#March2012

Paperback Orgy: Soul-Swapping, Suicide Booths, and Immortality Inc.

One of the joys of being into sci-fi is that the genre has such a rich history to draw from. Even if I quit my job, touched the monolith, took up speed, and did nothing but devour sci-fi books and movies 24/7, I’d never reach the end. It’s a beautiful and exciting thing – especially on the book shelf.   You can go into any thrift store in the world and pick up a sci-fi paperback of yore for a quarter or two. That’s a cheap price to pay for a window into our beloved genre’s history. I thrift for books a couple times a month to snatch up any sci-fi paperbacks I haven’t hoarded yet. Believe me when I say that there are enough used copies of Rendezvous With Rama out there to build a bridge across the Atlantic.

Paperback Orgy will hopefully be a semi-regular column in which I discuss a choice selection from my recent booty. For our inaugural post I want to talk about a book that’s been collecting dust on my shelves for a minute now: Robert Sheckley‘s 1959 comical tale of the soul and the shittiness of rich people…Immortality Inc.

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