On the distant planet Erda, a growing red sun has turned most of the terrain into fierce, sandy desert.    The two remaining cultures developed in drastically different ways.  The Tiga have a heavily populated, industrial civilization.  The constant hum of the generators is almost as oppressive as the totalitarian regime running the place.  The folks of the other culture are known to the Tiga only as Aliens, and any contact with those living in white-domed cities in the desert is forbidden. 

The security police arrest a Tiga biologist, Gerient.  He is held in a dank cell and denied any contact with his family or the tribe to which he belongs.  He thinks about how important tribal allegiance is his people and how arrest could bring horrible shame on his clan.  He does not know why he was imprisoned, but people in a police state seldom do.  He's been called in to perform tests on a man who claims to be several hundred years old. 

What he learns could get him killed and so he escapes with his friend, Marti, a disgraced soldier who has brought shame to his own clan and now hangs around the city dump as an outcast.  Short, energetic Marti wants to escape, to enter the forbidden territory beyond the Tiga city.  Interestingly, the Tigans have no prejudice against Gerient for being dark skinned.  They reserve all their bigotry for those beyond the desert who are rumored to have the secret to immortality. 

Now, Gerient sees a solution to the mystery that has haunted his research for years:  how do you overcome the genetic deficiencies that lead to death?  Gerient drags Marti along on his quest to the culture across the broad, rocky desert.  The Aliens seem to have a machine capable of endowing immortality.  Gerient has a tough time getting answers from the Aliens, barefoot space cadets in flimsy togas, and Marti isn't much help since he has developed a yen for a bald-headed yet beautiful female robot with all the working parts.  The city of small, airy houses and public baths surrounding a central civic building in a hollowed-out mountain is very different from anything Gerient or Marti have ever seen or even imagined. 

The boys relive the history of the planet through an amazing archive that evokes the horse charges of ancient battles and sets them in the midst of martyrs during a mass murder.  They work their way out of a death sentence, and get caught up in a rebellion of formidable soldier robots living in the metal-clad catacombs beneath the Alien city.   

This book is what those who attend the conventions call "sociological science fiction."  While time is spent exploring new worlds and kicking up that sense of wonder rather than zooming around in space ships shooting up planets, there is enough excitement in "Immortality Machine" for even an adventure junkie like me to stay fascinated.  One of the compelling things about the story is the main character's quest.  We understand why Gerient wants to discover a way to make people immortal; he doesn't want anyone to die of a genetic disease, as the woman he loved did.

Marti is often more harm than help, but he needs to prove himself to be more than a failed soldier.  He needs to prove he is a hero.  

I like these characters much better than the be-robed aliens with no sense of hurry and little idea of accomplishment.  They're weird, but they're supposed to be.  Blessed with incredibly long lives, they have to be different from those of us spending our short existences jolted with caffeine and speeding through traffic.  The alien world Kieniewicz creates is full of fascinating machines like the doors operated by making two musical notes at the same time, a music more thought than sung.  Kieniewicz is a scientist, and so the advanced technology on this planet is plausible.  Also, he writes this from the heart since his own wife died of cancer, and all the science he knew could not rescue her. 

Unfortunately, his book is too long. I would prefer to have the heroes get in, find out if the machine exists, and get out or die trying. The characters get captured, talk their way out of it, learn stuff, dither, get captured again, and go watch the aliens play a frequently lethal form of Frisbee. I know from reading the book that I personally would not want the gift of endless years, and any book that makes me realize something about myself is worth the effort. 3 stars.

Reviewed by Amanda Flynn

ISBN # 1-59330-006-9

Aventine, 2003, $14.95