Yuri Barzov

The Immortals 2.0 Yuri Barzov

The main thing about this book is that it effectively captures the idea that people can be immortal (or, in this case, live indefinitely). Many religions, including Christianity, exist through the exploitation of the human's belief in immortality (or, like they put it, life after death). However, unlike religion, Yuri tries to justify the transition to a new state of humankind on the grounds of actual scientific ideas, theories and hypotheses (albeit with a share of fantasy). I do not know what the book contains more?-?science or faith?-?but with a certain assumption it can be called the Bible of the New Realities. Hooking the reader with the idea of immortality, the novel takes him into the journey of rethinking and reevaluation of many fundamental ideas about human nature and the meaning of human life. The strong point of the book is that it shows how close we have come in terms of technology to peek over the edge and see other possible manifestations of life, and even quasi-eternal life. This idea gives way to the well-written story about the creation of a new race of 'eternal people', which is based on the most updated scientific and technological knowledge. One of the most impressive aspects of the novel is the presentation of many innovative scientific visions and theories, especially dealing with computers and programming, medicine, nano- and biotechnology. It feels that the author was firmly "charged" with research data in these areas and managed to convert the acquired knowledge into a fairly coherent overarching concept. The book comprises of at least three loosely interconnected genres: Cyberpunk (dystopia, virtual reality, hackers-gamers as main characters), serious (even a little heavy-paced) Popular Science (not Science Fiction as a feature genre, but non-fiction) and Sexual Romanticism. However, this does not embrace the full genre landscape of the book. At least two others should be added: Social Criticism in the opening chapters and the Liturgy of Religious Enlightenment in the end, thus comprising a jump from biological (and materialistic) hell into the obscure non-organic paradise.