Tuesday, March 10, 2009

John R Pierce's "Invariant" (short story): Serious consequences of rejuvenation treatment

Quote from short story titled Invariant by John R PierceDr Homer Green used his invention, a rejuvenation treatment that lets your body always heal any damage to it perfectly, on himself. That was on September 11, 1943. Now it's August 4, 2170 - more than 200 years later. He looks exactly as he did on the date he gave himself the treatment - no aging whatever - his body always repairs any damage perfectly. His tissues are invariant.

There is only one catch. Even his brain tissue is invariant - exactly the way it was before he treated himself! He cannot get any more memories or otherwise adapt to environment, because his mind always repairs itself to the state just before the treatment!!

Collected in.

  1. Isaac Asimov & Martin H Greenberg (Eds)' "Isaac Asimov Presents the Great SF Stories 6 (1944)".
  2. John W Campbell, Jr (ed)'s "The Astounding Science Fiction Anthology".

Fact sheet.

First published: Astounding, April 1944.
Rating: A.
Listed among the stories from John Campbell's Astounding/Analog.
Related: Stories from Analog/Astounding.

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