De Lillo is a great writer, his novels are intelligent and thought-provoking. I've read White Noise many years ago; to this day, I consider it the best investigation that I've ever read about Death. We all have to die sooner or later and yet, interestingly, death is the great taboo of our modern society.

I bet a lot of people on HN would enjoy Ratner's Star. I'm a huge fan of his early novels: End Zone, Great Jones Street, Ratner's Star and Running Dog are my favorites. All of those novels are quick, amusing reads that unfolded in my mind for many years afterward.

Ratner's Star is one of my all time favorites and I still use the quote ”No definition of ’science’ is complete without a reference to ’terror’.” as my email signature.

Note that cryogenics just refers to the study of very low temperatures, and cryogenic liquids are used in a vast number of scientific and industrial devices. The topic of the book is more specifically cryonics, the (speculative) preservation of people using low temperature.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cryonics

A good "documentary" on DeLillo by the BBC in 1991:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0DTePKA1wgc

Musings on terrorism (through the lens of the Kennedy assassination) are even more prescient today.

I am disappointed that the interview did not include more of DeLillo's motivation for choosing to research and depict cryonics, or his personal take on it.

Their underhanded marketing ploy worked ... now I have to buy the book!

"I'm still, I'm still Donny from the Bronx..."