Buying Options
Your Memberships & Subscriptions

Download the free Kindle app and start reading Kindle books instantly on your smartphone, tablet, or computer - no Kindle device required. Learn more
Read instantly on your browser with Kindle Cloud Reader.
Using your mobile phone camera - scan the code below and download the Kindle app.
You, Human: An Anthology of Dark Science Fiction Kindle Edition
Stephen King (Author) Find all the books, read about the author, and more. See search results for this author |
Michael Bailey (Editor) Find all the books, read about the author, and more. See search results for this author |
Price | New from | Used from |
- Kindle
$0.00 Read with Kindle Unlimited to also enjoy access to over 1 million more titles $3.95 to buy - Paperback
$18.95
- LanguageEnglish
- Publication dateAugust 6, 2018
- File size8756 KB
![]() |
Customers who viewed this item also viewed
Editorial Reviews
About the Author
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: #338,165 in Kindle Store (See Top 100 in Kindle Store)
- #679 in Science Fiction Anthologies (Kindle Store)
- #1,089 in Science Fiction Anthologies (Books)
- #1,221 in Fiction Anthologies
- Customer Reviews:
About the authors
Hal Bodner is a Bram Stoker Award nominated author, best known for writing the best selling gay vampire novel, Bite Club and the lupine sequel, The Trouble With Hairy. He tells people that he was born in East Philadelphia because no one knows where Cherry Hill, New Jersey is. The obstetrician who delivered him was C. Everett Koop, the future US Surgeon General who put warnings on cigarette packs. Thus, from birth, Hal was destined to become a heavy smoker.
He moved to West Hollywood in the 1980s and has rarely left the city limits since. He cannot even find his way around Beverly Hills—which is the next town over.
Hal has been an entertainment lawyer, a scheduler for a 976 sex telephone line, a theater reviewer and the personal assistant to a television star. For awhile, he owned Heavy Petting, a pet boutique where all the movie stars shopped for their Pomeranians. Until recently, he owned an exotic bird shop.
He has never been a waiter.
He lives with assorted dogs, and birds, the most notable of which is an eighty year old irritable, flesh-eating military macaw named after his icon – Tallulah. He often quips he is a slave to fur and feathers and regrets only that he isn’t referring to mink and marabou. He does not have cats because he tends to sneeze on them.
Having reached middle-age ("middle" age being dependent on how many 100 years-plus people happen to be around), he remembers Nixon.
He was widowed in his early forties and can sometimes be found sunbathing at his late partner's grave while trying to avoid cemetery caretakers screaming at him to put his shirt back on.
Hal has also written a few erotic paranormal romances -- which he refers to as “supernatural smut” – most notably In Flesh and Stone and For Love of the Dead. While his salacious imagination is unbounded, he much prefers his comedic roots and he is currently pecking away at a series of bitterly humorous gay super hero novels.
He married again -- this time legally -- to a wonderful man who is young enough not to know that Liza Minnelli is Judy Garland’s daughter. As a result, Hal has recently discovered that the use of hair dye is rarely an adequate substitute for Viagra.
Hal's website is www.wehovampire.com and he encourages fans to send him email at Hal@wehovampire.com. It may take him a month or so, but he generally responds to almost everyone who writes to him with the sole exception of prisoners who request free copies of his books accompanied by naked pictures.
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.
Michael Bailey is a freelance writer, editor, book designer, and a resident of forever-burning California. He is the recipient of the Bram Stoker Award (and 7-time nominee), Benjamin Franklin Award, over two dozen independent accolades, and a Shirley Jackson Award nominee.
Publications include the composite novels PALINDROME HANNAH and PHOENIX ROSE, two short story and poetry collections, SCALES AND PETALS and INKBLOTS AND BLOOD SPOTS, a limited two-novelette collection called OVERSIGHT and the standalone novelette OUR CHILDREN, OUR TEACHERS.
