Age On Ishtar

Fire Time, IX.

In Robert Heinlein's Future History, members of the Howard Families live well into their second century while still looking at most middle aged but then, at an age that differs unpredictably for each of them, they decline and die quite rapidly. Thus, on the one hand, they are spared an extended old age and senility but, on the other hand, they mature and grow older with increasing uncertainty. Heinlein shows how this uncertainty depresses one of them badly especially since she knows Lazarus Long, the Howard who just seems to go on forever.

Similarly, the Ishtarians live for maybe four of their centuries but then are:

"...spared the slow decay which can take half a human's lifetime, and the final horror of senility." (p. 110)

This means that a female who is ancient even by Ishtarian standards and who is aging doubly fast because of the pressure of events knows that she will die soon despite still looking young.

Years ago, when my mother stayed in a nursing home across Morecambe Bay, the then oldest man in Britain, aged 110, was just down the corridor from her. Who is the oldest person at any time changes continually. A few years ago, it was in the news that, in the North West of England, a man and a woman, unrelated to each other, had each reached 112. The guy looked frail enough to blow away. I have not heard anything further but it is almost certain that both are dead by now.

I would like to have longer and have always been interested in long-living sf characters.