History HumanPopsicle / Literature

* In ''Literature/ThatTimeIGotReincarnatedAsASlime'' one of the summoned characters ([[spoiler:Chloe]]) has been stuck in a ~2000 year time loop for eons upon eons. They manage to break the loop in the current cycle, in the process creating their alternate self, known as [[spoiler:Chronoa]]. Years before the main story starts and as the time of their normal summoning in the loop nears they work with several characters to preserve themselves and keep the universe from having two copies of themselves running around at the same time. This culminates in them being put into a cryo-sleep like state of suspended animation in Demon Lord Luminous' basement. Once the seal on the container is breached the version held in animation goes berserk, but the other characters are able to join the two existences into a single entity breaking the loop forever.
* The protagonist of ''The Unincorporated Man'' freezes himself pending the discovery of a cure for his terminal illness, and awakens centuries later in a future where he is [[ExactlyWhatItSaysOnTheTin the only person who owns all existing shares of stock in himself]].

** During the crisis some people decide they're going to sleep out the crisis in Zero-Tau, especially elderly people who are hoping to avoid TheNothingAfterDeath which is now revealed to be the fate of anyone who dies. Unfortunately Quinn Dexter finds out where they are being stored and uses this to possess large numbers of people without the authorities realising.

* ''Literature/ImperialRadch'': Seivarden in ''Literature/AncillaryJustice'' spent the thousand years before the events of the book as one, after his ship was destroyed and his escape pod was lost and went adrift in space. When he's revived he finds the language has changed to the point he can't understand anyone, all of his implants that could have helped alleviate that problem are so out of date they can't interact with modern computers, and to top it all off he learns that his formerly [[BlueBlood highly-placed House]] hasn't existed for the last few centuries.

* In ''Literature/TheDownloaded'', it turns out that merely freezing a human body for any length of time results in a persistent vegetative state due to quantum decoherence causing the consciousness to "evaporate." As it turns out, the consciousness has to be constantly active to survive. Eventually, they discover a way to keep the body frozen while the mind is [[BrainUploading uploaded]] to a quantum computer and kept in a virtual simulation (again, having the mind do nothing results in decoherence) with the clock speed dialed way down, so that only a few days pass for the mind for every year on the outside. Once the body is defrosted (involving replacing the antifreeze in the blood vessels with the previously stored blood followed by [[MagicalDefibrillator defibrillation]]), the mind is instantly downloaded into the brain through quantum entanglement. This is the plan for the colonization of Proxima Centauri (send a ship on a 500-year trip with only 4 years passing for the frozen crew). Meanwhile, a pilot program for a cryo-prison is proposed, except the clock speed is dialed up, thus the criminal can serve a 20-year sentence in only 10 real months while mentally experiencing all of it. Plus the virtual environment can be tailored to serve as punishment and correction. [[spoiler:Things go pear-shaped when a disaster strikes shortly after both groups get iced.]]

* In ''Literature/TheDownloaded'', it turns out that merely freezing a human body for any length of time results in a persistent vegetative state due to quantum decoherence causing the consciousness to "evaporate." As it turns out, the consciousness has to be constantly active to survive. Eventually, they discover a way to keep the body frozen while the mind is [[BrainUploading uploaded]] to a quantum computer and kept in a virtual simulation (again, having the mind do nothing results in decoherence) with the clock speed dialed way down, so that only a few days pass for the mind for every year on the outside. Once the body is defrosted (involving replacing the antifreeze in the blood vessels with the previously stored blood followed by [[MagicalDefibrillator defibrillation]]), the mind is instantly downloaded into the brain through quantum entanglement. This is the plan for the colonization of Proxima Centauri. Meanwhile, a pilot program for a cryo-prison is proposed, except the clock speed is dialed up, thus the criminal can serve a 20-year sentence in only 10 real months while mentally experiencing all of it. Plus the virtual environment can be tailored to serve as punishment and correction. [[spoiler:Things go pear-shaped when a disaster strikes shortly after both groups get iced.]]

* In ''Literature/TheDownloaded'', it turns out that merely freezing a human body for any length of time results in a persistent vegetative state due to quantum decoherence causing the consciousness to "evaporate." As it turns out, the consciousness has to be constantly active to survive. Eventually, they discover a way to keep the body frozen while the mind is [[BrainUploading uploaded]] to a quantum computer and kept in a virtual simulation (again, having the mind do nothing results in decoherence) with the clock speed dialed way down, so that only a few days pass for the mind for every year on the outside. Once the body is defrosted (involving replacing the antifreeze in the blood vessels with the previously stored blood followed by [[MagicalDefibrillator defibrillation]]), the mind is instantly downloaded into the brain through quantum entanglement.

