Rating: 
Summary: Good Try
Review: This is a good attempt to address some important life questions that is ultimately flawed and superficial. The writing is rather poor and the author seems a little lost at times. A disappointing book but a valiant effort at presenting the issues in a thoughtful way.
Rating: 
Summary: Pleasantville meets cryonics
Review: Not only are the characters one dimensional - they are all the same! Significant lack of imagination, both dramatic and ideas. If you like great ideas, and would like to have fun reading - read *** Greg Egan ***. He is one of the greatest science fiction writers of the day.The First Immortal felt more like a very dry documentary than fiction. That may actually be the redeeming factor - it's an almost-plausible extrapolation for the next few years. Dialogue was very banal. There was alot of preaching and people giving speeches at the drop of a hat. Significant repeat of the previous novel - the truth machine. Similar feel. I believe the concept of a widely accepted and infallible truth machine is extremely unlikely in the near future. Since both books rely on this premise, they are both flawed. I should also say that I find the idea repulsive - the potential for abuse and oppression is tremenduous.
Rating:
Summary: Disappointed
Review: After having read The Truth Machine, Halperin's first novel, I was more than eager to read this one. Unfortunately, Halperin wrote a book that was too similar in style to his first novel and too long in getting to the real meat of the story, thawing the main character. Halperin does provide a believable and somewhat optimistic view of the future and how we get there but this view was not enough to hold up the story.
Rating: 
Summary: Inspiring! Heinleinian in scope, character, and execution!
Review: Mr. Halperin's writing are awesome and inspiring! This book is incredible
Rating: 
Summary: Excellent read; realistic view of the near-future.
Review: James Halperin has given us an interesting but realistic view of a future in which immortality is attainable. However, there is a price (isn't there always?!) to pay. The ethical and philosophical arguments are ingeniously constructed and very believable. Nothing is presented as black-and-white, but in varying shades of gray. Most of the characters are intelligent and easy to identify with. A thoroughly enjoyable read!
Rating:
Summary: I want more!
Review: I discovered TFI in a bookstore in Manila... could not put it down, had to travel back there from Tokyo to find TTM... could not put that down either. Now I find myself in a void, after being so sated from these two books, how long will we have to wait for a third novel? More to the point... is there more that can be added to the timelines traced in the first two? I will be recommending these to all my literate friends, and waiting patiently!! Thanks, John
Rating:
Summary: Gawd...
Review: I'm fairly familiar with theoretical nanotechnology and longevity, so I read this book only after it was hyped by Alcor (the cryogenic facility). What a mistake. I suspect the 5-star reviews were written by the kind of people who are impressed with a product like "VCR Plus". Maybe some people need bland, stereotypical characterizations to be introduced to these ideas, but if you want to do without the fluff, I highly recommend Eric Drexler's "Engines of Creation" instead.
Rating:
Summary: so much more than just another great work of science fiction
Review: For many years I was a performing/recording musician and songwriter. One of my earliest compositions was an a capella piece, sung in the style of a 19th century sea chanty that began: "I was born Two Hundred Years, Before I would have Willed It. The roads I'd ride, The Solar Tides, The universe my limit." The First Immortal has captured the feelings I had as I put pen to paper, with my dreams of being re-born to a future of no limits. This book has probably had more effect on me than any piece of literature I've experienced since I first read Childhood's End as a young teenager. But it has had a more profound effect than just as a piece of art. I have been moved to begin my own journey and investigation and research into the cryonic alternatives. I do not expect this to be a short exploration. I will be most thorough, but without question, decisive. Where once I let my son know that he was to spread my ashes off some tropical island, I know am trying to figure out how to offer him also a place in the 'hopeful ice'. I find myself terrified and exaltant, at the same time. Fifty years, a century or two from now, The First Immortal, might just be seen as a piece of literature that enabled many lives to be saved. Thank you.
Rating:
Summary: awesome. In years to come this book may be non-fiction
Review: Halperin has captured the essence of hard science fiction in this book. Many of the points in the story WILL happen, it's just a matter of time. DNA mapping and the research into free radicals are accelerating right now....not in the future. As far as nanotechnology, i'm not that versed on it but i can go to the store and buy a 450 MHz cpu for a very affordable price. How far is usable nanotechnology from us ? A great read!!!
Rating:
Summary: Freeze me and put my cannister next to yours!
Review: I just finished reading TFI and raced to my pc. I read through all of the comments and the deserved compliments wanting to see if anyone else made the same observation as I had made. I didn't see a one. I was 16 in 1965 and that was the year I "discovered" Robert Heinlein through his novel, "Stranger in a Strange Land." At that impressionable age, Heinlein strongly influenced my way of viewing man's future spiritual and physical evolution (optimistically, of course). Heinlein also got into the subject of longevity of life with a charactor named Lazarus Long who was already over 1,000 years old and tired of life in the novel's beginning. Circumstances changed as the plot thickened and this charactor pursued and explored his spiritual quest of understanding mankind with UNLIMITED TIME to do so. I was in my 20s then and I found that concept absolutely fascinating...the POSSIBILITIES...however all of these ideas were less science - more fiction. Although I read voraciously, no other book ever gave me hope to be able to learn and grow forever until (at age 49) TFI. Although it is a book of fiction, there are enough scientific POSSIBILITIES in the theory of cryonics to give me hope. What would it be like to be an immortal? I'm ready to find out! Now I'm leaving for the bookstore to pick up The Truth Machine!
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