Science Fiction
Dictionary
A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z
Latest By
Category:
Armor
Artificial
Intelligence
Biology
Clothing
Communication
Computers
Culture
Data Storage
Displays
Engineering
Entertainment
Food
Input Devices
Lifestyle
Living Space
Manufacturing
Material
Media
Medical
Miscellaneous
Robotics
Security
Space Tech
Spacecraft
Surveillance
Transportation
Travel
Vehicle
Virtual
Person
Warfare
Weapon
Work
"...a few centuries of coherent humanist thought, set against a million odd years of evolved killer ape tendency. No-one's going to give you very good odds on humanism, are they?"
- Richard Morgan
 |
| Sprung-Samser Treatment | ||
| A medical treatment to extend human life. |
As you might guess from the title, this book treats different aspects of how a person might live a long time, as well as what a person might do with a long life.
Conrad Nomikos (who has had a variety of names over the course of his long life) was born long-lived through a (non-natural) mutation. Hasan the Assassin, however, gained his extra years with a special medical treatment.
| Eighty or ninety or more, looking about forty, [Hasan] could still act thirty. the Sprung-Samser treatments had found highly responsive material. It's not often that way. Almost never, in fact. They put some people into accelerated anaphylactic shock for no apparent reason, and even an intracardial blast of adrenalin won't haul them back; others, most others, they freeze at five or six decades. But some rare ones actually grow younger when they take the series - about one in a hundred thousand.
It struck me as odd that in destiny's big shooting gallery this one should make it, in such a big way. |
| Technovelgy from This Immortal,
by Roger Zelazny. Published by Ace Science Fiction in 1966 Additional resources -
|
From immortality granted by the gods to the Fountain of Youth, human beings have been fascinated by how a person might live longer. At the present, the only treatment known to extend life in mammals is an extremely low calorie diet.
It was apparently a series of treatments:
The Sprung-Samser treatments could extend human life to the 150-year range.
Compare to young blood - new blood for old from Methuselah's Children (1941) by Robert Heinlein,
conscious retarded animation from A Race Through Time (1933) by Donald Wandrei, the
anti-Tri-D shot from The Morning of the Day They Did It (1950) by E.B. White and the
anti-agathic drugs from Cities in Flight (1957) by James Blish.
"I've pushed the S-S series about as far as it can go. I fancy I can feel the mainspring winding down now. Maybe it will take a few more windings and maybe it won't...
Comment/Join this discussion ( 2 ) | RSS/XML | Blog This |
Additional
resources:
More Ideas
and Technology from This Immortal
More Ideas
and Technology by Roger Zelazny
Tech news articles related to This Immortal
Tech news articles related to works by Roger Zelazny
Sprung-Samser Treatment-related
news articles:
- Can Sirtuins Block The Aging Process?
| Illustrating Classic Heinlein With AI |
| Brainoware Reservoir Computation Of Biological Neural Networks |
| Forward CarePod The AI Doctor's Office |
| Octopus Suckers Inspire Transdermal Patches |
Want to Contribute an
Item?
It's easy:
Get the name of the item, a
quote, the book's name and the author's name, and Add
it here.
| <Previous | Next> |
|
|
|
Technovelgy (that's tech-novel-gee!) is devoted to the creative science inventions and ideas of sf authors. Look for the Invention Category that interests you, the Glossary, the Science Fiction Invention Timeline, or see what's New.
|
Science Fiction
Timeline
1600-1899
1900-1939
1940's 1950's
1960's 1970's
1980's 1990's
2000's 2010's
'And he had been sent with troops, supplies and bombs to command Russia's most trusted post, the Moonbase.'
'What is your population', I asked. 'About eighty millions.'
'THE autobus turned silently down the wide street of Hydropole. Robot-guided, insulated from noise and cold...'
'The car had no steering wheel, and no one drove!'
Now that's power walking that Hugo Gernsback would have approved.
'It was disturbing to think of the Flatline as a construct...'
'...he rewired the delivery robot so that it would serve him midnight snacks.'
'On went the electric-yacht faster and still faster.'
'...the huge vessel had spun, with a sickening lurch, through a complete half-circle, the instant the power was reversed.'
'...he realized that it was not quite a clear lens. Speckles of colored brightness swirled and gathered in it.'
