I recently finished The Boat of a Million Years by Poul Anderson. The premise was super cool: there are people among us who are immortal. The book tracks them throughout the ages and into the future. Unfortunately, it could be awfully boring at times. Anderson never really presents any different problems for the immortals. Nor does he really try to deal with the issues of someone being alive for such a long time (one of the immortals does commit suicide, but that seems like a rushed thing…like Anderson just wants to get rid of the character).
I did enjoy the futuristic problems the characters faced once immortality was achieved by humanity. The issue of them fitting in with the rest of society. Also, the idea that this type of society would not send explorers into space (instead using machines) was cool (it was also easy to forget that the book was written in 1989).
This was a book that Audible suggested to me and I was excited when I read the premise because I had a similar idea way back in junior high. Instead of a book though, I just used this idea to write my history essays all year. The perspective of American history from this immortal who has been around for thousands of years. My history teacher (who had been my English teacher the previous year) loved it.
I would be curious to know what other people who have read this book thought of it?
