What do you think?
Rate this book
Among the Dead, and Other Events Leading up to the Apocalypse
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
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
210 pages, Hardcover
First published January 1, 1973
128 people want to read
About the author
Edward Bryant
229 books29 followersEdward 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
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
Ratings & Reviews
Friends & Following
Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!
Community Reviews
Displaying 1 - 5 of 5 reviews
September 4, 2019
An amazing book, it really triggers my imagination and each story is filled with creativity.
June 7, 2009
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.
Want to read
July 16, 2011Stephen King recommended book. Noted as "important to the genre we have been discussing" from Danse Macabre, published in 1981.
January 1, 2014
Not quite Cinnabar & looking forward to Particle Theory.
February 4, 2014
Чете се бързо, заради постоянно сменящите се сцени, но историята не е много интересна, нито пък оригинална.
Displaying 1 - 5 of 5 reviews