This Is How You Die Paperback – Illustrated, April 15, 2016

Being the second collection of short stories themed around a horrific little machine that, given a sample of your blood, tells you how you are going to die.And it's never, ever wrong.There are a couple of jokers in the deck, of course. It tells you *how* you will die, but not *when*. Also, the invariably-capitalized Machine of Death is an Oracle in the classical sense: its predictions always come true, but are usually open to interpretation and often more than a little ironic. Example: the Machine predicts you will die from "GUNSHOT WOUND," but it turns out that that fatal wound comes from a hang-fire from the gun you're using to try to kill the person you think is going to shoot you. It's a weird but brilliant concept, and the various authors have a lot of fun with it in this book.The stories in the first MoD collection dealt mostly with the Machine's impact on peoples' lives (and deaths,) and the often darkly hilarious situations that arose from *sort-of* knowing how one would depart this world. This time around the authors take a more sober, insightful look at the societal and practical potential of the Machine's predictions: "The Test" as a teenage rite of passage; collecting and exchanging prediction slips like trading cards (and the terrifying consequences of trying just a bit too hard to gain peer cred by obtaining a truly unique slip); how the job description of your average workaday assassin changes when he can't simply shoot his targets dead anymore; and lots, lots more.And it *works*. Both collections are worth reading, but the stories in this one are consistently better written, more interesting and thoughtful, if not quite as funny (although it does have its moments.) These are not just good MoD stories, these are good stories, period. Five stars.

I stumbled across this book in a bookstore and wrote the title down to check it out down the road. I found that note awhile ago and ordered the book from Amazon for my Kindle. We have all bought bad books and I think those of us who love short stories and anthologies know it's a crap shoot as to what the book will be like, or how good it will be. We've all bought/read at least one that had just one good story and the rest sucked. This is How You Die is one of the best subject/idea based anthologies out there, hands down. The stories run from tragic to humourous to horrifying and all points in between. Sometimes you hit all of the notes in the same story. I wasn't super familar with most of the authors involved but in my opinion they really delivered on the subject matter.This book does play on the fears of our own mortality and asks the million dollar question of if you could know how you were going to die would you want to? For me, no I really don't think i would, but the authors in these stories struggle with that question in a believable manner and many different paths were taken. Some chose to know, some ultimately didn't. Some fought their inevitability, some surrendered to it, which is a lot like facing down death from what I've seen in those I've known who knew via illness that their clock was winding down. The simple premise is that a machine will tell you how you will die but not when or where. And while there are a few loopholes, for lack of another term, in the vagueness or off the wall possibilities, it's inevitable, like death itself, that the line printed on your card is true and unavoidable.I can say for myself that I as great as this book was, and as much as I recommend it, I couldn't plow through it. The subject matter is pretty dark even if the authors handle it differently, and even though there is humor, along with the suspense and horror, some of the themes are universal and some very true to life. There are stories in here that made me laugh, and made me cry. A few like the one of the mirror twins, has stuck with me weeks after I read it, and goes down as one of my favorite short stories of all time. So I had to read a story or two here and there versus reading it in one sitting or even inside of one week. Your milage may vary, but even though as I've said the authors do a fantastic job, it's heavy subject matter when we're talking about death and it's inevitability.Highly recommend this one. One of the best anthologies I've ever come across. I don't think you'll be disappointed if short stories and/or theme based anthologies are your thing.

This is a collection of stories all by different authors using the same premise. The result works very well, there are seemingly countless ways to tell this tale and I wouldn't say there were any that I didnt find entertaining.The worst thing about this book is when you get deeply invested in one storyline or character, and it moves on to the next. This will happen a lot.

As noted in the foreword, tales of predicting the future have existed forever. However, this collection of short stories takes that age-old idea and makes it friggin' amazing. The premise (there is a machine that can predict your death from a drop of your blood) is expanded upon in this volume in even more ways than the previous volume, Machine of Death: A Collection of Stories About People Who Know How They Will Die (http://www.amazon.ca/Machine-Death-Collection-Stories-People/dp/0982167121). In this collection is science fiction, fantasy, and choose-your-own-adventure. When the second volume was announced, I was worried that the same ideas from the first volume would just be recycled and that this book would suffer the same declining quality that many sequels have lately. I can happily say that this is absolutely not the case, and that this volume is just as great as the first. This book isn't just people getting predictions and dying in ironic and unexpected ways, but individuals living in a world where the Machine of Death exists. It allows insight to how people realistically would react, and forces us to think about our own mortality. This book is funny and thoughtful and well-written, with art by some very talented individuals.Pick it up. Seriously.

This is a rather great story anthology. It starts from a good place: a neat premise and thought experiment and makes a great sequel to The Machine of Death anthology. I'd love to see even more stories set in this world.

Machine of death was a fantastic read, but I am staggered by just how much more they have crammed into this book! I really can not wait to dive in and enjoy it.Mr North, Mr Bennardo and Mr Malki thankyou for another great publication!

I'd say 50% of stories were great, 30% were good, 20% were duds - in my opinion. But I really liked seeing how the concept of the machine of death could be stretched accross genres, with different styles, and different implications. There were fun illustrations too. At some point though I have to say that after 400+ pages, the premise became a bit redundant for me. Also, the one hardcore fantasy story that was included was impossible to follow, in my opinion.