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A review by dolorsitamet
This Is How You Die: Stories of the Inscrutable, Infallible, Inescapable Machine of Death by
4.0
When I first saw the title, I brushed it off as somewhat clickbait-y. So much for not judging books by their covers. Once I heard the premise, though, I thought it was pretty cute, and decided to give it a read.
Basically, the prompt is that there exists an infallible machine that tells people how they will die - not when, and not in unambiguous (but always correct) terms. From there, different writers tell stories that come to their mind.
What results are a couple dozen shorts, variations on the theme. It's fun to compare the similarities and differences, and see which way each author takes it. There's murder-mystery, science-fiction, fantasy, satire, "standard lit" - a little something for everyone. I was worried it would be overly morbid or scary, but it ended up not being a problem.
Basically, the prompt is that there exists an infallible machine that tells people how they will die - not when, and not in unambiguous (but always correct) terms. From there, different writers tell stories that come to their mind.
What results are a couple dozen shorts, variations on the theme. It's fun to compare the similarities and differences, and see which way each author takes it. There's murder-mystery, science-fiction, fantasy, satire, "standard lit" - a little something for everyone. I was worried it would be overly morbid or scary, but it ended up not being a problem.