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It is the thirty - first century. Historian Mortimer Gray has lived five centuries and has no reason not to expect to live five, ten, or twenty more. He is an Emortal, one of the New Humans who have been born transformed after the conquest of Death.

The Fountains of Youth is a memoir of Gray's life and that of humanity in the second haIf of the next millennium, when genetic, cybernetic, continental, and even planetary engineering are the norm, when suicide is an art form and diseases are for recreational use only.

Ranging from an ancient monastery in the high Himalayas to the farthest reaches of the galaxy, from the broadest concerns of what it means to be human to the private obsessions of a man fascinated by the one aspect of human experience that will never be his, The Fountains of Youth is as intimate as it is panoramic, and as moving as it is epic.

Cover art by Donato, design by The Chopping Block.

Published 1st May 2000 by Tor.
ISBN:0-312-87206-2

Published 1st October 2001 by Tor.
ISBN:0-312-87534-7

Review by Ian Braidwood

Cast of Characters:
Mortimer Gray, Emily Marchant, Julius Ngomi, Sharane Fereday, Ziru Majumdar, Hellward Lucifer Nixon, Samuel Wheatstone and a rather unfortunate snowmobile.

In my review of Inherit the Earth, I said that book was just a preamble, that more and better was to come. Well, The Fountains of Youth is it and my expectations have been exceeded: this isn't science fiction, this is science literature.

The Fountains of Youth is a memoir, which follows the life of Mortimer Gray through the first five hundred years of his life; the period during which he publishes his magnum opus: The History of Death.

Though there are adventures such as The Great Coral Sea Disaster, this isn't even a story in the sense that our protagonist faces a problem, which he has to bring to a successful resolution. Instead, Brian has coolly and calmly stepped beyond all that, into more a rarefied atmosphere.

Now I have a problem with my metaphor, because the very word rarefied suggests things are thin on the ground, but exactly the opposite is true: the book is very rich, so rich it's impossible to take it all in one sitting. The Fountains of Youth will reward many readings, revealing new details and aspects of its character each time. Between the covers, you'll find a exploration of the nature of history, an examination of Man's conflict with the spectre of death, from ritual to advanced biotechnology and more that I'm sure I've missed.

If you feel that science fiction should be more than just marginally clever adventure stories then buy this book, because not since Dick and Silverberg were at their best has an SF book been so ambitious.

Another review, by Harriet Klausner is available HERE.
Another review is available on SF Site.
A New York Times review is available HERE
A review by Clinton Lawrence is online HERE

The Brian Stableford Website