The Machine of Death: A Good Book

The Machine of Death is a book, and it is full of short stories that are each individually good and so the book is in aggregate good.

All of them are based off this Dinosaur Comics strip, in which T-Rex proposes writing stories about a world where everyone can find out how they die simply by taking a test from a little machine that is always accurate, but never quite useful. It delights in irony, see.

All of the stories, of which there are around 30, take this idea and run with it. It’s a fun time all told, every story explores some interesting aspect of life in a world where everyone is a fatalist. Some, like “Torn Apart and Devoured by Lions”, are surprisingly uplifting and optimistic. Others, like “Exhaustion From Having Sex With a Minor”, are hilarious. The editors have done a great job selecting as many unique takes as they could find, and with so many stories most are quick reads that get their points across succinctly and leave you stunned by the cleverness on display. All of the stories have a piece of art to go with them, too! Each by a different cool artist.

The book is only about $10 for the print version, which I recommend getting because it’s a super nice book size, really the type that’s large enough to feel “book-y” but small enough to carry. Very solid paperback. They also released it for free in PDF form! Check it out:

Please find below the entirety of Machine of Death as a free, downloadable PDF.

Why are we doing this? Aren’t we worried about hurting our book sales?

In a word: no. You have proven time and again that you are willing to pay for content that you find valuable. You have shown that you are driven to share material that you fall in love with. And we are committed to ensuring that you can experience our work whether you can afford to buy a book or not; whether you live in a country that Amazon ships to or not; whether you have space in your life for a stack of paper or not.

Please, download, read, share and enjoy!

Dang. What Class Acts these guys are, I mean really. Totally download the PDF and then buy the book out of sheer delight!