Edited anthologies include PELLUCID LUNACY, QUALIA NOUS, THE LIBRARY OF THE DEAD, YOU HUMAN, ADAM'S LADDER, four volumes of CHIRAL MAD, and the forthcoming co-edited anthologies PRISMS, and MISCREATIONS: Gods, Monstrosities, and Other Horrors.
He recently finished a memoir called SEVEN MINUTES about surviving one of the most catastrophic wildfires in history (written in twenty-three days), as well as PSYCHOTROPIC DRAGON (a psychological thriller), THE IMPOSSIBLE WEIGHT OF LIFE (a fiction collection), and SEEN IN DISTANT STARS (a dystopian novel). He is currently working on a historical western called HANGTOWN.
When he is not writing, editing, or slowly dying inside, he works as a Developmental Editor for an undisclosed publisher. Find him online at nettirw.com, facebook.com/nettirw, or @nettirw.
**2015 BRAM STOKER AWARD FINALIST (BEST ANTHOLOGY): "A DARKE PHANTASTIQUE"**
**2015 BRAM STOKER AWARD FINALIST (BEST NONFICTION BOOK): "DISORDERS OF MAGNITUDE: A SURVEY OF DARK FANTASY"**
**2015 RONDO HATTON CLASSIC HORROR AWARD FINALIST (BEST BOOK): "DISORDERS OF MAGNITUDE: A SURVEY OF DARK FANTASY"**
**2014 RONDO HATTON CLASSIC HORROR AWARD WINNER (BEST DOCUMENTARY FILM): "THE ACKERMONSTER CHRONICLES!"**
+++++
ABOUT HIS WORK:
**SIMULACRUM AND OTHER POSSIBLE REALITIES**
"Jason V Brock... A bold new voice in American fiction. Watch this man! You may be in at the birth of a legend."
--William F. Nolan (co-author of "Logan's Run"; screenwriter for "Burnt Offerings")
+++
"[Brock] makes the fantastic utterly believable... a fine writer, indeed."
--George Clayton Johnson (writer for "Star Trek" and "The Twilight Zone"; co-author, "Logan's Run")
+++
"Bravo!"
--Ray Bradbury (author of "Fahrenheit 451" and "The Martian Chronicles")
+++
"...a clever young man, Jason Brock."
--Harlan Ellison (author of "Deathbird Stories" and "A Boy and His Dog")
+++
"[Brock] knows how to tell a story... [he] has heart... real emotion... [it's] a strong part of writing that most writers never capture."
--James Robert Smith (author of "The Flock" and "Hissmelina")
+++
"[Brock] takes... characters into places I never expected..."
--Richard Matheson (author of "Somewhere in Time" and "I Am Legend")
+++++
**MILTON'S CHILDREN**
"Fun and clever and full of storytelling energy. You are bound to like this one."
--Joe R. Lansdale
(Edgar Award winning Author, "The Bottoms"; "Edge of Dark Water")
+++
"This richly textured novella is a triumph--a splendid fusion of horror and science fiction, of the cosmic and the human. It fulfills the promise of Jason V Brock's earlier work and establishes him as a force to be reckoned with in contemporary weird fiction."
--S. T. Joshi
(World Fantasy Award winning Author, "H. P. Lovecraft: A Life"; "The Weird Tale")
+++
"As satisfying as a novel, Jason V Brock's story 'Milton's Children' combines classic elements of H. P. Lovecraft and Jules Verne with modern sensibilities to spin a yarn that is part adventure tale and part horror story. I loved it, but it is thoroughly a dire warning: When we become monsters, we also create monsters."
--Ray Garton
(World Horror Convention Grand Master; Author, "Live Girls"; "Sex and Violence in Hollywood")
+++
"Venture into the Antarctic, where Jason V Brock will plunge you into one of the most terrifying Lost Worlds stories imaginable: Make no mistake, this is no Lovecraft or Crichton knockoff; the S-F/Horror story revealed here on this undiscovered island is original and scientifically plausible. The writing is crisp, precise, and easily accessible; the plotting sharp and compelling; and once the action starts it is non-stop, the reader only able to catch their breath at its very conclusion. . .
