Includes bibliographical references and index.

Introduction: Meaning in life and death -- Why is death bad? / John Martin Fischer and Anthony Brueckner -- Death, badness, and the impossibility of experience / John Martin Fischer -- Death and the psychological conception of personal identity / John Martin Fischer and Daniel Speak -- Earlier birth and later death: symmetry through thick and thin / John Martin Fischer -- Why immortality is not so bad / John Martin Fischer -- Philosophical models of immortality in science fiction / John Martin Fischer and Ruth Curl -- Epicureanism about death and immortality / John Martin Fischer -- Stories / John Martin Fischer -- Free will, death, and immortality: the role of narrative / John Martin Fischer -- Stories and the meaning of life / John Martin Fischer.