Why Call Them Back From Heaven?

Name: Why Call Them Back From Heaven?
Brand: Tantor Audio
Availability: InStock
Author: Clifford D. Simak
ISBN: 9798855574463

Author: Clifford D. Simak

Narrator: Steve Menasche

Unabridged: 6 hr 48 min

Format: Digital Audiobook Download

Publisher: Tantor Media

Published: 09/10/2024

Categories: Fiction, Science Fiction, Action & Adventure

Synopsis

A corporation promising immortality hides a sinister secret in this "extremely provocative" sci-fi novel (Judith Merril, author and editor).

Since the dawn of mankind, immortality has been the ultimate reward. But by the year 2148, it requires no act of faith to believe in an afterlife. Forever Center promises to bring people back to a life beyond death. Now everyone spends their lives in poverty, giving all their money to Forever Center to ensure their happiness and comfort in the next eternal life.

Daniel Frost is a key man at Forever Center, but when he accidentally stumbles onto some classified documents, Dan incurs the wrath of an unseen enemy and is framed for a terrible crime. Now, his right to immortality has been revoked and he is a social outcast, condemned to the desperate life of a hunted animal. As a renegade lawyer and a brilliant mathematician attempt to help him, they reveal some shattering information about Forever Center . . . and the essence of life itself.

About Clifford D. Simak

During his fifty-five-year career, Clifford D. Simak produced some of the most iconic science fiction stories ever written. Born in 1904 on a farm in southwestern Wisconsin, Simak got a job at a small-town newspaper in 1929 and eventually became news editor of the Minneapolis Star-Tribune, writing fiction in his spare time.

Simak was best known for the book City, a reaction to the horrors of World War II, and for his novel Way Station. In 1953 City was awarded the International Fantasy Award, and in following years, Simak won three Hugo Awards and a Nebula Award. In 1977 he became the third Grand Master of the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America, and before his death in 1988, he was named one of three inaugural winners of the Horror Writers Association's Bram Stoker Award for Lifetime Achievement.

Reviews

Goodreads review by Sandy on May 21, 2015

Although the concept of cryogenically preserving the bodies of the living had been a trope of Golden Age science fiction from the 1930s and onward, it wasn't until New Jersey-born Robert Ettinger released his hardheaded book on the subject, 1962’s "The Prospect of Immortality," that the idea began t......more

Goodreads review by Craig on November 04, 2024

Simak had a penchant for trenchant and intriguing titles, and this novel from 1967 is an excellent example of that. I suspect it's from his experience as a long-time journalist assigning headlines to newspaper stories. It's the story of how immortality could affect the relation of science and religi......more

Goodreads review by David on July 09, 2015

Can science ever replace religion 8 February 2012 I first heard of this book when a friend at Adult College reviewed it for year 11 English and since then I have had a keen interest to read it for myself. One of the things that I like about Science-fiction written around this period is that there see......more

Goodreads review by Williwaw on February 09, 2014

Despite the excellent quality of the writing and the well-paced plot, I found this to be an oddly dissatisfying story. Simak simply leaves too many loose ends, and fails to explore deeply the philosophical and sociological potential of his premise. His premise is that a single company, Forever Center......more

Goodreads review by Darnoc on October 30, 2024

Simak had been on my list of shame for years before 2024, but this last summer I read his novel *All Flesh Is Grass* and got quite a big kick out of its unconventional alien invasion plot and its pastural texture, even if its ending left a bit to be desired. So when it came time to select a book fro......more