Among the Dead, and Other Events Leading up to the Apocalypse

by Edward Bryant

A marvelous collection of wickedly apocalyptic stories by a two-time Nebula Award winning author.

Three forlorn people huddle in a mausoleum of the frozen dead; they are the sole survivors of a germ-warfare attack that has wiped out the western United States. Their only food supply--the frozen corpses around them. Then, without warning, the refrigerators lose their electricity, and the dead begin to thaw...

Rumors spread that occupants of abandoned cars along a desert highway have been abducted by mammoth birds who hunt people as smaller birds hunt worms for their young. But a college professor decides that might not be such a bad fate...

A little old man in New York's East Village breeds strange animals to feed an overpopulated, food-short world...

In a temple of hallucination, promiscuous love leads to manacled torture and a plaster-bound groin...

The ultimate shark story...

Supposedly the next best thing to a woman is a sheep, but there may be consequences...

A psychopathic hangman discourses with his captive human pendulum...

These stories by Edward Bryant, reminiscent of Ballard's Vermillion Sands, envision a bleak and forbidding future for man--one in which unheeded warnings have been fatefully fulfilled: too many people, not enough food, not enough work, useless leisure, and the fear--or memory--of cataclysmic war.

His characters live in a chilling world where human values have been either smothered or violently destroyed--a world that is, even now, terrifyingly possible. "Whether our ultimate destination is utopia, dystopia, or Armageddon, we know the curve is headed somewhere. That's a truism. I suspect the curve is directed downward--perhaps completely off the graph. Consider this book a chart; these stories, coordinates."

Contents:
Adrift on the Freeway • (1970) • short story
Among the Dead • (1971) • short story
Dune's Edge • (1972) • short story
File on the Plague • (1971) • short story
Introduction: Loci • (1973) • essay
Jody After the War • (1972) • short story
Love Song of Herself • (1971) • short story
No. 2 Plain Tank Auxiliary Fill Structural Limit 17,605 lbs. Fuel-PWA Spec. 522 Revised • (1972) • short story
Pinup • (1973) • short story
Sending the Very Best • (1970) • short story
Shark • (1973) • short story
Tactics • (1973) • short story
Teleidoscope • (1973) • short story
The Hanged Man • (1972) • short story
The Human Side of the Village Monster • (1971) • short story
The Poet in the Hologram in the Middle of Prime Time • (1972) • short story
The Soft Blue Bunny Rabbit Story • (1971) • short story
Their Thousandth Season • (1972) • short story

Genres: Short Stories, Science Fiction, Horror, Fiction, Science Fiction Fantasy

210 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 1973

About the author

Edward Winslow Bryant, Jr. was born August 27, 1945 in White Plains NY and was raised on a cattle ranch in Wyoming. He attended the University of Wyoming, where he earned a Master’s in English in 1968 and ’69. He went to the Clarion Writers’ Workshop in 1968. In 1972 he moved to Denver CO, where he founded the Northern Colorado Writers Workshop. He helped found and run many other workshops and classes as well, including the Colorado Springs Writers Workshop.

Bryant was an accomplished science-fiction writer, mostly of short stories. He began publishing SF work with “They Come Only in Dreams” and “Sending the Very Best”, both in January 1970. For the next two decades he was a frequent contributor to magazines and anthologies, and though his fictional output slowed in the ’90s, he was still active as a critic. He was a familiar figure at conventions, especially in Colorado fandom. He was a frequent guest at the World Horror Convention, and chaired the 2000 convention in Denver.

With Harlan Ellison he wrote Phoenix without Ashes (1978), and solo short novel Fetish appeared in 1991. He also edited 2076: The American Tricentennial (1977), and was an editor for Wormhole Books. He wrote screenplays and occasionally appeared in films.

--excerpted from Locus Publications

Reviews

[Craig]

This was Bryant's first collection of short fiction. It includes seventeen short stories, all dating from 1970 - '73, and includes science fiction, fantasy, and horror, all mixed together in a sometimes-aggressive New Wave style. I find it notable that none of the stories were first published in any of the science fiction magazines of the time; a couple of them are original to the collection, but the majority are reprinted from the original speculative anthology series that were extant then, including Robert Silverberg's New Dimensions, Samuel R. Delany's Quark, Terry Carr's Universe, Robin Scott Wilson's Clarion, Hartry Harrison's Nova, and Damon Knight's Orbit. I'm not sure, but I'll bet this is one-of-a-kind in that regard. I thought he was a little obscure or oblique once in a while, but very thought-provoking and challenging for the most part. My favorites include Shark, Their Thousandth Season, the title story, and the charmingly titled The Soft Blue Bunny Rabbit Story.

[Charles]

It's sometimes hard to categorize Bryant's work. There are horror elements and SF elements, and sometimes fantasy. Although I don't like every story he's written, his work always gives me some food for thought and his imagination is highly inventive.

[Linus Leonan]

An amazing book, it really triggers my imagination and each story is filled with creativity.

[Jean-Philippe]

This was Ed Bryant's first published collection of short stories, at the very beginning of his career in the early 1970s. The stories are influenced by the New Wave style which was coursing through the SF field at the time, as well as by his friendship with Harlan Ellison. This collection was recommended by Stephen King in his seminal study of the horror genre, Danse Macabre, as one of the best 100 horror books. While a portion of the stories do indeed fall into that genre, some other are purely SF. Most of these stories have now been reprinted in a new series of collections gathering all of Ed Bryant's fiction. These are 500-600 page books, fully illustrated, with substantial auto-biographical material written by Ed before he passed away in 2017, along with contributions from many of his friends, such as Connie Willis, Dan Simmons, Steve Rasnic Tem, Howard Waldrop, Ted Chiang and many others. The titles are: On the Road to Cinnabar, Dark Angels and Particle Theories. Additional volumes are planned for 2027-2028, and the books are available via Amazon, B&N and regular bookstores. Hopefully, some of you will continue discovering the wonderful fiction which Ed created over a 40-year career.

[Debra]

Stephen King recommended book. Noted as "important to the genre we have been discussing" from Danse Macabre, published in 1981.

[Jake]

Not quite Cinnabar & looking forward to Particle Theory.

[Mihail Kostov]

Чете се бързо, заради постоянно сменящите се сцени, но историята не е много интересна, нито пък оригинална.