From Newsgroup: rec.arts.sf.written

Five SF Works About Repurposing Organs and Other Body Parts

Sometimes organ donation is voluntary. Sometimes, people (or aliens)
just take what they want.

https://reactormag.com/five-sf-works-about-repurposing-organs-and-other-body-parts/
--
My reviews can be found at http://jamesdavisnicoll.com/
My tor pieces at https://www.tor.com/author/james-davis-nicoll/
My Dreamwidth at https://james-davis-nicoll.dreamwidth.org/
My patreon is at https://www.patreon.com/jamesdnicoll
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From Newsgroup: rec.arts.sf.written

"The Secret Lives of the Nine Negro Teeth of George Washington" by
Phenderson Djeli Clark (2018) is the only story read by me. And only
because it's free and you kindly included a link. Thank you.

Clark's sympathetic use of the "mulatto" and "mulata" leads me to
believe he's more NAACP than Black Nationalist. The tooth called
Solomon seems sympathetic to Washington's embodiment of melting
pot racial integration as a fantasy precursor to the NAACP's Civil
Rights Movement.

--
Don.......My cat's )\._.,--....,'``. veritas _|_ telltale tall tail /, _.. \ _\ (`._ ,. liberabit |
tells tall tales.. `._.-(,_..'--(,_..'`-.;.' vos |

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From Newsgroup: rec.arts.sf.written

On 8/19/2025 9:17 AM, James Nicoll wrote:

Five SF Works About Repurposing Organs and Other Body Parts

Sometimes organ donation is voluntary. Sometimes, people (or aliens)
just take what they want.

https://reactormag.com/five-sf-works-about-repurposing-organs-and-other-body-parts/

Just IWFNE by Heinlein. I plan to reread it some day.

Lynn

--- Synchronet 3.21a-Linux NewsLink 1.2

From Newsgroup: rec.arts.sf.written

On 8/19/2025 10:17 AM, James Nicoll wrote:

Five SF Works About Repurposing Organs and Other Body Parts

Sometimes organ donation is voluntary. Sometimes, people (or aliens)
just take what they want.

https://reactormag.com/five-sf-works-about-repurposing-organs-and-other-body-parts/

Inevitable 'Why didn't you include....' post:

Frankenstein
The Ship Who Sang
Murderbot Diaries

The Jigsaw Man
The Organleggers
...Niven did a lot of these...

The only one of yours I've read is IWFNE.

pt





--- Synchronet 3.21a-Linux NewsLink 1.2

From Newsgroup: rec.arts.sf.written

On 8/19/2025 8:09 PM, Cryptoengineer wrote:

On 8/19/2025 10:17 AM, James Nicoll wrote:

Five SF Works About Repurposing Organs and Other Body Parts

Sometimes organ donation is voluntary. Sometimes, people (or aliens)
just take what they want.

https://reactormag.com/five-sf-works-about-repurposing-organs-and-
other-body-parts/

Inevitable 'Why didn't you include....' post:

Frankenstein
The Ship Who Sang
Murderbot Diaries

The Jigsaw Man
The Organleggers
...Niven did a lot of these...

The only one of yours I've read is IWFNE.

pt

Excellent list !

And "Franks" in the Monster Hunter International series by Larry Correia.

https://www.amazon.com/Monster-Hunter-International-Larry-Correia/dp/1668072491

There is something else on the tip of my brain. Maybe by Weber or Ringo.

Lynn

--- Synchronet 3.21a-Linux NewsLink 1.2

From Newsgroup: rec.arts.sf.written

In article <1083cv1$3afj$1@dont-email.me>,
Lynn McGuire <lynnmcguire5@gmail.com> wrote:

On 8/19/2025 8:09 PM, Cryptoengineer wrote:

On 8/19/2025 10:17 AM, James Nicoll wrote:

Five SF Works About Repurposing Organs and Other Body Parts

Sometimes organ donation is voluntary. Sometimes, people (or aliens)
just take what they want.

https://reactormag.com/five-sf-works-about-repurposing-organs-and-
other-body-parts/

Inevitable 'Why didn't you include....' post:

Frankenstein
The Ship Who Sang
Murderbot Diaries

The Jigsaw Man
The Organleggers
...Niven did a lot of these...

