Immortality, Inc. by Robert Sheckley
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

This humorous SF novel from 1959 is notable for its cavalier attitude to death. Of course, it makes a pretty standard case that society would naturally break down it there was no POINT to living, especially if you had set up your life insurance... :)

Yes. Life insurance is actually AFTERLIFE insurance. If you can afford the process, you too can live on and get yourself a new body.

Sound familiar, fans of Altered Carbon?

Of course, Sheckley goes into some of the more interesting aspects of this world, including hunting parties to give yourself a proper send-off, to insurance scams, to the whole fish-out-of-water storyline so commonplace in older SF, where we also must go through our own culture shock.

The novel may not be as sophisticated as many modern novels, but it IS a lightly humorous adventure, not an all-out social commentary that skewers everything it touches. And that's just fine. :) I still had a good time even if I rolled my eyes at some of the assumptions and story cliches. After all, it WAS 1959. Dames and Gents always seemed to always find those super-standard roles. lol

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