* ''The Far Arena'' features a Roman gladiator coming to the modern day. Among other things, he freaks out about finding crucifixes around people's necks, effortlessly butchers a top fencer in a duel, and reveals a huge amount about Roman life to researchers.

* In ''I Was a Teenage Popsicle'' by Bev Katz Rosenbaum, the main character, Floe, is defrosted 10 years after she was frozen. She was frozen at the age of 16 because of an incurable disease that killed her. When she wakes up, she finds out everything has changed. Her parents were frozen shortly after she was, so she is forced to live with her sister, who was younger than her.

* In Karl Schroeder's ''Lockstep'' an entire civilization freezes itself on a synchronized schedule [[spoiler:to conserve robotically gathered resources and serve as a reservoir of technology while the rest of the universe goes through a series of accelerandos and collapses]].
* In Laurence Manning's novel ''The Man Who Awoke'' a millionaire puts himself into suspended animation (through ridiculously easy means) and awakes in the year 5000. What is amazing about this book -- written in 1933 -- is that the people of the future are angry at their long distant ancestors who used up all the metal and oil, leaving them nothing. They had to rebuild society on a wood and wood alcohol based technology. The sleeper escapes by going back into suspended animation, reawakening at intervals of thousands of years to find mankind evolving, for better or worse, eventually achieving immortality. Eventually the sleeper joins a movement trying to contact a higher consciousness of which individual humans are cells.

* ''Literature/{{Deathlands}}''. In "Ice and Fire", the protagonists are exploring a redoubt which has a cyro section. When they try to open them, some malfunction and [[ImMelting turn their occupants into goo]], one man commits suicide the moment he's revived, a woman is in such pain she begs for a MercyKill, and the SoleSurvivor isn't happy to be revived in an AfterTheEnd future where there's no way of curing his disease.

* Creator/LoisMcMasterBujold's ''Literature/VorkosiganSaga'':
** Cryo-freeze is often used for badly wounded soldiers, until they can reach the high grade medical help needed to restore them. Miles spends much of ''Literature/MirrorDance'' in a misplaced cryo-capsule, while his friends search for him.
** In ''Literature/{{Cryoburn}}'' Miles is on a planet whose entire culture, and economy revolves around cryonics. Nearly everyone on the planet gets themselves frozen, before they die, in the hope that they can be thawed out once there's a cure for whatever's killing them (including old age). The cryonic corporations get the proxy votes of everyone they've got in storage, so they are now in complete control of the planet (since the frozen outnumber the living by quite a margin).

** Short stories and novels, including ''Literature/AWorldOutOfTime'', involving "corpsicles", his name for {{Human Popsicle}}s. Most of the time their legal rights are severely curtailed, since they usually have run out of the money that was paying to keep them frozen and lack any kind of relevant work skills. In ''The Defenseless Dead'' there's an attempt to pass a law enabling the OrganTheft of those who can't be revived, as well as a plot to take advantage of the inheritance windfall of the few corpsicles who made more successful investments.
** "Literature/AWorldOutOfTime" is a development of an earlier short story about a “corpsicle” revived mentally in a contemporary body, for the purpose of reprogramming as a Rammer, or star ship pilot. It’s strongly implied that several previous candidates had already failed the assessment...
** In his early short story "Literature/WaitItOut", the protagonist achieves a similar effect by stripping naked on the surface of Pluto, although the frozen corpse [[AndIMustScream periodically undergoes periods of consciousness]] due to cold and conductivity effects.
** There are also the Slaver Stasis Field and Boxes, basically “space magic” plot devices to transport arbitrary selections of items, and at least one actual alien, from the deep past.

* Lisanne Norman's human colonists travel in cryonics to get to their first extra-solar colony world. It performs poorly with a large number of colonists dying before planetfall.

* Creator/VernorVinge's ''Literature/ADeepnessInTheSky'': Sleeper units are the only way for slow-zone spacers to survive the decades and centuries between ports. At one point, the young Pham Nuwen avoids using one out of fear and spends a couple of years studying instead.

* In the ''Literature/JacobsLadderTrilogy'', the colony ship ''Jacob's Ladder'' carries hundreds of thousands of cryonically frozen passengers in addition to a living crew.