The only one of yours I've read is IWFNE.

pt

Excellent list !

And "Franks" in the Monster Hunter International series by Larry Correia.

https://www.amazon.com/Monster-Hunter-International-Larry-Correia/dp/1668072491

There is something else on the tip of my brain. Maybe by Weber or Ringo.

Lynn

WEDNESDAY. He had no new thoughts.

THURSDAY: Professor Troubridge fell into step beside Mention,
as the latter started home.

"Norman," he said, "about your reference the other day to
Futurian Science Laboratories: If they've approached you,
don't hesitate. They can do what they claim."

For a moment, the words sounded as if they had been created
at random by a mechanical word machine. But there was meaning
finally. Meaning so important that Mention fought doggedly
to prevent himself from blathering questions that would
reveal his ignorance. He gulped, paused disastrously, and
then was saved, as Troubridge went on:

"Three years ago, my physician, Dr. Hoxwell, told me that
my heart wouldn't last six months. I went to the Mayo Clinic.
They confirmed the diagnosis. It was a month after that,
when I was already despairing, that I was approached by the
Futurian people, and informed that I could be furnished
with a new heart for ten thousand dollars. They showed me
a heart in a glass case, beating. It was a living heart,
Norman, and they said it made no difference what organ I
needed at any time, they could supply it, provided I had
the money."

Mention said: "I thought organic transplantations were
impossible because--"

He stopped. Realization came that that wasn't really the
thought in his mind. There was something else, a picture,
a question that roared through his brain with the clamor
of a tidal wave. As from a great distance, he heard Troubridge
say:

"They can do it because they've discovered a new principle
in organic electricity."

The thought that had come to Mention dominated the whole
universe of his mind now. In a dead voice, he uttered the
terrible words:

"Where do they get their live replacement organs?"

"Eh!" said Troubridge. His eyes widened. A stunned expression
crept over his face as he whispered: "I never thought of
that."

By the time Mention reached the empty apartment, he didn't
want to think of it either.

There came purpose.

He paced the living room of the apartment that night in a
fury at himself for having waited so long. And yet the
problem was still: what should he do, what could he do that
would be effective?

Go to the police?

He felt immensely reluctant. Because there was still a
chance. They wouldn't have told him NOT to go to the
authorities merely to keep him quiet for a week--if at the
end of that time he went anyway.

He could mail a letter to his bank lo put into his safety
deposit box, which would be opened if something happened
to him . . . Yes, he would do that.

He wrote the letter, then sat at his desk striving to think.
After a long period during which nothing would come, he
began heavily to write down a list of possibilities, item
by item:

Virginia accidentally runs across Futurian Labs. She
disappears.

I am warned by a man who walks through walls. I discover
that:

(1) Dr. Dorial Cranston, founder of Futurian, is a fanatic
Pacifist as well as a neurologist.

(2) That Futurian sells human organs on a mass scale to
rich men. (This is probably their purely commercial enterprise,
their source of income.)

(3) The ability to walk through walls is obviously a means
of power, and they are not sharing that with anyone. Yet
they seem unworried by the fact that I know about it.

(4) Cridley, science editor of the Herald, told Virginia
that several attempts to investigate Futurian were stifled
in embryo stage, proof that they have influence in high
places.

(5) There is absolutely no reason why they should treat
Virginia any differently than they do the other--sources--of
their live organs.

