This Is How You Die: Stories of the Inscrutable, Infallible, Inescapable Machine of Death
This is How you Die is a new collection of stories revolving around ‘The Machine of Death.’ A sequel if you will, but this new collection feels like it has a more si-fi feel. The Machine of Death didn’t have many stories that pushed the envelope, most of the stories explored what would happen to society if this machine existed, but didn’t focus too much on the technology of it. The new collection has a few more stories about wars in space, aliens, etc. If you don’t like sci-fi you probably won’t enjoy “Zephyr” which breaks one of the few rules that there is no way to predict when deaths will happen..
There is also a a comic strip between each story in this book, but I didn’t think they added anything to the story.
Overall it feels like this set of stories takes bigger risks walking the line between silly/crazy and thought provoking. So, there are a few duds, but there a few gems too. I’d only recommend reading this collection if you enjoyed the first one, and even then see if you can get it from the library or kindle prime.
Check out
- Drowning Burning Falling Flying – explores the question “what would happen if aliens used the machine?”
- Machine of Death – a horror like twist on the standard ‘Machine of Death’ story.
- Drowning, Burning, Falling, Flying
