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crankylibrarian
Jan 27, 2014crankylibrarian rated this title 0.5 out of 5 stars
You are about to learn All About Death. Matheson's ponderous and self important introduction reads: "only one aspect...is fictional: the characters and their relationships. With few exceptions, every other detail is derived exclusively from research. In case you're curious as to how Matheson "researched" the afterlife, he provides a 6 page bibliography of sources from theosophy, parapsychology, and spiritualism, but nothing from biology or neuropsychology. Terms like "aura", and "etheric body" get tossed around, but there is no coherent logic or ethical system at work here. Ann, the hero's loving and emotionally fragile wife, is damned to a hell of her own imagination for committing suicide, yet her grieving husband is smugly informed that this is "the law", but NOT a "punishment", (sounds pretty darned punitive to me.) The "Office of Records" can determine how long a person is "supposed" to live, (who decides?), yet apparently this can be short-circuited by accidents or suicide. There can be reincarnation, yet souls may choose to wait until the kid is a few months old before incarnating so as to avoid soul-death if the baby doesn't live. I found this aspect particularly fascinating: if we know how long a person is "supposed" to live, why would anyone pick a baby marked for sudden infant death syndrome? And what's up with all those soulless 2 month olds? That would explain some horrendous babysitting experiences, but still. Vincent Ward made a reasonably entertaining movie out of this with Robin Williams a few years back, wisely focusing on the love story and the adventurous rescue angle, and leaving out the New Age mumbo jumbo. As a fantasy adventure, it works, barely; as a serious exploration of immortality and the nature of death it's glorified pseudo science.