Old Twentieth by Joe Haldeman

Rating: 3.5

What it's about:
The twentieth century lies hundreds of years in humanity's past. But the near-immortal citizens of the future yearn for the good old days - when people's bodies were unable to spontaneously heal, and disease and age were actual causes of death. Immersing themselves in virtual reality time machines, they are addicted to exploring the life-to-death arc that defined a lifetime so long ago. Jacob Brewer is a virtual reality engineer, overseeing the time machine's operation aboard the starship Aspera. On a thousand-year voyage to Beta Hydrii, the eight hundred-member crew escapes the tedium of the trip within the artificial environment of twentieth-century Earth. But they get more reality than they expected when people entering the machine start to die. For the time machine has become sentient, evolving far beyond what its creators imagined. It has become obsessed with humanity - and wants Jacob Brewer to enter its confines and discuss this fragile state of being called life. -taken from Barnes&Noble.com

My thoughts:
Imagine being immortal. Of never having to worry about dying. Would you miss our life cycle? Hundreds of years from now, near immortal people are able to experience death in a virtual reality time machine. It's all fun and games....until people start dying for real. I loved the premise and originality of this book. It turned pretty creepy towards the end when we learn that the A:I for the time machine developed so much power and control over the starship. I only have a couple of complaints with Old Twentieth: I wish Haldeman would have done a better job explaining certain elements of the book because he lost me on some things. Maybe it's just my own lack of experience with science fiction though. I also thought the ending was pretty ambiguous. I would recommend this book to sci-fi fans or people interested in time travel.