Machine of Death: A Collection of Stories About People Who Know How They Will Die

Review 3: Machine of Death: A Collection of Stories About People Who Know How They Will Die edited by: Ryan North, Matthew Bernardo, & David Malki !

I believe I first heard of this book through Dr. McNinja's website, where the authors were announcing that they wanted to make Machine of Death the Amazon number one seller the next Tuesday. They succeeded, no thanks to me, but when I eventually saw this book in the store, I had to get it. But not because it was a number one seller for a day - you see, I am only 90% sure I heard about it from Dr McNinja; I could have read about it in countless other webcomics' news posts, since a large portion of its contributors are from that rich community, and I tend to enjoy their work.

Having been a reader/viewer of that community for some time made the book that much better. It was rather fun to see the name of an artist I knew, and exciting to see an illustration in a style I recognized. Before we go further, I must make it clear that the book is not a comic. It is very much a book of short stories. However, each story is accompanied by an illustration. These illustrations can be everything from literal visualizations of a moment in a story, or an interpretive work of art, only understood after the matching story is read. But no matter what style or route the artist chose to take, they all add to the stories, making the book richer as a whole.

By now you are no doubt wondering what the book is about. It is inspired by a comic written by editor Ryan North. In this comic, a character proposes writing a story about a world where everyone knows how they are going to die. Machine of Death is those stories. But the stories are not simply about knowing how you will die. Everyone goes to the doctor, gets a blood test, and out pops a slip of paper with the nature of their demise. There is, of course, a catch. No matter how obvious a manner of death may be, it can come true in unexpected ways. Do you die of OLD AGE? That can mean you live a long, fulfilling life, or you die because an old man fell asleep at the wheel. BOATING ACCIDENT could mean an event on the ocean, or a truck hauling a boat across a land-locked area swerves, sending the boat into your car. In short, no matter how you try to avoid the death on your piece of paper, it will come true.

Twists of fate like this are mentioned throughout the book, but they are not the heart of the book. Like any good fiction, the stories tell us of their people, the way the world affects them, and how they react to that world. There is one common thread in all the stories: the Machine of Death is everywhere, and everyone knows how they are going to die. Other than that thread, the stories run the gamut from the high school girl who's death test will determine which table she sits at during lunch, to the soldier who's test reads "SHOT BY SNIPER." The stories are funny; they are sad; they are cheerful - in short, they are everything you could ask for. Some stories won't appeal to everyone; this is the nature of a collection. But there will certainly be enough that appeal to any reader that they will enjoy the book as a whole.

Unless that reader enjoys morbidity. Of all the feelings or emotions that could be evoked, one might expect this to be the first one felt in a book called "Machine of Death." Strangely, it is not. There may be one or two morbid stories, but the majority don't focus on death - they focus on the lives people live in the shadow of death. It is this focus that makes the book so entertaining. There are so many different types of people out there, and so many different types of death, that you can create any story from their combination - and this book has the best of those stories.

End review: You'd best buy this book!