Extra Innings

A preposterous premise and predictable plot fail to diminish the entertainment value of Spitzer's debut novel, in which Ted Williams (widely acknowledged as the greatest hitter in baseball history) is resurrected via the science of cryonics in the year 2092%E2%80%94nine decades after his real-world death at the age of 83. Dr. Elizabeth Miles reanimates Williams by grafting his preserved, frozen head onto the body of a deceased 25-year-old professional tennis player, and although it takes him several months to adapt to his new surroundings, Williams winds up reliving significant elements of his first life by rejoining his old team, the Boston Red Sox (which now plays at Fenway Island, after global warming generated coastal flooding) and then re-enlisting in the United States Marine Corps to fight the Pakistanis. Along the way, Williams must adjust to a baseball culture in which players legally consume a mixture of steroids known as "the cocktail" and the pitchers are hulking robots. He even manages to fall in love. Spitzer seamlessly mixes fact with fiction, and the future world he imagines isn't too far-fetched. But by attempting to make sweeping statements about everything from performance-enhancing drugs, global warming, and corporate greed to war, morality, and mortality, Spitzer swings for the fences when a triple or even a double would have been good enough.