Mention wrote the last sentence grimly, then stared down
at the list, dissatisfied. It seemed to offer no lead that
he could follow with even the vaguest possibility that he
would find Virginia.
--
columbiaclosings.com
What's not in Columbia anymore..
--- Synchronet 3.21a-Linux NewsLink 1.2

From Newsgroup: rec.arts.sf.written


Saberhagen has a number of stories in which the Breserkers repurpose human organs to operate machinery. And, thinking of that, there is of course also Spock's Brain.
--scott
--
"C'est un Nagra. C'est suisse, et tres, tres precis."
--- Synchronet 3.21a-Linux NewsLink 1.2

From Newsgroup: rec.arts.sf.written

kludge@panix.com (Scott Dorsey) writes:

Saberhagen has a number of stories in which the Breserkers repurpose human organs to operate machinery. And, thinking of that, there is of course also Spock's Brain.
--scott

The Galactic Center Saga is a series of books by author Gregory Benford detailing a galactic war between mechanical and biological life. In one
of the books, a group of humans is fleeing the Machines and pass a large
vat in which a crankshaft is being turned by a number of human legs,
furiously pumping.
--
-Don_from_AZ-
--- Synchronet 3.21a-Linux NewsLink 1.2

From Newsgroup: rec.arts.sf.written

In article <87plcqdohf.fsf@comcast.net.invalid>,
Don_from_AZ <djatechNOSPAM@comcast.net.invalid> wrote:

kludge@panix.com (Scott Dorsey) writes:

Saberhagen has a number of stories in which the Breserkers repurpose human >> organs to operate machinery. And, thinking of that, there is of course also >> Spock's Brain.
--scott

The Galactic Center Saga is a series of books by author Gregory Benford >detailing a galactic war between mechanical and biological life. In one
of the books, a group of humans is fleeing the Machines and pass a large
vat in which a crankshaft is being turned by a number of human legs, >furiously pumping.
--
-Don_from_AZ-

Does Bunch's "Moderan" setting fit in here somehwere?
--
columbiaclosings.com
What's not in Columbia anymore..
--- Synchronet 3.21a-Linux NewsLink 1.2

From Newsgroup: rec.arts.sf.written

On 8/19/25 10:17 AM, James Nicoll wrote:

Five SF Works About Repurposing Organs and Other Body Parts

Sometimes organ donation is voluntary. Sometimes, people (or aliens)
just take what they want.

https://reactormag.com/five-sf-works-about-repurposing-organs-and-other-body-parts/

It has been some years, but I'm pretty sure that this is what Shayol
(the entire planet) is used for in Cordwainer Smith's "A Planet Named
Shayol".

Tony
--- Synchronet 3.21a-Linux NewsLink 1.2

From Newsgroup: rec.arts.sf.written

On 19/08/2025 20.09, Cryptoengineer wrote:

On 8/19/2025 10:17 AM, James Nicoll wrote:

Five SF Works About Repurposing Organs and Other Body Parts

Sometimes organ donation is voluntary. Sometimes, people (or aliens)
just take what they want.

https://reactormag.com/five-sf-works-about-repurposing-organs-and-other-body-parts/

Inevitable 'Why didn't you include....' post:

Frankenstein
The Ship Who Sang
Murderbot Diaries

The Jigsaw Man
The Organleggers
...Niven did a lot of these...

He did link to a previous mention of "The Jigsaw Man" in the second paragraph. --
Michael F. Stemper
The name of the story is "A Sound of Thunder".
It was written by Ray Bradbury. You're welcome.
--- Synchronet 3.21a-Linux NewsLink 1.2

From Newsgroup: rec.arts.sf.written

On 8/20/2025 2:50 PM, Tony Nance wrote:

On 8/19/25 10:17 AM, James Nicoll wrote:

Five SF Works About Repurposing Organs and Other Body Parts

Sometimes organ donation is voluntary. Sometimes, people (or aliens)
just take what they want.

https://reactormag.com/five-sf-works-about-repurposing-organs-and-
other-body-parts/

It has been some years, but I'm pretty sure that this is what Shayol
(the entire planet) is used for in Cordwainer Smith's "A Planet Named Shayol".

