The Immortalists

The Death of Death and the Race for Eternal Life

Aleks Krotoski

$36.99

Paperback

Forthcoming
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English

The Bodley Head Ltd
28 October 2025

Impact of science & technology on society; Popular science; Technology: general issues; Artificial intelligence

A wild and entertaining adventure into the business of living forever. Award-winning journalist Aleks Krotoski journeys from the cult fringes to the technological heartlands to find out what it means for us all when Silicon Valley invests in the \""science\"" of eternal life

From the epic of Gilgamesh to the alchemy of the philosopher's stone, humanity's eternal quest for immortality - and its rejuvenation tricks, therapies and tinctures - has always been our most mortal endeavour.

But now the giants of invention and investment are building a fountain of youth of their own creation- one they not only engineer, but also own and control. Death is simply their next problem to solve, the latest expression of a hubris that regards humans as appliances to be fixed and machines to be upgraded. By harnessing technology to 'cure' ageing, and funding cutting-edge - and often controversial - research, today's immortalists are locked in an arms race to be the first to pocket the profits of longevity.

What was once a wild west of experimentation has wormed its way into Washington's corridors of power. Award-winning broadcaster and academic Aleks Krotoski journeys from those cult fringes to the heartlands of government to meet the moguls, effective altruists, geroscientists and entrepreneurs who are disrupting death. Along the way she encounters radical life extensionists transfusing their teenage son's blood, transhumanists who want to upload consciousness to the cloud, biohackers flogging AI-powered wellness apps and billionaire kingmakers building brand-new nations.

This razor-sharp, powerful and at times chilling investigation empowers us to consider what it truly means to be human, asking- do we really want a handful of Silicon Valley techno-fundamentalists to be the architects of our forever?

By: Aleks Krotoski
Imprint: The Bodley Head Ltd
Country of Publication: United Kingdom
Dimensions: Height: 234mm, Width: 153mm, Spine: 20mm
Weight: 350g
ISBN: 9781847928511
ISBN 10: 184792851X
Pages: 256
Publication Date: 28 October 2025
Audience: General/trade , College/higher education , Professional and scholarly , ELT Advanced , Primary
Format: Paperback
Publisher's Status: Forthcoming

Dr Aleks Krotoski is an award-winning international broadcaster, author and academic. She has topped the ratings for the BBC and Channel 4, winning Emmy, BAFTA, Radio Academy and Royal Society awards, and has written and presented landmark technology and social science series for both radio (with BBC Radio 4's The Artificial Human and The Digital Human) and international television (with BBC World's The Virtual Revolution). Krotoski has held fellowships at the University of Oxford and the London School of Economics and received an honorary doctorate from the Open University. She currently teaches at NYU Tisch School of the Arts.