I Just Read About That…

SOUNDTRACK: DIARRHEA PLANET-“Lite Dream” Live on KEXP (2014).

How to pass up a band with a name like this?  Well, it’s pretty easy, actually.  Who would even want to say their name?

The name conjures images, no, let’s not go there.  The name conjures music that is just abrasive and rude–ten second punks songs.  But in reality, their music is pretty traditional old school heavy metal.  They have 4 lead guitarists after all! (There’s 6 guys in the band altogether, surprisingly, there’s no women).   One of the lead guitarists even plays with his teeth (for a few seconds).

This song is about heavy metal, although I’m not sure what about it.  There’s some big riffs, solos galore.  There’s even a classic 80s style dual lead guitar solo.  There’s big loud drums.  There’s feedback.  It’s everything you think of as heavy metal, with a seeming wink and nod thrown in.

This is basically a goofy feel good band, playing fast heavy metal.  Shame about the band name, though, really.

Watch it all here.

[READ: spring and summer 2014] This is How You Die

It is quite disconcerting to open a Christmas present from your wife and have the first thing you see be the words “This is How You Die.”  To then look at her confusedly and try to interpret the look of excited delight on her face as she wonders why you’re not excited.  Then she explains that it is a sequel to the interesting collection Machine of Death that you both had read several years ago (but which I evidently never posted about).  Sighs of relief and then Christmas can proceed with more merriment.

So over the course of the new year I read these stories and I enjoyed most of them quite a lot.

The premise of the book is that there is a Machine of Death.  This machine states how you will die, but it does not give you a time, place or real definition of what it means by hope you will die.  Statements seem obvious but may in fact be different in some twisted way.  As it says on the back of the book, OLD AGE could mean either dying of natural causes or being shot by an elderly bedridden man in a botched home invasion.  The book revels in the irony that you can know how it’s going to happen , but you’ll still be surprised when it does.

The way the machine works is that you insert your finger, it takes a blood sample and gives you a card with the way you die printed on it.  No matter how many times you do it you will get the same result.  These are the guidelines, and each author made a story with just that set up.

Pretty cool right?  The first collection was really great.  And so is this collection, done by writers and cartoonists that I had never heard of before.  There are 34 stories and 12 comic strips (it’s a hefty collection).  Because each story is basically about how a person dies, I had to think about how best to review the book–without giving away any twists.  So I think the title and a very brief plot will have to suffice.

There’s even a funny promo video for the book (at the end of the post).

NATHAN BURGOINE-“Old Age, Surrounded by Loved Ones” illustrated by Danica Novgorodoff
When a woman gets two different results from her machine, the only possible explanation is that her twin sister is supposed to get one of them.  Right?

TOBY W. RUSH-“Rock and Roll” illustrated by Meredith Gran
Fans are all set to meet a rock star who has gained fame because his ticket says ROCK AND ROLL.  The lucky winners of the contest to meet their rock hero are so excited.  So what would happen if they knew what his real ticket said?

RHIANNON KELLY-“Natural Causes” illustrated by Leela Wagner
In this story the premise is that the machine of death has just appeared in town and now the town has to cope with this new thing–should anyone or everyone try it?  Should you show anyone what you get?  Are you cooler if you death is cooler?  The twist at the end is awesome.

RYAN ESTRADA-“Shiv Sena Riot” illustrated by Ben McSweeney
This follows the story of a woman who works for customer service for the Machine of Death company. She tries to answer people’s questions with empathy although she herself has never gotten a reading. Will things change if she does?

GEORGE PAGE III-“Zephyr” illustrated by c. billadeau
I wasn’t expecting to like this one because it was a military story and it seemed like it would be obvious.  But I loved the set up–this military squadron is made up of people who seem like their deaths all correspond to a particular military even that the army has planed. It’s like a suicide mission because they all assume they will die on that mission, which makes them fearless in every other mission.  The twist at the end is amazing.

CHANDLER KAIDEN-“Execution by Beheading” illustrated by Mike Dawson
In this story, some kids hear a rumor that their Middle Eastern neighbor received death by beheading.  They believe that he may be a terrorist so they set out to trick him into revealing his ticket.  But instead, the ticket they find reveals something much more personal, it’s a very interesting spin on the premise.  I enjoyed this one a lot, both for the tension and the resolution.

TOM FRANCIS-“Lazarus Reactor Fission Sequence” illustrated by Les McClaine
This story concerns the Island of Dr. Jethmalani, a location where the doctor has built the Lazarus Reactor, essentially a self-generating nuclear reactor.  The narrator is a henchman on the island who is called Mort, because he is director of mortality.  He decides how the people who invade the island will die based on their tickets.  But man sometimes it’s tough being creative in this way all the time.  I liked the premise more than the execution of this one.

GRACE SEYBOLD-“Drowning Burning Falling Flying” illustrated by Carla Speed McNeil
When aliens land, humans try to get them to use the Machine.  But things change drastically once the aliens do.  Have the aliens opened us up to more possibilities?

D.L.E. ROGER-“Conflagration” illustrated by  Sam Bosma
What happens when your job is to convince people not to get a prediction?  At the same time, what would happen if you saw a result that led you to believe the end of the world was coming?  Hypothetical stories meld in this interesting story.

DALISO CHAPONDA-“Screaming, Crying, Alone, and Afraid” illustrated by Greg Ruth
At some point reading so many stories about death can be, well, depressing, especially with a title like this.  But this one was an interesting twist on the premise yet again.  A woman keeps coming back to the same local Machine dealer.  She claims to be bringing blood from friends, but they all keep getting the titular reading.  What if she is actually trying to solve a crime with these readings?  An interesting idea realized very well.