Yup. That story was nightmare fuel.

pt
--- Synchronet 3.21a-Linux NewsLink 1.2

From Newsgroup: rec.arts.sf.written

Lynn McGuire <lynnmcguire5@gmail.com> writes:

On 8/19/2025 9:17 AM, James Nicoll wrote:

Five SF Works About Repurposing Organs and Other Body Parts

Sometimes organ donation is voluntary. Sometimes, people (or aliens)
just take what they want.

https://reactormag.com/five-sf-works-about-repurposing-organs-and-other-body-parts/

Just IWFNE by Heinlein. I plan to reread it some day.

If you haven't seen UFO, you're missing out. I think you'd like it.

--- Synchronet 3.21a-Linux NewsLink 1.2

From Newsgroup: rec.arts.sf.written

Scott Lurndal <slp53@pacbell.net> wrote:

Lynn McGuire <lynnmcguire5@gmail.com> writes:

On 8/19/2025 9:17 AM, James Nicoll wrote:

Five SF Works About Repurposing Organs and Other Body Parts

Sometimes organ donation is voluntary. Sometimes, people (or aliens)
just take what they want.

https://reactormag.com/five-sf-works-about-repurposing-organs-and-other-body-parts/

Just IWFNE by Heinlein. I plan to reread it some day.

If you haven't seen UFO, you're missing out. I think you'd like it.

I have seen UFOs but they always wind up turning out to be IFOs in the end. --scott
--
"C'est un Nagra. C'est suisse, et tres, tres precis."
--- Synchronet 3.21a-Linux NewsLink 1.2

From Newsgroup: rec.arts.sf.written

On 8/21/2025 10:31 AM, Scott Lurndal wrote:

Lynn McGuire <lynnmcguire5@gmail.com> writes:

On 8/19/2025 9:17 AM, James Nicoll wrote:

Five SF Works About Repurposing Organs and Other Body Parts

Sometimes organ donation is voluntary. Sometimes, people (or aliens)
just take what they want.

https://reactormag.com/five-sf-works-about-repurposing-organs-and-other-body-parts/

Just IWFNE by Heinlein. I plan to reread it some day.

If you haven't seen UFO, you're missing out. I think you'd like it.

I have seen a couple of episodes but not all of them. It was very far
out there.

Lynn

--- Synchronet 3.21a-Linux NewsLink 1.2

From Newsgroup: rec.arts.sf.written

On 8/19/2025 7:26 PM, Lynn McGuire wrote:

On 8/19/2025 9:17 AM, James Nicoll wrote:

Five SF Works About Repurposing Organs and Other Body Parts

Sometimes organ donation is voluntary. Sometimes, people (or aliens)
just take what they want.

https://reactormag.com/five-sf-works-about-repurposing-organs-and-
other-body-parts/

Just IWFNE by Heinlein.-a I plan to reread it some day.

Lynn

I have about five Heinlein books in my SBR at the moment. Grumbles,
TMIAHM, TRS, IWFNE, and another that I cannot remember at the moment.
Maybe SIASL.

Lynn


--- Synchronet 3.21a-Linux NewsLink 1.2

From Newsgroup: rec.arts.sf.written

On 8/20/25 4:30 PM, Cryptoengineer wrote:

On 8/20/2025 2:50 PM, Tony Nance wrote:

On 8/19/25 10:17 AM, James Nicoll wrote:

Five SF Works About Repurposing Organs and Other Body Parts

Sometimes organ donation is voluntary. Sometimes, people (or aliens)
just take what they want.

https://reactormag.com/five-sf-works-about-repurposing-organs-and-
other-body-parts/

It has been some years, but I'm pretty sure that this is what Shayol
(the entire planet) is used for in Cordwainer Smith's "A Planet Named
Shayol".

Yup. That story was nightmare fuel.

pt

It has been probably 25-30 years since I read it, but I still have vivid pictures in my head from the story.

Tony
--- Synchronet 3.21a-Linux NewsLink 1.2

From Newsgroup: rec.arts.sf.written

Tony Nance <tnusenet17@gmail.com> writes:

On 8/20/25 4:30 PM, Cryptoengineer wrote:

On 8/20/2025 2:50 PM, Tony Nance wrote:

On 8/19/25 10:17 AM, James Nicoll wrote:

Five SF Works About Repurposing Organs and Other Body Parts

Sometimes organ donation is voluntary. Sometimes, people (or aliens)
just take what they want.

https://reactormag.com/five-sf-works-about-repurposing-organs-and-
other-body-parts/

It has been some years, but I'm pretty sure that this is what
Shayol (the entire planet) is used for in Cordwainer Smith's "A
Planet Named Shayol".

