Sum, David Eagleman
Sum, David Eagleman
2 Rating(s)
List: $14.99 | Sale: $10.50
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Sum
Tales from the Afterlives

Author: David Eagleman

Narrator: Anonymous

Unabridged: 2 hr 38 min

Format: Digital Audiobook Download (DRM Protected)

Published: 06/08/2010

Categories: Fiction

Synopsis

SUM shows us forty wonderfully imagined possibilities of life beyond death. In one afterlife you may find that God is the size of a microbe and is unaware of your existence. In another, your creators are a species of dim-witted creatures who built us to figure out what they could not. In a different version of the afterlife you work as a background character in other people’s dreams. Or you may find that the afterlife contains only people whom you remember, or that the hereafter includes the thousands of previous gods who no longer attract followers. In some afterlives you are split into your different ages; in some you are forced to live with annoying versions of yourself that represent what you could have been; in others you are re-created from your credit card records and Internet history. Many versions of our purpose here are proposed; we are mobile robots for cosmic mapmakers, we are reunions for a scattered confederacy of atoms, we are experimental subjects for gods trying to understand what makes couples stick together. These tales—at once witty, wistful and unsettling—are rooted in science and romance and awe at our mysterious existence while asking the key questions about death, hope, technology, immortality, love, biology and desire that expose radiant new facets of our humanity.

Reviews

AudiobooksNow review by Alice on 2016-05-01 21:01:56

I am a fan of Dr. Eagleman and amazed at the body of work he has amassed thus far in his life. So, I thought, this is by Dr. Eagleman, and I will enjoy it. I have not. I managed to get about halfway through it. I did have a basic idea of the premise of the book beforehand. It is not terrible, but did not hold my attention even though it is a relatively short book. I just could not get into it for some reason. I will likely finish listening to it at some point...just not right now.

Goodreads review by Sam on November 10, 2008

This book blew me away; I underlined and starred dozens of sentences and typed them in to my friends on email. Sum tells 40 vignettes from the afterlife, but you quickly figure out that (a) the stories are mutually exclusive (if one is true then the others cannot be), and (b) the stories are not abo......more

Goodreads review by Will on November 11, 2020

David Eagleman - image from his site You do not have to be a subscriber to any of the more common religions in this world to harbor some notion, some hope, that there might be a form of personal existence beyond death. Eagelman has come up with forty possible post-mortem futures and offers them up......more

Goodreads review by PattyMacDotComma on June 23, 2023

5★ “Everyone is a brother to all, and for the first time an idea has been realized that never came to fruition on Earth: true equality. The Communists are baffled and irritated, because they have finally achieved their perfect society, but only by the help of a God in whom they don’t want to believe.......more

Goodreads review by Tom on August 06, 2019

Now I've read Sum twice. First on a plane flight in one big sitting, then years later one story a day for 40 days. Honestly, the first way was better. The stories that are good are really, really good. But none of them have much staying power, so the emotional rollercoaster of reading them one after......more

Goodreads review by MJ on March 29, 2012

My favourite video game of all time is a homemade 2D platformer on the little-known Yaroze—a black, programmable Playstation—called Time Slip. In this game you are a snail with a one-minute lifespan who has to use his time on screen to stand on buttons that open doors to other parts of the level......more

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