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You, Human: An Anthology of Dark Science Fiction by [Stephen King, Laura Lee Bahr, Josh Malerman, John Skipp, Gary A. Braunbeck, Richard Chizmar, L.A. Spooner, Orion Zangara, Michael Bailey, F. Paul Wilson]

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Stephen King

Michael Bailey

You, Human: An Anthology of Dark Science Fiction Kindle Edition

by Stephen King (Author), Laura Lee Bahr (Author), Josh Malerman (Author), Format: Kindle Edition

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Bram Stoker Award winning editor Michael Bailey brings you a genre-bending anthology of dark science fiction and poetry, with fiction illustrated beautifully throughout by world-renowned artist L.A. Spooner, poetry and spot illustrations by the always-impressive Orion Zangara, and an incredible introduction on humanism by New York Times bestselling author F. Paul Wilson.

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432 pages
Language

English
Publication date

August 6, 2018
File size

8756 KB
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Editorial Reviews

About the Author

Michael Bailey is a multi-award-winning author, editor and publisher, and the recipient of over two dozen literary accolades, including the Bram Stoker Award, Benjamin Franklin Award, Eric Hoffer Book Award, Independent Publisher Book Award, Indie Book Award, International Book Award, and a handful of others. His nonlinear novels include PALINDROME HANNAH, PHOENIX ROSE, and a co-authored meta-novel called PSYCHOTROPIC DRAGON (co-illustrated by Glenn Chadbourne, Daniele Serra, and Ty Scheuerman), and he has published two short story and poetry collections, SCALES AND PETALS, and INKBLOTS AND BLOOD SPOTS (illustrated by Daniele Serra and introduced by Douglas E. Winter). Through Written Backwards, an imprint of Dark Regions Press, he is responsible for producing works of psychological horror, dark science fiction, and speculative fiction, anthologies such as PELLUCID LUNACY, QUALIA NOUS, THE LIBRARY OF THE DEAD (illustrated by GAK), three volumes of CHIRAL MAD (the last illustrated by Glenn Chadbourne and introduced by Chuck Palahniuk), a fiction collection by Paul Michael Anderson called BONES ARE MADE TO BE BROKEN (illustrated by Pat R. Steiner and introduced by Damien Angelica Walters), and ALLEVON, a series of illustrated books that include Gene O'Neill's novella AT THE LAZY K (illustrated by L.A. Spooner and introduced by Rena Mason), and a collection of zombie novelettes by Scott Edelman called LIARS, FAKERS, AND THE DEAD WHO EAT THEM (illustrated by Daniele Serra and introduced by Brian Keene). Also under the Written Backwards imprint is The Cal Wild Chronicles, a 4-book series by Gene O'Neill (illustrated by Orion Zangara), a magnum opus including THE CONFESSIONS OF ST. ZACH, THE BURDEN OF INDIGO, THE NEAR FUTURE, and THE FAR FUTURE. In his spare time he is the Managing Editor of Science Fiction for Dark Regions Press, where he has created and edited original science fiction projects like YOU, HUMAN: an anthology of dark science fiction (co-illustrated by L.A. Spooner and Orion Zangara, and introduced by New York Times Bestselling author F. Paul Wilson), and OTHER MUSIC, the debut solo novel by Marc Levinthal (introduced by John Skipp). “Michael Bailey’s become one great editor. Rock-solid.” – Jack Ketchum --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

Product details

ASIN ‏ : ‎ B07G89LW5M
Publisher ‏ : ‎ Written Backwards; 2nd edition (August 6, 2018)
Publication date ‏ : ‎ August 6, 2018
Language ‏ : ‎ English
File size ‏ : ‎ 8756 KB
Text-to-Speech ‏ : ‎ Enabled
Screen Reader ‏ : ‎ Supported
Enhanced typesetting ‏ : ‎ Enabled
X-Ray ‏ : ‎ Not Enabled
Word Wise ‏ : ‎ Enabled
Print length ‏ : ‎ 432 pages
Lending ‏ : ‎ Enabled

Best Sellers Rank: #443,553 in Kindle Store (See Top 100 in Kindle Store)
- #1,026 in Science Fiction Anthologies (Kindle Store)
- #1,561 in Science Fiction Anthologies (Books)
- #1,691 in Fiction Anthologies

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Stephen King

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Stephen King is the author of more than fifty books, all of them worldwide bestsellers. His first crime thriller featuring Bill Hodges, MR MERCEDES, won the Edgar Award for best novel and was shortlisted for the CWA Gold Dagger Award. Both MR MERCEDES and END OF WATCH received the Goodreads Choice Award for the Best Mystery and Thriller of 2014 and 2016 respectively.

King co-wrote the bestselling novel Sleeping Beauties with his son Owen King, and many of King's books have been turned into celebrated films and television series including The Shawshank Redemption, Gerald's Game and It.

