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Simak, Clifford D.
WHY CALL THEM BACK FROM HEAVEN?
book-date: 1967
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GRADING:
Ace (SF Special; H-42)
1968
1st
Paperback
Leo & Diane Dillon
.60
Good

Clifford D. Simak: Why Call Them Back from Heaven? -
(Here's the summary from the flap-copy of the first hardcover):
"Forever Center is dedicated to the purpose of endowing humanity with immortality, but the cost to each individual is phenomenal, and there is no guarantee there will be enough room on earth or in space for the millions that will be called back from their frozen graves. Aman called Ettinger started men thinking about a second mortal life as far back as 1964 and now in 2148 it is a reality and Daniel Frost is a key man in Forever Center. He denies himself any of the comforts and pleasures of this world to insure a place for himself in his next life, but he does not maintain that giving man immortality is tampering with the order of life - a viewpoint the Holies are constantly and fervently trying to expose as immoral and dangerous. Suddenly Dan finds himself the pawn of a vicious plot of subterfuge within the organization. He is ostracized and condemned to a life of hopeless and desperate wandering. He is not without help, however - Ann Harrison, a woman lawyer, knows of his innocence, and so does Franklin Chapman, a man condemned to death with no chance of a second life - both come to his aid at the risk of their own lives. And there is Mona Campbell - the woman mathematician whom Dan discovers has some shattering knowledge concerning immortality and the quest of Forever Center..."

(Excerpts from a review from Magazine of F&SF May 1967 - parts of which were used as the back-cover copy):
"Simak describes a rigid neo-puritan culture, a world of penny-pinching, body-saving, emotional isolationists, living as unremittingly for the Next Life as ever fundamentalist Christian did, because any man or woman who fails to provide an adequate investment sum to grow for him while he is frozen will be unable to compete in the re-awakened society... It is belief in the future that makes us capable of sacrifice; absolute belief in literal immortality, of whatever sort, makes us virtually incapable of non-sacrifice. The only free men in such a society are the outcasts. In the world of Forever Center, this means the rare criminals who have had a 'death sentence' and walk as living ghosts through the rest of their natural lives, aware that when they die, it will be for the last time, and forever; or those less finally cut off, who retain their right to a new life, but wear the brand of ostracism, so that they are unable to work in any way to prepare for the next world. From this base, Simak poses problems relevant to all concepts of immortality and the basic premises of most Western concepts of God." [-Judith Merril]