The Immortal

At TechCrunch's 2015 "Disrupt NY" conference, Bill Maris, managing partner at Google ventures, spoke about his quest to extend human lifespan through Google Ventures' investments in longevity technology. Maris wanted to fund start-ups that would make living to 500 and beyond a reality. "Part of it," he told Bloomberg's Katrina Brooker, "is that it is better to live than to die."

Is it? I asked myself. My science fiction writer's imagination couldn't let that assumption go by unquestioned. Don't get me wrong. I want to live a long time. But for 500-plus years? I don't know. Longevity technology raises some interesting, and unaddressed, questions. Will everyone benefit from the technology, rich and poor? And if all do, what do we do with all the people on an already overcrowded planet? What would still interest a person after a few centuries of life? Can human love last for centuries? How would the young feel about having so many super-centennials around? Is human nature built to last for 500 years?

Set a century from now, The Immortal looks at these questions through the story of a love triangle loosely based on the tale Cyrano de Bergerac. In it, human longevity technology plays against human evolution, two ways of beating death. One man-made, the other nature's way.

About the Cover: The image of the red-headed woman was created by Jun'ichiro Seyama using Average Face for iPhone. It is an "average" of 12 red-headed women and represents a kind of everywoman. The photo of the Australopithecus afarensis skull is from the Museum of Natural History, Basel (Switzerland). Both are used under the Creative Commons licenses.