than a novel, Brian Stableford demonstrates his abilities to paint a distant future that raises questions about the present.

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Stableford gets better and better, January 25, 2003

By 

"sdixonsf" - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Fountains of Youth (Paperback)

I always thought Stableford was an enjoyable writer, but with his future history, he has rapidly turned into one of my all-time favorite SF writers.
As with many of the other volumes of his future history (Inherit the Earth, Architects of Emortality, The Cassandra Complex), the Fountains of Youth is an expansion of an earlier novella (in this case "Mortimer Gray's History of Death"). The novella was good, but this expanded version is stunning.
The narrator, Mortimer Gray, is one of the first human children to receive a new immortality treatment. Although his parents and many previous generations have had access to many life expanding techniques, Mortimer is one of the first children who can look forward to (barring accident) virtual immortality (called emortality by Stableford). Ironically, Mortimer becomes obsessed with the subject of Death, and decides to spend his life writing the definitve academic history of Death. As he pursues his obsession over the centuries, we see through his eyes a fascinating possible future for humanity.
All of the novels in Stableford's future history are entirely independent of each other, although it might be helpful to read any one of the earlier books to have a hint of the background for this novel.

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars An Excellent Future History, May 26, 2006

By 

L33tminion (Somerville, MA, USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Fountains of Youth (Hardcover)

What happens to society when the natural patterns of birth and death are replaced with artificial ones? What happens when, barring accident or misadventure, people can be expected to live virtually forever?

"The Fountains of Youth" is a fictional autobiography of Mortimer Grey, one of the first "true emmortals". The book follows the life of Mortimer as he develops his interest in history and writes his magnum opus, a comprehensive analysis of the war against death.

While the book has little high adventure and the ending is a bit weak, this vivid and thought-provoking portrayal of a future society makes for an excellent read.