Synopsis: A good overview with a poor treatment of the details.

This book offers a simple discussion for some of the causes of aging and the medical treatments which may be used to intervene in them. Bova does a very good job looking at how society will have to deal with the trends in medicine. If you are do not have a science background, Part I (Chapters 1-15): "The Scientific Evidence" provides a good background for the biology & medicine. If you have a good background in these areas, you may want to skip to Part II: (Chapters 16-21) "The Impact of Immortality", which is much more interesting.

My background includes microbiology, biochemistry, several years of research into the causes of aging and 2 years as the president of Aeiveos Sciences Group where we studied the molecular biology of aging. I found misinterpretations or errors every few pages in the biology discussions. This is probably more the fault of the publisher who should have had the book reviewed by an expert in the field before publication. The treatment of nanotechnology (Chapter 15) is very simplistic. Forthcoming books such as Nanomedicine by Robert A. Freitas, Jr. will be much better in discussing the nuts & bolts of how you solve the problems of aging. Books such as Caleb Finch's "Longevity, Senescense and the Genome" and Steve Austad's "Why We Age" provide a much better background on the biology of aging.