The Immortals (Bantam SF, J2484)

by James E. Gunn

Book Overview

What is the price of immortality? For nomad Marshall Cartwright, the price is knowing that he will never grow old. That he will never contract a disease, an infection, or even a cold. That because he... This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Mass Market Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: B000GR75PU
• Release Date: January 1962
• Publisher: Bantam Books
• Weight: 0.25 lbs.

Customer Reviews

Thoughtful medical theamed SF story

An emergency blood transfusion from a nameless donor results in bodily rejuvenation and immortality. The donor and his progeny go underground while a syndicate funded by malevolent oldsters attempts to locate the supply of blood. Author Gunn's crisp writing style, reasonably believable subject matter and attention to character development resurrects this book from premature obscurity. This novel, first published in 1962, consists of four related stories fixed-up as a novel. The titles of the stories are, in the order published, "New Blood", "Donor", "Medic" and "Immortal". This was a noteworthy novel in its time. It was the source for an "ABC Movie of The Week" in 1969 and a 1970 television series "The Immortal".

A Bleak Future

The Immortals is a novel about the search for immortality and the corruption it was bound to engender. Marshall Cartwright sells a pint of his 'type O negative' blood (sounds like a band name or something, doesn't it?) to a blood bank for a fifty dollar bounty. Later, his blood is given to a dying eighty year old billionaire, Leroy Weaver, who not only miraculously makes a full recovery but loses years in a matter of hours until he appears to be in his twenties. Much to everybody's chagrin the change is temporary and Weaver is back to his original state in forty days (enough time for the donated blood to wash out of the body). Weaver's doctor, Dr. Russell Pearce, figures out what happened and traced the blood back to the transient Cartwright, whom he figures out to be immortal. Thus begins the greatest manhunt in the history of the world. A foundation is set up by the world's wealthiest and most influential elders, lasting almost a century, whose main task is to track down Cartwright and or his descendants, with a secondary purpose of funding research for the synthesis of Cartwright's blood globulin. The Immortals was written in the fifties and has been updated with the twenty-first century technology. The story covers a period in excess of a hundred years in five parts. It sometimes seems disjointed and that may be because the book is an assemblage of related short stories that the author, James, over fifty years ago. Overall I found the book a little hard to follow, especially Part IV "The Medic" which was fairly confusing at first. The novel purports a future in which the medical establishment effectively takes over the economy of the world, sometimes in direct conflict with established and renegade governments. With each succeeding part, the world degenerates more into a Mad Max style anarchy, with roving gangs and marauders, street wise poor, fortified estates for the elite and local governments, (sometimes the same thing) and lastly the Citadel like Hospitals, sometimes covering several square miles in area, usually within the most dangerous urban areas. There are some even more gruesome parts like when someone defaults on a prohibitively expensive Health Contract, they are taken into custody and put on life support and kept alive in a harvesting warehouse, where their bodies are harvested for body parts. Also, their seems to be two types of roving gangs - head hunters which kill and take heads for a bounty or body snatchers, (my term) where they capture humans alive to use for body parts for an even larger bounty. Conclusion This book certainly paints a dreary picture for the future. I wouldn't be surprised if it was the inspiration for doomsday movies like the aforementioned Mad Max/Road Warrior, A boy and his Dog, The Postman and Waterworld. We never get to meet the Immortal Marshall Cartwright but we do get to meet three of his female descendants. The protagonist of the story seems to be Dr. Russell Pearce, who keeps popping up t