Books: Sit-In on Olympus

THE IMMORTALIST by Alan Harrington. 324 pages. Random House. $6.95.

The thesis of this protest-placard of a book is that the time has come for man to stop tugging his forelock before the nonexistent authorities of the universe and openly admit that he will not settle for anything less than divine everlasting life.

Why not? The borders between science and science-fiction grow steadily less precise. Biophysics and medical engineering, as Alan Harrington notes, have begun to grope for the secrets of extending life. Organ transplants and artificial parts are already promising realities. The author...

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