Episode 3 - Book Review Preserving Minds, Saving Lives

Amazon Polly American English Joey: Cryonic Stories. The Podcast for Cryonicists and Future-Oriented People. - Episode 3: Preserving Minds, Saving Lives Book Review

Philipp: Welcome to Cryonic Stories. My name is Philipp and I’m your host.

In this Episode of Cryonic Stories, we will be talking about a cryonics book. It is the first episode in a series on Book Reviews I am going to do. Don’t worry, the next 70 episodes won’t be book after book.

Which book are we even talking about?

Amazon Polly American English Joey: Preserving Minds, Saving Lives. The best Cryonics Writings from The Alcor Life Extension Foundation.

We heard about Alcor in the last episode of this podcast. The book was put together by Ashwin de Wolf and Stephen Bridge. Almost every chapter was taken from Alcor’s own cryonics magazine and edited so they fit into the book.

It is dived into several larger sections. It starts just like the first episode of this podcast with the question “What is Cryonics?” and talks about the “History of Cryonics” in the second part.

After that, the “History of Alcor” is described. “Research in Cryonics” is the next large chunk of information followed by another Alcor centred chapter “Alcor procedures and technologies”.

It closes with the “Resuscitation of Cryonics Patients”, “Perspectives on Cryonics” and “Debates withing Cryonics”.

In 570 pages many aspects of cryonics are covered. I really enjoy that they not only included the “good parts”, in quotation marks but also the “bad parts” and the stuff that did go wrong in the past. Most notably they try to deliver a reason why people see cryonics as a scam and quackery.

But, there are also some things I don’t like about the book. As I am not a medical professional, some parts of the book can be a little bit hard to understand. Also, some chapters feel like they have been ripped out of context, which isn’t that far off considering the book consists of many single articles that have been published in the past.

I think a little bit more work could have been put in those articles so they would fit more into the whole book. Another thing I would like to mention is the website where the book is sold is telling that the articles are taken from the cryonics magazine from 1972 to 2012 which means some newer research isn’t included. But while I was reading it, I didn’t notice that fact.

Still, I find it a really successful written book. Although I wouldn’t recommend it someone who just got started in cryonics. I feel like it fits somebody that has already acquired some knowledge around the topic and wants to dive into the history of cryonics and Alcor as a cryonics provider.

You can find a link to the book in the show notes if you’re interested.

A small disclaimer at the end, I wasn’t paid for this review and all thoughts on it are my own.

Your host, Philipp.

Amazon Polly American English Joey: Thank you for listening to this Episode of Cryonic Stories. If you want, subscribe for more Episodes.

**SHOWNOTES: **Preserving Minds, Saving Lives - https://alcor.org/book/index.html