The novel “The Star of Life” by Edmond Moore Hamilton was published for the first time in 1959.

Kirk Hammond is an astronaut engaged in a space mission on a spacecraft that in theory is perfect. However, something goes wrong and there’s no hope for him but only the prospect of returning to Earth’s atmosphere after he’s run out of oxygen. Desperate, he exposes himself to the cold space to hibernate in the hope of waking up again.

When the spacecraft returns to Earth, Kirk Hammond awakens from hibernation but discovers a world quite different from the one he left behind. He discovers that millennia have passed since he left and the Earth is dominated by the Vramen, descendants of human beings who have become immortal.