Challenge 1147

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In Robin Helweg-Larsen’s Cold Immortality: Cryonics has been proposed as a means of preserving bodies and resuscitating them when the nearly deceaseds’ lives can be restored and prolonged. What are the main physical and ethical obstacles to switching from cemeteries to iceboxes?
In Ashley Mangtani’s Paper Winter:
1. Does the story recount or represent an actual incident in the history of filmmaking?
2. In the relentless pursuit of visual realism, what ethical and, possibly, legal boundaries do the director and producer overstep?
In Robert B. Marcus, Jr.’s To Dream of Pictures:
1. Is the word “artell” a borrowing or a neologism? In either case, what might it represent?
2. At the end, does Charlie Dead still have an appointment to keep with the neuronal engineers?
3. Do the authorities or parents know that the artist and storyteller are influencing the children? What might they do if they notice the interactions?
In Howard Marsee’s The Memory Market:
1. The salesman cautions against “overlapping memories.” What might happen if memories did overlap?
2. Does Artie talk with a real hotel concierge or with one whom Artie remembers talking to him and Ellen in his newly purchased memory?
3. After Artie overhears the airport ticket agent explain to Mr. Watson that Ellen Waring was a fictional TV character, what form of investigation would you expect Artie to undertake?