This Is How You Die

May 13, 2013
This sequel to Machine of Death presents more tales and comics about the infallible contraption that tells you how you will die, but not when or where. The predictions are often cryptic—“old age” could mean getting gunned down by an angry senior citizen—but always enlightening. Sherlock Holmes encounters an MoD in John Takis’s “Apitoxin,” while another is preserved into the far future in Erika Hammerschmidt’s ”Furnace.” An intrepid PI uses MoD result slips to hunt a serial killer in Daliso Chaponda’s “Screaming, Crying, Alone, and Afraid.” Richard Salter’s choose-your-own-adventure-styled “Your Choice” lets the reader select an ending. Not every story ends with death, but each does an interesting job of presenting characters’ reactions—resignation, defiance, joy—to acquiring this incredible knowledge. This fun, thoughtful, and sometimes dark anthology will stir readers to wonder about their own “results.”

June 1, 2013
In this anthology, contributions from authors across a spectrum of genres yield stories about a fantastical Machine of Death, "which can predict anybody's ultimate fate based on a simple blood test." This is the follow-up volume to the popular self-published anthology Machine of Death (2010). To recap, in 2007, Bennardo, Malki and North solicited stories from contributors, with one caveat: Each story had to involve the Death Machine, a device that would analyze a drop of blood, then would generate a slip of paper telling the person how he or she would die. In this second volume, the editors narrowed over 1,700 submissions down to 31 stories, punctuated by 13 comics. While readers might expect a wide swath of sci-fi, the entries (with names like "Bite Wound," "Got Too Extreme" and "Massive Blood Loss") are more diverse than that. "Apitoxin" unreels a classic Sherlock Holmes whodunit, while "Lazarus Reactor Fission Sequence" is old-school sci-fi in the flavor of Harry Harrison or Martin Caidin. One of the great stories, "Cancer," tells the tale of a woman whose cells hold a secret a la Henrietta Lacks, and "Your Choice" offers a Choose-Your-Own-Adventure mortality story. Whether the cause of death is "Screaming, Crying, Alone, and Afraid," "Blunt Force Trauma Delivered by Spouse," "Peacefully" or "Old Age," none of the stories unravel in the way one might think. Funny, frightening, clever; no one in these stories emerges unscathed.

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July 1, 2013

Using a simple blood test to calculate mortality patterns in individuals, the Machine of Death produces slips of paper identifying a person's manner of death. How that demise takes place--or when--is the subject of 31 stories and 13 comic strips contributed by authors, illustrators, and graphic artists selected by the editorial committee. This follow-up to Machine of Death: A Collection of Stories About People Who Know How They Will Die demonstrates that knowing is not always understanding. Each story is paired with a full-page illustration, while single-page comic strips tell their own compressed stories with wit and skill. VERDICT Most of the stories here show an ingenious approach to the anthology's theme; together, they construct a compulsively readable journey into the uncertain future.

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