King was the recipient of America's prestigious 2014 National Medal of Arts and the 2003 National Book Foundation Medal for distinguished contribution to American Letters. In 2007 he also won the Grand Master Award from the Mystery Writers of America. He lives with his wife Tabitha King in Maine.

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Terry Garza

Stephen King

Reviewed in the United States on December 22, 2019

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It was a great read

One person found this helpful

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Andre'a

Eerie

Reviewed in the United States on June 15, 2019

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Awesome!!

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Oh, the Humanity

Reviewed in the United States on February 19, 2019

Editor Michael Bailey and 24 authors (25 if you count F. Paul Wilson, who pens the introduction) combine on “You, Human,” a short story collection centered around a topic that has fascinated writers since the days of “Frankenstein,” namely, what it means to be human. The stories look at all sorts of machines and creatures that more or less possess some of the traits that we associate with human beings, but aren’t quite the same as us. These include robots, clones, computer programs, virtual reality simulators, and various forms of aliens. Although 24 authors’ stories appear in the collection, the Amazon sales page promotes only one of them heavily, and with good reason. Stephen King is easily the most recognizable name among the writers in this anthology (in fact, the only other authors I’d heard of previously were F. Paul Wilson and Josh Malerman, author of “Bird Box”). King delivers, as you might expect, but some of the other stories in the collection are very hit and miss.

Presenting alternative forms of intelligence to readers in a way that has some degree of plausibility but avoids getting bogged down in technobabble is a challenging task, and, unfortunately, not all the authors in this anthology are up to it. I would guess that about one-third of the stories in “You, Human” are misfires, with a couple of them nearly incomprehensible disasters. Add to that a few more that don’t quite work, and you’ve got a book with about half its content unsuccessful to some degree. I think the reason for that rather high failure rate may be that the background of most of the authors is more in horror than in science fiction, and they approach these stories from that reference point. They are often more interested in creating a mood than exploring the many issues that naturally arise from the collection’s subject matter. A good (or bad) example is “Unity of Affect” by Jason Brock, about a video game simulation that is much more than it first seems. This story idea has tremendous potential, but Brock gets way too bogged down in information dumps and sidetracks, so that the point of the story is never clear.

Fortunately, the stories in “You, Human” that do work make up for the duds. As mentioned before, King’s contribution, “I am the Doorway” (which comes from his 1978 collection “Night Shift” and first appeared in print in 1971) is one of the more successful works in the anthology. The “I” in King’s story is an astronaut whose trip to Venus goes poorly and, when he returns to Earth, he discovers that he’s brought something very dangerous with him. It’s a familiar theme, but one handled in King’s typical, creepily effective manner. Another horror story that works is Richard Chizmar’s “Ditch Treasures.” This tale really has little connection with the theme of the book, but it delivers quite a kick at the end. The plot is short and simple: a man whose job is to cut grass along the interstate discovers something in an oversized drainage ditch that’s definitely not human.

Other good stories resemble traditional science fiction more than horror. In “The Goldilocks Zone” by John Little, an astronaut goes on a hundred-year deep space exploration voyage from which he will return practically the same age as when he left. His wife doesn’t like the prospect of never seeing him again, so she tries to figure out a way to be there for his return. This one probably is the most powerfully emotional in the entire collection. A longer story that also manages to pack a considerable dramatic punch is Hal Bodner’s “Keepsakes.” This tale involves a robot who was designed as a gay pleasure companion and who winds up outliving a number of the wealthy customers that purchase his services on a long-term basis. However, instead of having his memory wiped each time he meets a new client, the robot retains most of his memories and winds up with some very human reactions.

You can expect an anthology with this wide a variety of authors to wind up with a clunker or two, but “You, Human” has a discouragingly high number, and, worse, they often seem to be clumped together in twos and threes, making for some rough sledding to get through them. Also, the Stephen King story is nearly 50 years old, still a good story but not, as one might think, a fresh work that King wrote for this anthology. Nor do the illustrations by L.A. Spooner contribute too much other than a general feeling of creepiness more appropriate in a straightforward horror story. In most cases, the drawings had very little to do with the actual stories.

Still, the good stories in “You, Human,” (not all of which I discussed above), slightly outweigh the others, and some of them are very good and thought-provoking indeed. Many of the technological developments highlighted in these tales raise fascinating practical, moral, and ethical issues, and, in the better stories, the authors are able to get readers thinking by showing some of the unexpected (and usually, but not always, bad) ramifications of those scientific advances. Therefore, I’m going to give the book a marginal recommendation, with the usual caveat in this sort of work that “your mileage may vary.”

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stevenduaneallisonjunior

A decent anthology

Reviewed in the United States on December 29, 2018

Good subject matter, great authors, and some fantastic stories. There are a few clunkers, but overall I would totally recommend this book.

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paboyd2657

Good read for many different tastes

Reviewed in the United States on January 28, 2019

I enjoyed the variety of subject matter and twists and turns of the stories. The products of such varied authors keeps your mind fresh. Would recommend.

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