On "Metamorphosis" by David Eagleman (575 words) *****

In this short piece from Eagleman's book, Sum: Forty Tales from the Afterlives, Eagleman poses the afterlife as something similar to that created by Kevin Brockmeier's The Brief History of the Dead. Here, people live on until the last memory of them dies out. What's interesting is how Eagleman proposes that afterlife fame may be less wonderful than we normally would imagine. There's the tragedy that we depart just as those we love arrive, but more than this the tragedy of being remembered forever, in a form that increasingly has nothing to do with our actual selves. Read the story here.