Meme Update #17

In this issue:
    Interview with Richard Brodie
    New Journal of Memetics issue
    Book Review: The First Immortal by James L. Halperin

Interview with Richard Brodie

There is now RealAudio interview with me available on the web for your listening pleasure. You will need the RealAudio player, available for free download from http://www.real.com

Once you have the player installed, go to http://www.realvoices.com/ss/audio3files/hta05/hta05.ram to hear the interview.

New Journal of Memetics Issue

For hard-core memeticists, the new issue of the on-line Journal of Memetics is now available. See what progress is being made in the academic world in understanding memes. Go to http://www.cpm.mmu.ac.uk/jom-emit/1997/vol1/index.html#issue2

Book Review
The First Immortal
by James L. Halperin

You can tell right away that James L. Halperin's second novel is a winner if you flip to the back and see "Virus of the Mind" in his list of recommended reading. Any believable account of the future must be based on a solid understanding of what makes ideas spread. In this, Halperin succeeds.

The First Immortal is a shockingly believable account of a future in which people live essentially forever, thanks to cryonics (freezing one's body) and nanotechnology. As the likelihood of resuscitation from freezing grows, the idea of preserving one's body in hopes of eventual revival becomes less and less loony. I finished this book seriously thinking about getting myself frozen.

Halperin's writing has matured and you'll find The First Immortal as fast-paced as his first novel The Truth Machine but with considerably richer characters. An unapologetic optimist, he paints a scintillating utopian picture of the future - perhaps enough to launch the cryonics meme into full orbit.

You can order The First Immortal through the Amazon.com Memetics bookstore, http://www.memecentral.com/books.htm or by going directly to http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ISBN=0345420926/memecentralA/

All the best memes,

Richard Brodie