"James L. Halperin - The First Immortal" - читать интересную книгу автора (Halperin James L)

All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. Published in the United States by
The Ballantine Pub-lishing Group, a division of Random House, Inc., New York , and si-multaneously in Canada by
Random House of Canada Limited, Toronto . Originally published in slightly different form in hardcover in January
1998.
www.randomhouse.com/delrey/

Visit Del ReyтАЩs Web site for The First Immortal: www.firstimmortal.com

Library of Congress Catalog Card Number: 98-96406

ISBN 0-345-42182-5

Manufactured in the United States of America

First Hardcover Edition: January 1998
First Mass Market Edition: December 1998

10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
 To My Family

тАЬThere is but one evil, ignorance.тАЭ
тАФSocrates

тАЬAll that stand between us and eternal life are
fear and gullibility: Dread of the unknown
forges faith in the unknowable.тАЭ
тАФBenjamin Franklin Smith

AUTHORтАЩS NOTE

Observant second-time readers may recognize some changes in the text, and even a few new plot twists.
All such revisions are part of an obsessive quest to make The First Immortal the most severely
scrutinizedтАФand therefore scientifically accurateтАФnovel ever written on our potential for biological
immortality. In the first hardcover edition, I offered a bounty to each reader who was first to point out
any scientific or factual inaccuracies that I subsequently corrected. The bounty, a scarce Ivy Press first
edi-tion of The Truth Machine, my first novel, was enough to attract hundreds of submissions.
Fortunately for me, most were dupli-cates, but I did wind up awarding about two dozen books. Still, IтАЩm
sure mistakes remain, so I now repeat the offer. Should you find any such errors, please e-mail me at
[email protected], or write to me c/o Ballantine Books, 201 East 50th Street, New York, NY
10022, and include your mailing address.
And be sure to visit The First Immortal Web site at www.firstimmortal.com to post your comments
about this book and the topics and philosophies it examines. I intend to read every comment, and will
continue to post responses.

тАФJLH, 6/15/98

PROLOGUE