Five of the best books about achieving immortality

Neal Asher's latest book is Infinity Engine.

One of his top five favorite about achieving immortality, as shared at Tor.com:

Altered Carbon by Richard Morgan

Like computer programs we can be recorded to cortical stacks planted in our skulls. From these we can be downloaded to new bodies, or “sleeves.” The idea that we can go into computer storage is much in vogue in SF now because in the computer age everything can be stored digitally, while we are mapping the mind and making digital interfaces with it. I could have chosen any of a number of books (including my own) to illustrate this but I selected Altered Carbon simply because it is a honking good read and a blast. Interestingly, even here, ideas of Heaven and Hell arise. Humans can live endlessly in virtual worlds, though in this dystopia they are mainly tortured endlessly in virtual hells. And the “sleeves”? Why not in this age when we are 3D printing organs?

Read about the other entries on the list.

Altered Carbon is among Ernest Cline’s ten favorite SF novels, Jeff Somers's five books that lived up to the hype, Lauren Davis's ten most depressing futuristic retirement scenarios in science fiction and Charlie Jane Anders's top ten science fiction novels that pack more action than most summer movies and top 10 science fiction detective novels of all time.

--Marshal Zeringue