MixedThe Los Angeles Review of Books\"Despite the heady subject matter, O’Connell never really attempts to \'solve\' these big philosophical questions. Instead, he positions himself as a spectator to the movement, a stand-in for any \'non-transhumanist\' so that he may draw parallels between his own beliefs and those of the scientists and entrepreneurs he is profiling. This means we are not taken aback by the severity of certain transhumanist doctrines ... We are eased into such bizarre subject matters as the economic impact of cryogenic freezing and the price difference in preserving your whole body as opposed to your “severed head” — a cephalon, technically speaking. All of this is done in the witty, and sometimes cheeky, language we’d expect from someone who included \'solving the modest problem of death\' in the title of his book ... O’Connell’s most revelatory moments are when he is able to unearth these inexorably true, yet freaky insights ... I wasn’t able to forgive O’Connell for his heavy-handedness in the arena of religion ... For all of O’Connell’s efforts in characterization, he fails to give the people he profiles an acute sense of humanity. They read like caricatures — machines designed to drive plot — rather than individuals with whom you could actually empathize or engage.\
