Why Call Them Back From Heaven? by Clifford Simak (book review).
Some titles deserve stories that match their significance. I personally achieved this with ‘Nanny State’ for SFC, delivering an unexpected twist while elevating the stakes to make it truly ‘worthy’.
Back in 1967, Clifford Simak did this with ‘Why Call Them Back From Heaven?’ Its slogan is painted on walls throughout the city, showing the nature of this reality. The biggest building is the Forever Centre. Created in 1964, it has the means to put people into hibernation to be revived later for a second life when extended life could be guaranteed. Considering when Simek wrote the book and released it in 1967, it was a hot topic back then.
In the year 2148, if medic Franklin Chapman didn’t arrive at an accident in time to save a victim, he could be forbidden a second life himself as punishment. This meant he couldn’t go into hibernation until medications for extended life were available, effectively having only one life. His lawyer, Ann Harrison, tries to get him off on a technicality, being on trial to a robot, and fails. This opening chapter indicates that Simak is creating a reality for you, the reader, to immerse yourself in as you read. He sucks you into a world of inequality if you get a criminal conviction and shows how extreme this reality has got.
When you compare this to his other works, Simak is doing massive world-building here. He throws this reality up in the air when this apparent utopia is thrown when Daniel Frost, one of the bosses of the Forever Centre, is quickly convicted of coercion and chucked out on the streets totally ostracised, with face tattoos to identify him, with only the clothing he was wearing, and that was for modesty’s sake. No second life for him either. Without going too spoiler, there is a conspiracy going on behind the scenes, and Frost’s boss, Marcus Appleton, is after a secret document and doesn’t care whom he discredits or kills to get it.
Simak packs a lot of story into 190 pages, and part of me wonders why no one has thought to adapt it into a film because it has all the right elements. People in peril and a conspiracy while trying to give mankind prolonged life with various research. The characters are nicely developed, and Simak gives them all a kicking along the way. Simak imparts valuable lessons on how to create a captivating backdrop that is dependent on a unique problem.
GF Willmetts
August 2025
(pub: Methuen, 1967. 191 page paperback. Price: varies. ISBN: 0-413-55600-X).
