Secret Horizon

Rating:
Summary: a book for everyone
Review: An excellent book. The author creates a future society with grotesque attitudes and ideas about death and aging. The author describes the way in which this future society manages to prolong life with a very imaginative and frighteningly plausible scheme and plot line. What you read is happening years in the future yet the ethical dilemas apply to the here and now as well. I also liked how the author follows the life Dr. Holtz through nicely placed flashbacks. It was fun reading.

Rating:
Summary: a book for everyone
Review: An excellent book. The author creates a future society with grotesque attitudes and ideas about death and aging. The author describes the way in which this future society manages to prolong life with a very imaginative and frighteningly plausible scheme and plot line. What you read is happening years in the future yet the ethical dilemas apply to the here and now as well. I also liked how the author follows the life Dr. Holtz through nicely placed flashbacks. It was fun reading.

Rating:
Summary: a book for everyone
Review: I really enjoyed the book. Normally I do not read science fiction type works, but Uma Purighalla managed to combine science, medicine, and a good story all in one. I thought the characters were real, being in the medical field myself. She did a good job of putting current ethical problems in healthcare in a futuristic setting. You realize as you are reading this seemingly imaginary scenario with fictional elements that our own present society puts a lot of emphasis on staying alive at all costs. I liked the way she followed the life of one doctor and incorporated it as flashbacks throughout the book.

Rating:
Summary: Faust redux
Review: It is the age old question: what would you do for money? Well in this case the question is even more loaded in that it is what price would you pay for doubling or even tripling your life span. In Secret Horizon, Ms. Purighalla delves into the sociological issues of what's best for society? Does everyone in society have the same value? Are some people expendable so that others may thrive? Ms. Purighalla looks at these and other issues. Secret Horizon is really a snapshot of current society carried to possible extremes in the future. The extremes created over a hundred years from now echo strongly in society today. Frightening? You bet. Gripping? Absolutely. Want to delve into your own soul to see what you would do for immortality? Read this book!

Rating:
Summary: Faust redux
Review: It is the age old question: what would you do for money? Well in this case the question is even more loaded in that it is what price would you pay for doubling or even tripling your life span. In Secret Horizon, Ms. Purighalla delves into the sociological issues of what's best for society? Does everyone in society have the same value? Are some people expendable so that others may thrive? Ms. Purighalla looks at these and other issues. Secret Horizon is really a snapshot of current society carried to possible extremes in the future. The extremes created over a hundred years from now echo strongly in society today. Frightening? You bet. Gripping? Absolutely. Want to delve into your own soul to see what you would do for immortality? Read this book!

Rating:
Summary: Professor Louis Fowler, English Professor, Carnegie Mellon U
Review: Uma Purighalla bridges the ambiguities of the extraordinary ways in which medical issues interact with philosophical discussions in the humanities. In Margaret Atwood's style (Handmaid's Tale) Purighalla's utopian first novel moves the reader along at a pace both dissying and dazzling. Her array of characters representing the future and the past create the sense of the disadvantages that technology brings in comparison with the love and simplicity of the past.

Rating:
Summary: Professor Louis Fowler, English Professor, Carnegie Mellon U
Review: Uma Purighalla bridges the ambiguities of the extraordinary ways in which medical issues interact with philosophical discussions in the humanities. In Margaret Atwood's style (Handmaid's Tale) Purighalla's utopian first novel moves the reader along at a pace both dissying and dazzling. Her array of characters representing the future and the past create the sense of the disadvantages that technology brings in comparison with the love and simplicity of the past.