After reading this interesting excerpted article from Dick Teresi's book The Undead, which discusses the difficulties in defining death by a single, consistent set of criteria and the social qualms that stirs, I decided to check out the Amazon reviews. The associated ratings were (and still are) quite shockingly bad! They follow the classic "so bad it's good" distribution, with 5 5-star ratings, 1 3-star rating, and 33 1-star ratings. So, given that I am always up for a good controversy, I decided to read and review it myself. Ultimately I mostly side with the critics, giving it two stars. If you are interested in the subject matter, I'd suggest instead Kenneth Iserson's Death to Dust, which is a bit older but much more level-headed and thorough treatment of similar issues.