Underlying the writing, one is totally convinced that they are in good authorial hands--what I call the marvelous 'Allstate Effect,' achieved rarely by only the most highly-skilled authors. Snag this book! Copy its byline: Jason V Brock, and put it up on the fridge, then underline it--after that, be sure to watch for more exciting, literate stories to come. Highly recommended."
--Gene O'Neill
(Bram Stoker Award® winning Author, "Taste of Tenderloin"; "The Burden of Indigo")
----------------------------------
JASON V BROCK's work has been widely published in magazines, comics, online, and in anthologies such as Dark Scribe Press's "Butcher Knives & Body Counts"; Bluewater Comics's mini-series' "Tales from William F. Nolan's Dark Universe" and "Logan's Run: Last Day"; his Bram Stoker Award finalist nonfiction volume "Disorders of Magnitude"; "Qualia Nous"; S. T. Joshi's "Black Wings" series; "Like Water for Quarks"; his fiction collection "Simulacrum and Other Possible Realities"; multiple issues of "Locus" magazine and "San Diego Comic-Con International's Souvenir Book"; "Dark Discoveries" (where he served as Managing Editor/Art Director for over four years); "Fangoria," and many other venues around the world, in a variety of languages. Brock is currently finishing multiple novels, and produces the digest "NAMELESS".
Brock served as co-editor/contributor to the award-winning Cycatrix Press anthology "The Bleeding Edge: Dark Barriers, Dark Frontiers" with William F. Nolan ("Logan's Run"), which showcased new, unpublished works from authors John Shirley, Richard Matheson, Ray Bradbury, Joe R. Lansdale, Gary Braunbeck and more. Brock and Nolan also teamed for the follow-up anthology, "The Devil's Coattails: More Tales from the Dark Frontier", which featured never-before-seen writings from Dan O'Bannon, Earl Hamner, Ramsey Campbell and Norman Corwin, among others. Brock was the sole editor for the Bram Stoker Award nominated anthology "A Darke Phantastique" which included major new works from Ray Garton, Tom Conoboy, Greg Bear, and over forty others.
Brock's films include the highly-regarded documentaries "Charles Beaumont: The Short Life of Twilight Zone's Magic Man"; "The AckerMonster Chronicles!" (about legendary agent and "Famous Monsters of Filmland" editor Forrest J Ackerman; winner of the Rondo Hatton Award for Best Documentary, 2014), and "Image, Reflection, Shadow: Artists of the Fantastic" (featuring H. R. Giger, Roger Dean, Ernst Fuchs, and many more artists from all over the world). An artist and musician himself, Brock has had multiple showings of his artwork and illustrated his own books in addition to creating posters and packaging for his films and his former progressive rock band, ChiaroscurO.
A health nut and gadget freak, he lives in the Portland, OR area, and loves his wife Sunni, their family of reptiles/amphibians, and practicing vegan/vegetarianism. Visit his website at http://www.JaSunni.com .
Lucy A. Snyder is the five-time Bram Stoker Award-winning and Shirley Jackson Award-nominated author of 14 books:
* Sister, Maiden, Monster
* Halloween Season
* Exposed Nerves
* Garden of Eldritch Delights
* While the Black Stars Burn
* Spellbent
* Shotgun Sorceress
* Switchblade Goddess
* Soft Apocalypses
* Orchid Carousals
* Sparks and Shadows
* Chimeric Machines
* Installing Linux on a Dead Badger
* Shooting Yourself in the Head For Fun and Profit: A Writer's Survival Guide
Her writing has been translated into French, Russian, Italian, Czech, and Japanese editions and has appeared in publications such as Apex Magazine, Nightmare Magazine, Pseudopod, Strange Horizons, Weird Tales, Steampunk World, and Best Horror of the Year, Vol. 5.
