The Immortalists

A fascinating, deeply reported adventure among the increasingly influential figures who believe they can defeat death – and a warning not to let dreams of tech-enabled immortality stop us building a more vibrant human world here and now

Oliver Burkeman

An elegant, gripping expedition into the technological apotheosis of an ancient dream. Can technology gift us immortality? In Krotoski's hands, this question is neither a promise nor a warning, but a meditation on what truly matters

Tom Chatfield

Brilliant, painstakingly researched and altogether a wonderful read, Aleks Krotoski serves up an essential parable for our digital times

Kevin Fong

Aleks Krotoski, an award-winning broadcaster, academic, and technology reporter, has cast her eye over living for ever … Krotoski’s riveting book ends with a poignant account of the deaths of her father and stepmother. While the immortalists resist death, it will come to us all. The only thing we can try to control is how we face it

Roger Alton, Daily Mail

Fascinating … The new titans of tech wish to be as immortal as the Titans of legend. The award-wining journalist Aleks Krotoski wryly documents their antics in her new book The Immortalists … An entertaining and insightful account of those who believe the end of ageing is within our grasp

Stephen Cave, Financial Times

Life extensionists like Bryan Johnson want to live forever. But at what cost? … Aleks Krotoski, a psychologist and veteran chronicler of the tech industry, is well positioned to investigate and explain the phenomenon … as well as its social consequences

James Ball, Guardian

Aleks Krotoski’s fascinating new book penetrates deep into the heart of the Silicon Valley … it rises above the wellness rituals themselves and looks squarely at the metaphysics that animates them: the conviction that the human is decomposable into variables that computation and chemistry can optimise. The author's reporting around that conviction – its origins in grief and fear, its transmutation into a public liturgy of confidence – is utterly compelling

Justin Smith-Ruiu, New Statesman