Immortality, Inc. [Hardcover]

Robert Sheckley (Author)

Product Details

• Hardcover
• Publisher: Bantam Books (1959)
• ASIN: B0014BUVDU
• Average Customer Review: 3.4 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (5 customer reviews)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

6 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars I think the previous review refers to a different book, April 7, 1999

By A Customer

This review is from: Immortality, Inc (Hardcover)

"Immortality, Inc." is Sheckley's first novel. It has some claim to being his best. For the best part of the 1950s, Robert Sheckley bristled with ideas: he seemed to write a short story every other week, and very few of these fell flat. He wrote this novel in 1959, just as he was slowing down, and in many ways it's the apotheosis of his 50s writing style: slick, just as long as it needs to be, and a little flippant. There's also something serious behind the flippancy.

The story begins in the twentieth century, with the hero's death. He wakes up in 2110 where the afterlife and every aspect of a person's mental life is a marketable commodity - or so it seems at first. The hero has to survive in a very confusing world. This is a Sheckley trademark - one he handles more entertainingly than anyone else - and this is one of the very best bewildering futures he has created.

(I was, I should note, dissatisfied with the ending - not the ending of the story proper, but the tacked-on epilogue. You can forget about these few paragraphs. I did.)

If, by some chance, the previous reviewer is right, and this volume contains some of Sheckley's short stories as well, then it's even more worth getting. Consider yourself lucky.

7 of 11 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars The movie was better than the book., March 21, 2000

By 

"metallicutopia" (Las Vegas) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Immortality Inc. (Paperback)

This is a book that I read because I went and saw the movie "Freejack" starring Emilio Estavez, and Mick Jagger. The opening credits said that the movie was based on this book, and I liked the movie. By default, I thought that the book was better than the movie. It's possible that my expectations were way too high when I picked up the book in the first place. There were a few good parts in the book, but the ending was less than climactic. The book does pose an interesting question of how someone from our time would be able to survive in the next century if it was possible to transport there. The book definitely had a lot of potential; unfortunately, I just didn't find it that entertaining. I might have thought differently if I had read it when it first came out in the 1950's, but I wasn't alive yet. I can't really recommend it to anyone that looks for anything other than just the story of a guy trying to make it in the future, kind of like Buck Rogers, just without the lasers and spaceships.

1 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars A quick read, which will leave your memory quickly., March 7, 2011

By 

Adman (Athens, Greece) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Immortality Inc. (Paperback)

OK, I hate it when science fiction tries to handle the supernatural, even in a tongue in cheek Shecklean mode. So, I started reading Immortality INC with a prejudice. Things did not really improve with the time travel gimmick neither with the protagonists, especially the main female heroine. If one puts his nose inside the pages of this book or his Kindle, he can almost smell the wood her character is made of.

Also, something that has irritated me a lot of times with SF writers circa 1950 - 1960, is how lazy they were in their concept of a 22nd or 23rd century world. Their future worlds, more often than not, are a projection of the fifties, with submissive ladies, brave guys, implied sex and slide rules.

Having said what I hated, this is what I liked about Immortality INC: If you suspend your disbelief enough, you will find this universe plausible, regardless of the fifties tone of voice. Hereafter, zombies, and a society which has beaten death could have created some of the degenerate scenes, like for example the Hunting which is the best part of the novel.

Immortality INC is a quick read, which will leave your memory quickly. 2 ½ stars.