She has an MFA in creative writing from Goddard College and lives in Ohio. You can follow her on Twitter at @LucyASnyder.
You can learn more at her website: www.lucysnyder.com
Erik T. Johnson has appeared in numerous periodicals and award-winning anthologies, including the #1 Amazon bestseller, I Can Taste the Blood (alongside Josh Malerman, best-selling author of Unbury Carol and Bird Box, and John F.D. Taff, Bram-Stoker-nominated, best-selling author of The Bell Witch and The End in All Beginnings); and in Written Backwards Press’s award-winning anthologies Chiral Mad 1, 2 and 3; Qualia Nous, and You Human.
Erik’s short fiction collection, YES TRESPASSING, was called “electric” by Malerman.
J. Daniel Stone, author of Blood Kiss and Lovebites and Razorlines said "Erik T Johnson is insanely gifted, and YES TRESPASSING is the proof. You can't get these stories out of your head.”
THIS IS HORROR UK wrote: "YES TRESPASSING is “a magnum opus of staggering proportions . . . One of the best, most beautifully written collections of this or any other year. Erik T Johnson is writing at a level that all authors, new and veteran alike, should aspire to. Because what Johnson has achieved with YES TRESPASSING is nothing less than absolute greatness.”
Erik has been asked to perform readings across genres, with such noted authors as Bram-Stoker Lifetime-Achievement-winning poet Linda Addison, and New York Times bestselling author Mary Gaitskill, whose book Secretary was made into the well-regarded, eponymous movie.
Reviewers have tried (and admittedly failed) to describe Erik’s striking originality by comparing his work with such authors as Arthur Conan Doyle, Chuck Palahniuk, Clive Barker, Borges, a sober William Burroughs, Shirley Jackson, Umberto Ecco, Barthelme, Philip K. Dick, and, Erik’s personal favorite: “Mark Twain as possessed by the future spirit of Harlan Ellison.”
Erik is currently working on his novella for the next installment of the series that began with I Can Taste the Blood, once more featuring Josh Malerman and John F.D. Taff; a collaborative dark fantasy series; two stand-alone novels; and commissioned short stories and essays to appear over the next year or two.
An extraordinary, in-depth interview with Erik can be read at:
http://kendallreviews.com/speculative-fiction-author-erik-t-johnson-discusses-everything-from-a-haunted-childhood-to-how-rock-n-roll-saved-his-life-in-a-stunning-in-depth-interview/
Visit www.eriktjohnson.net for more information about him, his work, when Erik will be reading or appearing at events, and for interview links. You can also follow Erik at @YES_TRESPASSING on Twitter; and struwwelpleter120 on Instagram.
Dyer Wilk was born and raised in California, where he spent his formative years consuming a steady diet of movies, television, and paperback books. Eventually, his interests turned to writing and graphic design (for which he is most known). His horror and science fiction stories have appeared in several anthologies, and his illustrations and designs have graced dozens of book covers.
Marc Levinthal is a writer and musician who has lived and worked in the Los Angeles area for 40 years. He is the author of the novels "Ultragoth," "Other Music" and (with John Skipp) "The Emerald Burrito of Oz," as well as several short stories and novellas, including “Trainslapper,” “Lou’s Seventh Cylinder,” and "Bloodskeleton, Scourge of the Christies.”
Customer reviews
Customer Reviews, including Product Star Ratings help customers to learn more about the product and decide whether it is the right product for them.
To calculate the overall star rating and percentage breakdown by star, we don’t use a simple average. Instead, our system considers things like how recent a review is and if the reviewer bought the item on Amazon. It also analyzed reviews to verify trustworthiness.
Learn more how customers reviews work on AmazonTop reviews from the United States
There was a problem filtering reviews right now. Please try again later.
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.”