Yup. That story was nightmare fuel.
pt

It has been probably 25-30 years since I read it, but I still have
vivid pictures in my head from the story.

Tony

"A Planet Called Treason" by Orson Scott Card had "radical
regeneratives" that grew extra body parts that could be harvested and
sold, usually involuntarily.
--
-Don_from_AZ-
--- Synchronet 3.21a-Linux NewsLink 1.2

From Newsgroup: rec.arts.sf.written

On 8/22/2025 10:45 PM, Don_from_AZ wrote:

Tony Nance <tnusenet17@gmail.com> writes:

On 8/20/25 4:30 PM, Cryptoengineer wrote:

On 8/20/2025 2:50 PM, Tony Nance wrote:

On 8/19/25

From Newsgroup: rec.arts.sf.written

On Aug 19, 2025, James Nicoll wrote
(in article <108212f$sd4$1@panix2.panix.com>):

Five SF Works About Repurposing Organs and Other Body Parts

Sometimes organ donation is voluntary. Sometimes, people (or aliens)
just take what they want.

https://reactormag.com/five-sf-works-about-repurposing-organs-and-other-body-p
arts/

Bill the Galactic Hero had various body partsa deployed for comedic effect. Schlock Mercenary did it better and far more completely; several characters spent time as heads in jars, some (Lt. Der Trihs, for one) were heads in jars multiple times.

--- Synchronet 3.21a-Linux NewsLink 1.2

From Newsgroup: rec.arts.sf.written

On 2025-08-19, James Nicoll <jdnicoll@panix.com> wrote:

Five SF Works About Repurposing Organs and Other Body Parts

Sometimes organ donation is voluntary. Sometimes, people (or aliens)
just take what they want.

https://reactormag.com/five-sf-works-about-repurposing-organs-and-other-body-parts/

_Perry Rhodan_ (around #900): They took Laire's eye. IIRC, Laire
was the go-between from the Cosmocrats ("the good forces"), from
the realm behind the matter source, to the Seven Might Ones, who
seeded our cosmos with life and intelligence--and suffered misery,
madness, and death for it. Anyway, Laire's eye was the key to pass
through to the Cosmocrat realm, and... I don't remember who
exactly... took it. By force. Henceforth, Laire was one-eyed.
He, by the way, was a humanoid robot--or robotic humanoid--whose
origin remained a mystery.
--
Christian "naddy" Weisgerber naddy@mips.inka.de
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From Newsgroup: rec.arts.sf.written

On 8/20/25 05:10, Scott Dorsey wrote:

And, thinking of that, there is of course also
Spock's Brain.
--scott

You mentioned a thing that should not be mentioned. That abomination is
only a mass psychic glitch.
--
----------------

Dave Scruggs
Senior Software Engineer - Lockheed Martin, et. al (mostly Retired)
Captain - Boulder Creek Fire (Retired)
Board of Directors - Boulder Creek Fire Protection District (What was I thinking?)
--- Synchronet 3.21a-Linux NewsLink 1.2

From Newsgroup: rec.arts.sf.written

On 8/23/25 12:57, Bobbie Sellers wrote:

-a-a-a-aHas anyone mentioned Frankenstein by Mary Shelley and all the movies made about it and repurposing body parts.
-a-a-a-aNot Abe's brain but Norm's brain would be desirable.

-a-a-a-abliss

And of course, Young Frankenstein. They put Abbie Something's brain in
the monster.
--
----------------

Dave Scruggs
Senior Software Engineer - Lockheed Martin, et. al (mostly Retired)
Captain - Boulder Creek Fire (Retired)
Board of Directors - Boulder Creek Fire Protection District (What was I thinking?)
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