[ExI] What is Grace? (now turned into a cryonics for prisoners debate)

[Tom Nowell]

Damien wrote
"The obvious irony (for any number of science fiction stories, I suspect, including one of my own) is that *denial* of cryonic  suspension would be the most dire threat in a world where  resurrection and rejuvenation is a serious expectation. "Grow old and die, then rot, you bastard!""

Indeed, in Clifford D Simak's "Why call them back from heaven", the book opens with a maintenance technician being tried for negligence as his poor maintenance on an ambulance meant a fatally injured person could not be cryonically preserved. He is found guilty, and is sentenced to be denied cryonic preservation - so he will die, eventually. Over the course of the story, he meets Christians who refuse the cryonic treatment, hears conspiracy theories about problems with the process, and tracks down a missing scientist who's discovered there's no way of housing all the people waiting to be revived.

Overall, it's the most well-written critique of a society embracing cryonics en masse that I've read. I just checked the amazon entry:
http://www.amazon.com/Why-Call-Them-Back-Heaven/dp/0380505754
and the citations section says the only book to have quoted this is "Great Mambo chicken and the transhuman condition."

Tom