Boston, U.S.A. - In the two-way mirror that often is a reflection of life or art, another trend is forming. The worlds of literature and Hollywood are colliding again, this time with a focus on cryonics, the science intended to reanimate people after death and freezing.

The debut novel from Bruce E. Spitzer, Extra Innings , about baseball great Ted Williams returning to life through cryonics, was published last month by Bear Hill Media. Extra Innings was featured recently in Sports Illustrated Magazine and ranked in the top 25 on the Amazon Kindle bestseller list for sports fiction.

A cryonics movie, Freezing People is Easy, is in pre-production in Hollywood and will shoot in the fall, reportedly starring Paul Rudd, Kristen Wiig, Owen Wilson and Christopher Walken.

Inspired by Bob Nelson’s memoir We Froze the First Man and an episode of Chicago Public Media and Public Radio International’s This American Life, Freezing People is the story of Nelson’s first cryonics attempts in the 1960s. Errol Morris will direct. Producers include Steven Zaillian and Garrett Basch of Film Rites. Toronto-based Entertainment One announced that it will distribute the picture worldwide.

TV got into the act last winter when Larry King announced on CNN that he wanted to be cryonically preserved. Can reality TV be far behind?

Unlike Freezing People, which looks back at the beginnings of cryonics, Spitzer’s Extra Innings looks forward, featuring Ted Williams reanimated in 2092. In real life he was cryonically preserved after death in 2002. In his imagined return, Williams plays again for the Red Sox, bats against a robot “Botwinder” pitcher that he abhors pilot’s jets for the Marines, and struggles in a future world beset by global warming and flooding.

“The narrative resonates with the consequences of the major issues we face in our world today—the steroids debate in sports, global warming, corporate greed, technology run rampant, and the moral ambiguity of war,” says Spitzer. “It’s a societal and personal journey. Flawed in his first life, Williams must decide in the second, what’s more important: the chance to win his first World Series or the chance to be a better man?”

Extra Innings, adds Spitzer, is not only about science, baseball, redemption, and the quest for meaning in this life and the next, it’s humorous as well. “Similar to what we’re likely to see in Freezing People, you can’t help but poke a little fun at the idea of returning to life after being frozen.”

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Author Bruce E. Spitzer says he is not surprised that talk show host Larry King is the latest celebrity to announce a desire to be cryonically preserved after death. ”If you have the money, and the vision, why not?” says Spitzer. “Just look at the medical advances we’ve seen in our own lifetime and it’s not hard to imagine that future science will be able to reanimate a human being.”

In a novel called “Extra Innings” to be released in March, Spitzer imagines a new life for baseball legend Ted Williams, whose remains were frozen in liquid nitrogen in 2002: www.ExtraInningsTheNovel.com

“‘Extra Innings’ explores the universal question, if any of us had a chance to do it all over again, what would we do differently?” says Spitzer. “That’s the real question Larry King’s dinner guests should have asked him when they learned about his quest on the recent CNN Larry King Special.”

In the novel “Extra Innings” Ted Williams is reanimated in the year 2092 and the world, including baseball, is vastly changed. Flawed in his first life Williams must decide in the second, what’s more important, a chance to win his first World Series or a chance to be a better man?

“The greatest comeback of all time is more than just a game,” says Spitzer. “That would include Ted Williams, Larry King or anyone else. The challenge: how to cope in a future world? Then there is this: The first person brought back to life after death is going to know the answer to the question: Does God exist, or an afterlife?

That would present its own challenges, having nothing at all to do with the science of cryonics.” Bruce E. Spitzer’s writing has won awards from the New England Press Association, the International Association of Business Communicators, and the Publicity Club of Boston. His writing has appeared in newspapers, magazines and online, and he is a columnist for the MetroWest Daily News. ”Extra Innings” is his first novel.

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