Archive for the 'Fiction' Category

H.P. Lovecraft’s “Cool Air” and cryonics

Wednesday, May 14th, 2008

In “Heritage of Horror,” Lovecraft scholar S.T. Joshi writes that Lovecraft’s short story “Cool Air” “anticipates cryogenic research.” We can forgive Joshi the common mistake of writing “cryogenics” when he means “cryonics,” but how much cryonics is there really in Lovecraft’s “Cool Air?”
“Cool Air” (1926) tells the story of a struggling writer who has secured [...]

Filed under: Cryonics, Death, Fiction, Hypothermia

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H.P. Lovecraft and the science of resuscitation

Wednesday, April 30th, 2008

H.P. Lovecraft’s Herbert West is a man of science, not superstition. Following Ernst Haeckel, he believes that “all life is a chemical and psychical process,” that the soul is “a myth,” and that “unless actual decomposition has set in, a corpse fully equipped with organs may with suitable measures be set going again [...]

Filed under: Cerebral Ischemia, Fiction, Resuscitation

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