Immortality, Inc. by Robert Sheckley

I almost never read science fiction, but one of the good things about the Audible Plus catalogue is that I can explore all manner of books that I probably wouldn’t race to pay money for or have taking up shelf space. And at some point I stumbled across Robert Sheckley’s 1959 novel Immortality, Inc. and added it to my downloads – and listened to it last week.

From the Wikipedia page (and, indeed, the fact that the novel has a Wikipedia page at all), I get the impression that Immortality, Inc. is well-known in certain circles. I was drawn to it because time travel is one of the bits of sci-fi that I find fascinating, and the title made me think of Paul Gallico’s intriguing novel The Foolish Immortals, about a scam to fool people into thinking they have immortality.

At first, Thomas Blaine doesn’t have immortality – he simply has his lifespan moved dramatically forward. The novel opens with a car crash in 1958 – his car careers out of control, the steering wheel comes off, and he is killed instantly – impaled on the steering column, which is quite the detail. But then he wakes up. It hasn’t been a dream – he’s just been in a coma.

At first, he is simply confused – and the medical staff, reporters, and business people around him are not providing any answers. It is more important that he answers their questions: about what he is experiencing, how he feels about it etc. It turns out that he is at the centre of a publicity campaign for the organisation that has made this time travel possible. Their priority is getting good footage of his awakening, rather than explaining what’s going on.

What’s going is that it’s 2110. Sheckley gradually introduces us to the changes that have taken place over 150 years – some of which are quite dispiriting. One of the first things Blaine sees is a long queue, and he thinks he ought to join it, but soon realises it is a line for a suicide booth.

In 2110, thoughts about what being alive means have changed significantly, as have the corresponding scientific abilities. Blaine is living in a body that belonged to somebody else, a strong and muscular young man, and he quickly finds that there is a trade for bodies. Minds are transferred between bodies, either from people who willingly choose to die or from people who are trafficked. Then there are zombies, who occupy bodies that are about to die.

Where does the immortality come in? That is the afterlife – something that has been scientifically proved, but which is only entered naturally with a one-in-a-million chance. Otherwise you have to buy your way in. Inequality hasn’t disappeared. Quite the opposite.

It’s curious, given the whole scope of human imagination that Sheckley could have developed, that he is most fixated on mortality. There are scenes where Sheckley has to fight for his life, where his mind or body are at risk of being stolen, where he needs to kill others. It does all give a (literal) vitality to the novel that would have been lost if it were crammed instead with fanciful scientific inventions that have no real urgency. Perhaps that’s why this novel appeals to this sci-fi sceptic – because it is about the essentials of life, and the trappings of a fictional future don’t get in the way of that too much.

Oh, and there’s a romance plot. Because of course there is.

It’s interesting to read a novel written in the 1950s about the 2110s. We are still closer to the 1950s, but of course a lot of time has passed since Sheckley wrote his futuristic vision. Some details about 2110 thus seem amusingly old-fashioned – and not just references to Abyssinia and Ceylon. Of course, he couldn’t have been expected to come up with the idea of the internet, but the modes of communication and broadcast feel more 1950s than any decade since.

Overall, I really enjoyed Immortality, Inc. At the heart of it is a confused man trying to work out what’s going on, and that’s usually a good vehicle for a reader who is also confused and trying to work it out. We can share his fascination, both amused and horrified in turn, and there is a pleasing simplicity to the survival dramas he undergoes. Naturally I won’t spoil the conclusion, but it ties up the narrative neatly and makes sense of various parts of the plot that seemed a little odd along the way.

I don’t think it has tempted me to dive headfirst into science fiction, but I enjoyed my sojourn there.