The Ups and Downs of Being Dead by M. R. Cornelius
Fifty-seven year old Robert Malone is the CEO of a successful clothing store chain and married to a former model. When his doctor tells him he is dying of cancer, he refuses to go quietly. Instead of death, Robert chooses cryonics. He knows it’s a long shot. His frozen body will be stored in liquid nitrogen for the next seventy-five years, and then he’ll wake up in the future. Maybe. If technology figures out a way to bring him back.
He’s willing to take that gamble.
What he doesn’t realize is that he won’t lie in some dreamless state all that time. His soul is very much awake, and free to move about, just like the others who were frozen before him.
He discovers that he can ride in the cockpit with the pilots, but he can’t turn the page of a magazine. He can sit in the oval office with the president, but he can’t prevent a child from dashing in front of a car. He can’t work, or eat, or sleep. These obstacles make it difficult to fall in love, and virtually impossible to reconcile with the living.
Over the next several decades, Robert Malone will have plenty of time to learn The Ups and Downs of Being Dead.
Targeted Age Group: 16-99
Book Price: FREE 6/3/2013 & 6/4/2013
How is Writing In Your Genre Different from Others?
Because my story begins in the present and moves into the future, it’s all speculative. I can guess at what I think would happen, but there’s really no way to know for sure. (Although some SciFi buffs love to point out where they think I’m wrong.) It’s great fun, guessing at what is to come.
What Advice Would You Give Aspiring Writers?
Probably to get their book professionally edited. Especially Indie authors who’ve been told by their significant other, or their mom, that their book is fabulous. Don’t depend on friends to tell you the truth about your manuscript. They’ll never be as honest as an editor. And from what I hear, publishers don’t pay editors to clean up manuscripts anymore. At least not for first-time writers. So if your book is being turned down by agents, maybe it’s time for a professional.
Author Bio:
After working for fifteen years as a cafeteria manager in an elementary school, Marsha Cornelius turned in her non-skid shoes for a bathrobe and slippers. She now works at home, writing novels, acting out scenes with her cats, and occasionally running a Swiffer across dusty surfaces.
Like thousands of others, she thought she could write romance, but soon discovered she was a dismal failure. She did increase her repertoire of adjectives such as throbbing, pulsing, thrumming, vibrating, hammering, pumping . . .
Her first novel, H10N1, is a thriller about a flu pandemic gone awry, and her latest endeavor, The Ups and Downs of Being Dead, tells the story of a man who chooses to have his body cryonically-frozen rather than face death. And now she has just released her third novel, Losing It All, a drama that follows a homeless man as he helps a mother and her two small children get off the streets.
Cornelius resides in the countryside north of Atlanta with her husband. Her two grown sons occasionally visit for clean laundry and a hot cooked meal.
What Inspired You to Write Your Book?
I found out about cryonics several years ago – the process of ‘freezing’ a body with the hopes of reviving the patient in the future. I got philosophical, wondering what would happen to that person’s soul until they were revived. If they are brain-dead, and their body is no longer functioning, wouldn’t the soul leave the body? But where would it go while waiting for the body to be thawed out?
Website(s)
Author Home Page Link
Link To Buy Book On Amazon
Social Media:
http://www.goodreads.com/author/show/4993738.M_R_Cornelius
https://twitter.com/marshacornelius
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