In Cold Lazarus, the last play written by British television playwright Dennis Potter just before his death from cancer in 1994, Daniel Feeld awakens after 400 years into a world ruled by media moguls. Feeld, who was the central character of Potter's previous and linked play Karaoke, has died of cancer but his head has been frozen. He is revived by a media baron who turns Feeld's memories of twentieth-century life into a profitable nightly entertainment. The parallels with Potter's own situation are obvious and both Karaoke and Cold Lazarus are partly concerned with the relationship between playwrights and their audience. The literary device that Potter used in Cold Lazarus – the use of suspended animation, in this case by freezing, to propel a character into some sort of imagined future – is an old one in science fiction. However, it finds some sort of present reality in the cryogenics movement. For a mere US$28000–$120000, you can have your body, or for a lesser amount just your head, frozen in the hope that at some point in the future it will be possible for you to be revived and resume your existence – which only goes to show that you can take it with you! There are presently over 70 bodies and heads held in cryonic suspension by the various organisations in the USA that provide these facilities.

It might be worth considering what problems would have to be overcome for these bodies to be successfully revived.