The Price of Immortality

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What to expect

An absorbing and revelatory journey into the American Way of defying death

As longevity medicine revolutionizes the lives of many older people, the quest to take the next step—to live as long as we choose—has spurred a scientific arms race in search of the elixir of life, funded by Big Tech and Silicon Valley.

Once the stuff of Mesopotamian mythology and episodes of Star Trek, the effort to make humans immortal is becoming increasingly credible as the pace of technological progress quickens. It has also empowered a wild-eyed fringe of pseudo-scientists, tech visionaries, scam artists, and religious fanatics who have given their lives over to the pursuit of immortality.

Starting off at the Church of Perpetual Life in Florida and exploring the feuding subcultures around the cryonics industry, Peter Ward immerses himself into an eccentric world of startups, scam artists, scientific institutions, and tech billionaires to deliver this deeply reported, nuanced, and sometimes very funny exploration of the race for immortality—and the potentially devastating consequences should humanity realize its ultimate dream.

Critics Review

  • “Obsession with longevity is nothing new, Ward notes, but as science has advanced, ‘immortalists were faced with a scenario most thought would never happen: they might be proved correct’…The writing is vivid and the author favors breadth over depth, making this a great intro to the topic…Those looking to get started on living forever would do well to begin here.”

    Publishers Weekly

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