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Trying to find a sci-fi book I read as a kid

Squeegee Beckenheim

Penultimate Amazing
Squeegee Beckenheim
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Dec 29, 2010
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Unfortunately, I can't remember a great deal about it, so I'm hoping someone here is familiar enough with it to recognise it from very sparse information.

The premise, as I remember it, has a contemporary man (I'm thinking 80s, but maybe 70s) killed in some unique way and then being resurrected in the future in an also unique robot body that looks and feels like a human body, but has all the advantages (like strength) of a robot.

The only other things I can remember are that he pilots a spaceship at some point; that he has the companionship of a couple of women, and that he sleeps with both of them simultaneously; and that there's a scene where he realises that he can sit comfortably without the use of a chair by locking his legs in a sitting position.

That's all I can remember, which I know isn't a lot to go on at all. It's possible that the title has the word "sun" in it, and that maybe the plot revolves around him having to save the Earth from some sun-related disaster or something, but I say both of those things with a very low percentage estimate of certainty. I don't remember it being particularly good, but I do remember it being quite fun, and I think I'd enjoy revisiting it.

I am trying to think of another one, but I may have recalled it. There was a novel which felt "old-fashioned" to me in which the protagonist had to travel through lots of different worlds by stepping on numbered steps, as if disconnected stairs from a staircase. I think this is probably James Blish's The Jack Of Eagles. Does that sound right to anybody who knows that story well?
 
...the protagonist had to travel through lots of different worlds by stepping on numbered steps, as if disconnected stairs from a staircase...
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This sounds a little bit like 'The Impacted Man' by Robert Sheckley... the stairs weren't numbered though.
 
The second one does sound like Jack of Eagles, where the protagonist is going through the "sigma sequence" - basically parallel worlds which for some reason (explained n the story, but long forgotten) he needs to physically step up between each. They weren't explicitly numbered, though, IIRC.
 
Squeegee Beckenheim said:
The premise, as I remember it, has a contemporary man (I'm thinking 80s, but maybe 70s) killed in some unique way and then being resurrected in the future in an also unique robot body that looks and feels like a human body, but has all the advantages (like strength) of a robot.

The only other things I can remember are that he pilots a spaceship at some point; that he has the companionship of a couple of women, and that he sleeps with both of them simultaneously; and that there's a scene where he realises that he can sit comfortably without the use of a chair by locking his legs in a sitting position.

That's all I can remember, which I know isn't a lot to go on at all. It's possible that the title has the word "sun" in it, and that maybe the plot revolves around him having to save the Earth from some sun-related disaster or something, but I say both of those things with a very low percentage estimate of certainty. I don't remember it being particularly good, but I do remember it being quite fun, and I think I'd enjoy revisiting it.
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I'm fairly sure I've read this, but I have no idea what the title is or who wrote it.

As I recall, the opening was set in the future and the guy was on a space flight when there was some accident and he was frozen in space. They had to wait decades until the technology to revive him became available. And meanwhile he was not declared to be legally dead, and his money was managed by trustees - and thanks to some cool inventions he'd come up with, his estate became colossally valuable. Unfortunately for him, his return thus triggered some kind of political shenanigans.

He also woke in something of a dystopian world in which most people lived pretty miserable lives - and this was at least partly the fault of his company, which dominated the economy and government. That's what made the trustees nervous, that he might want to "correct" things.

Does that sound familiar to you?
 
Seismosaurus said:
I'm fairly sure I've read this, but I have no idea what the title is or who wrote it.

As I recall, the opening was set in the future and the guy was on a space flight when there was some accident and he was frozen in space. They had to wait decades until the technology to revive him became available. And meanwhile he was not declared to be legally dead, and his money was managed by trustees - and thanks to some cool inventions he'd come up with, his estate became colossally valuable. Unfortunately for him, his return thus triggered some kind of political shenanigans.

He also woke in something of a dystopian world in which most people lived pretty miserable lives - and this was at least partly the fault of his company, which dominated the economy and government. That's what made the trustees nervous, that he might want to "correct" things.

Does that sound familiar to you?
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That sounds like The Unincorporated Man. He's a not a robot, though.
 
Have no idea, but just because it bears the flimsiest similarity to Buck Rogers I can manage it gives me a chance to post the greatest scene rom the show ever filmed

It's cringeness is flawless

Buck Gets Funky!
 
Seismosaurus said:
I'm fairly sure I've read this, but I have no idea what the title is or who wrote it.

As I recall, the opening was set in the future and the guy was on a space flight when there was some accident and he was frozen in space. They had to wait decades until the technology to revive him became available. And meanwhile he was not declared to be legally dead, and his money was managed by trustees - and thanks to some cool inventions he'd come up with, his estate became colossally valuable. Unfortunately for him, his return thus triggered some kind of political shenanigans.

He also woke in something of a dystopian world in which most people lived pretty miserable lives - and this was at least partly the fault of his company, which dominated the economy and government. That's what made the trustees nervous, that he might want to "correct" things.

Does that sound familiar to you?
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Or Today We Choose Faces by Roger Zelazny.

The protagonist is a Mafia hitman who is resurrected by the future Mob for a job as they are now another corporation and have lost most experience of illegality - part of the conceit is that the businesses from the laundered money are more profitable and less risky than criminal enterprises.
 
Seismosaurus' suggestion doesn't ring a bell, but my memories are vague enough that I can't actually say that that isn't it. I am reasonably certain he was a contemporary man, though.

I'm sure it's not the Zelazny one.
 
Squeegee Beckenheim said:
Seismosaurus' suggestion doesn't ring a bell, but my memories are vague enough that I can't actually say that that isn't it. I am reasonably certain he was a contemporary man, though.

I'm sure it's not the Zelazny one.
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No, the Zelazny one sounded a bit like the one that Seismosaurus was describing.
 
I'm pretty sure that was a Hardy Boys book. Maybe Encyclopedia Brown, but I'm leaning more towards the Hardy Boys.
 
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