A wise man
once said that nothing is certain in life but death and taxes. Science fiction creating scenarios which put
an end to the certainty of the former (more often than the latter, it seems),
extended life and immortality are commonly used tropes of science fiction. But they are less commonly examined tropes of science fiction. More often a means of disguising the immense
lengths of time necessary to travel across space or a splash of virtual life
eye-candy to alter perspective on existence, there are a limited number of
genre works that peer deeper into the mortality of death in the immortal
future.
With such
an introduction and such a title, one might expect Brian Stableford’s 1995
“Mortimer Gray’s History of Death” to
be a morbid discourse on murder, funeral rites, war, suicide, entombment, etc.,
moving forever downward into the gloomy depths of despair. Such is not the case. Stableford’s tone may be consistently staid,
yet the tale eases forward with subtle dynamism; Gray’s History is as much a survey of the man’s research as it is his
personal life and thoughts regarding mortality in the context of biotechnical
advance. It thus instead makes for a
beautifully nuanced sociological discourse.
