Machine of Death (anthology)

[cahn]

First things first: these guys are pretty awesome. They self-published this anthology because no publisher would take it on. They have a free pdf available at machineofdeath.net (though I bought a copy because I like supporting people who want information to be free). It came out the day Glenn Beck's book did (not on purpose) and pushed his book off the #1 amazon spot that day. So this book is meta-awesome regardless of its contents.

The contents: Say you had a machine that would tell you how you would die. It might be ambiguous ("old age" could refer to, well, old age, or a crazy old guy with a gun), but it is always right. How would you react? How would society?

None of these stories made it into my best-stories-of-all-time list, or even best-stories-of-the-year list, but they are all amusing and/or interesting and I did finish them all (more than I can say for some anthologies) -- I'd say this is a step up from the ubiquitous Greenberg-Asimov-Waugh anthologies I used to see all the time both in interest and in quality, but far below the quality of, say, Ted Chiang (relevant because, after all, "Story of Your Life" has in some sense the exact same plot, if you think about it). I'd say, for entertainment, it was worth the $6 I paid for the e-book, and certainly worth the free download (hey, there are a lot of books that aren't even worth it to me free) but maybe not (to me) the $12 a paper copy would cost.

I liked the "Heat Death of the Universe" story quite a lot, although it is filled with random infodumps, because, well, I like physics infodumps, and I did like "Global Thermonuclear War" even though it kind of gave me a headache because I don't think it really works like that... and my favorite was probably the hilarious "Torn Apart and Devoured by Lions" (available via free kindle sample as well as in the free pdf).

Comments

[nolly.livejournal.com]

I picked up the hardcopy for something like $10, because Amazon was discounting it a lot while it was #1, but I've mostly been listening to the podcast instead of actually reading it (because I have lots and lots to read, which relates to why I'm commenting on a nearly-two-week-old post), so I'm not through it yet. But yes, they are the awesome.

[charlie-ego.livejournal.com]

Cool -- glad you like it! Will be interested to see what you thought when you finish it.