JOHN TAKIS-“Apitoxin” illustrated by Indigo Kelleigh
This is a Sherlock Holmes story!  A charlatan is using the device to blackmail people.  Can Holmes prove it?

ADA HOFFMANN-“Blue Fever” illustrated by Alice Duke
In another culture, it was up to certain women to sing a death song based on one’s ticket.  Can Athba sing a death song to a visiting dignitary?

REBECCA BLACK-“Tetrapod” illustrated by Rebecca Black and Carly Monardo
When teaching a class to young people, an ice breaker is to say how you will die.  But he knows too many deaths from too many young people now.

KAREN STAY AHLSTROM-“Machine of Death” illustrated by Alexandra Douglass
The Machine of Death as a college party game. Everyone is enjoying themselves until one partygoer says that it is a morbid way to spend the night.

DAVID MALKI-“Monsters from the Deep” illustrated by Mike Peterson
No one knows when they started appearing… the machines were just there one day.  And were they assigning brutal deaths deliberately?  And, wait, are they all just gone now?

GORD SELLER-“Toxoplasmosis of the Brain; Candidiasis of the Esophagus; Candidiasis of the Trachea; Candidiasis of the Bronchi; Candidiasis of the Lungs; Kaposi’s Sarcoma; Pneumonia; Tuberculosis; Stab Wound in the Belly; and Bus Accident” illustrated by Gord Sellar and Nick Abadzis
What if the Machine of Death was used to set up “death camps” for people with certain types of illnesses.

RYAN NORTH-“Cancer” illustrated by Lissa Treiman
Helen keeps getting different results every time she gets tested.  She even sues the company, but eventually they discover that the predictions are not for her, they are for…parts of her. It’s a very cool twist on the premise.

MARLEIGH NORTON-“Two One Six” illustrated by  Shari Chankhamma
This one took a little while for me to “get it.”  The tickets says 216, could it be seconds, minutes, years, or something beyond….

LIZ ARGALL-“Blunt Force Trauma Delivered by Spouse” illustrated by Emily Partridge
What if you love your spouse, but the machine gives you the above result?

JOHN AND BILL CHERNEGA-“Meat Eater” illustrated by Dana Wulfekotte
This story is about a pamphlet which is a “frank, honest discussion with [your] children about cause of death testing.”  It’s a very funny take on helpful government pamphlets.

SARAH PAVIS-“Made into Delicious Cheeseburger” illustrated by Becky Dreistadt
This one is three paragraphs long.

RICHARD SALTER-“Your Choice” illustrated by Richard Salter • Graham Annable
This is a  choose your own adventure story in which so many different scenarios play out, but the machine of death is never wrong.

ED TURNER-“In Battle, Alone and Soon Forgotten” illustrated by Tony Cliff
Once again I thought this would be an army story but I was quite wrong.  This is the story of Grun, an orc.  Usually orcs don’t have names (and they all get the above result), but this one has a name and he plans to do something about the way orcs are treated.

M. BENNARDO-“Lake Titicaca” illustrated by Dustin Harbin
This is a very funny little story about middle school boys trying to get the nerve up to use the machine.  It’s in an arcade, and the arcade operator, Mr Szyzylly, offers “encouragement” to the kids to get them to try it.

REN WAROM-“In Sleep” illustrated by Claire Hummel
This is a mystical story about singers and what happens to them when they die.

HOLLAN LANE-“Cecile” illustrated by Ramón Pérez
What if the woman you love is the name on your ticket.

MARTIN LIVINGS-“La Mort d’un Roturier” illustrated by Aaron Diaz
In this case the Machine of Death is an automaton, designed to creep people out as much as anything else.

KYLE SHOENFELD-“Not Applicable” illustrated by Chris Schweizer
What could it possibly mean if your ticket said “not applicable?”

M.J. LEITCH-“Peacefully” illustrated by Tyson Hesse
This story is a zombie story.  In this case, you are given a reading of either peacefully or violently.  All the peacefuls live together, they even watch a show called How Do They Die?!  In this case anyone with a V (for violently) on them was captured and then were killed violently.  But how peaceful can you be when everything round you is dying violently.  This was an interesting psychological concept.

BRIGITA OREL-“Old Age” illustrated by Braden Lamb
What if you care so much about someone that you don’t tell her what your result is, and she tries to please you by doing exactly what will kill you?

ERIKA HAMMERSCHMIDT-“Furnace” illustrated by Trudy Cooper
In another alien story, aliens studying Earth (long after there are no humans left) have discovered a machine of death.  They have a translator who only has figured out certain words.  They translate death as orgasm and assume that the machine predicts how your orgasm will happen.  So every alien tries it with interesting results.  It’s an funny play on how they interpret our language and the various  metaphors we use.

The comic strips, unlike the stories are short and silly/funny.  They are a very different tone from the stories and are very cartoony.  While they balance the heaviness of the stories, none are all that memorable.

KC GREEN-Bear, Got Too Extreme, Unwise Decision, Abandoned in Space, Poison,

RYAN PEQUIN-Old Age, Massive Blood Loss, Eaten Alive by Insects

ANTHONY CLARK-Dracula (this one is pretty funny)

KRIS STRAUB-Skydiving, Mauled, Bite Wound

RYAN NORTH-Koala Bear (First Appearance of Machine of Death)
This one is pretty great as it is the comic that started it all.  In it a T-Rex explains the whole conceit of the machine of death in six panels.  With two very funny punchlines.  Friggin’ cheeseburgers.

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So this book is a great read.  The creativity exhibited is fantastic.  I love that the premise of the MoD is set up so that people can twist it into something original just about every time.  I will admit that reading about people dying over and over can get a bit much so this might be more of a dip in book.  But aside from one or two stories that I thought were just okay, this whole collection was really sold.

And here’s the funny video: