“PIANO,” by Rafa Franco. Read by the author.

PIANO, man. Can you believe it? Friggin’ PIANO. You know what the problem was? I did it when I was sixteen. Friggin’ sixteen years old. You don’t do that kind of thing when you’re sixteen. You’re not supposed to know the exact way you’re gonna die when you’re sixteen! You’re supposed to be…friggin’ skinning your knee playing street hockey! Reading comics! Getting laid! Not having a blood test to find out you’re gonna die by PIANO!

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Rafa Franco was born on a wee town in Argentina about 27 years ago. Graphic designer by trade, he has had some art and a couple of articles published where you will never find them, and has managed to unwillingly produce some small-time freelance graphic design work. Like an idiot savant, he roams the muddy slime of mediocrity and has the common sense to let the occasional spark of creativity out to the world. If you feel like traveling fifteen thousand miles south to the city of La Plata near Buenos Aires, you may catch him starring in a play as a 70-year-old backwater whore. Or you can reach him at rfranco81 [at] yahoo.com. It’s okay.

In the book, “PIANO” is illustrated by Kean Soo!

The online science-fiction magazine Strange Horizons has a wonderful review of our book up today. It has some very nice (and specific) things to say about many of our writers, including Camille Alexa, Tom Francis, John Chernega, Julia Wainwright, Jeff Stuatz, Erin McKean, Shaenon K. Garrity, J. Unrau, Jeffrey C. Wright, Daliso Chaponda, and David Malki !

I’m especially happy to see our book reviewed by Strange Horizons, as I made one of my first short story sales to them way back in 2003. Here’s a short quote from the review that makes us blush every time we read it:

…This sort of Man vs. Fate dilemma has obsessed us since Sophocles, so it’s not shocking to report that Machine of Death hooks you from page one. But where this collection could have been a one joke wonder or merely skated by on its own cleverness, it turns out to be a lot deeper than that. A lot more intelligent. A lot less predictable than its theme of inevitability would have you suppose…

If it’s cheap, sadistic thrills you crave you’d do better to let Machine of Death alone and catch up on your Jersey Shore—but if you’d like to think as well as be mightily entertained, you’re in the right place.

Also: All ebooks are now only $5.99!

In other news, some folks have already noticed that our ebooks are now cheaper than they used to be. We’ve temporarily dropped the prices on all of our ebooks from $9.99 to $5.99. The reason for the price drop is tied to the mysterious countdown that David announced a few days ago, but I’m not going to spill the beans about that yet. There will be more information coming on that very soon!

As a reminder, here are the current varieties of our (temporarily cheaper!) ebook:

• Kindle version from Amazon
• Nook version from Barnes & Noble
• iBook from Apple’s iBookstore
• ePub directly from us

You can also get the ebook on Goodreads and read it in their ereader. We’re still waiting for Google Books to finish “processing” our file, but we hope that soon you’ll be able to read it there too. EDIT: I almost forgot! As always, we still have the free PDF as well, but the price hasn’t changed on that.

And some reasons to follow us on Facebook

We don’t always post full blog posts when we have little snippets of news, but we do sometimes put them up on our Facebook page. Our Facebook fans recently got to see some glimpses of new things we’ve been working on like this and this. We also ask for feedback sometimes on how we can do things even more awesomely.

So visit our Facebook page and be sure to “like” us! We are likable people, at our core. It is nice of Facebook to notice this.

“ANEURYSM,” by Alexander Danner. Read by Kris Straub.

“It’s a new party game,” said Norma, as she pushed a small cart into the living room. The cart was draped with a white bed sheet, keeping the cart’s burden hidden.  The guests all turned to watch as the little mystery wheeled into the room, squeaking slightly, leaving a visible groove in the carpet.  Norma stopped and stood; she made no move to uncover her secret, only smiled at the seven faces around her.  Every guest had a fresh drink in hand and a hot hors d’oeuvre on a toothpick.

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Alexander Danner writes and teaches comics. His most recent series is “Gingerbread Houses,” a retelling of Hansel and Gretel illustrated by Edward J. Grug III. “Gingerbread Houses” and other fairy tales can be found at picturestorytheater.com. More of Danner’s stories and experiments can also be found at twentysevenletters.com. He is co-author of the textbook Character Design for Graphic Novels, and he teaches Writing the Graphic Novel at Emerson College.

Kris Straub is the cartoonist behind the webcomic Chainsawsuit and the sci-fi humor saga Starslip. He’s also co-author of the Harvey Award-nominated How To Make Webcomics, published by Image. Kris has lived in every city in America for at least one second. Hear more of his voice in Webcomics Weekly, Tweet Me Harder, and Blamimations.

In the book, “ANEURYSM” is illustrated by Dorothy Gambrell!

This weekend, the Emerald City Comicon in Seattle welcomes several Machine of Death contributors! Artists KC Green and Aaron Diaz, as well as author and co-editor David Malki !, will be at TopatoCo booth 202 all weekend. Also spread around the show will be artists Danielle Corsetto, Kris Straub, and Scott Campbell. UPDATE: And Dylan Meconis! DOUBLE UPDATE:: And Karl Kesel, Cameron Stewart, Dean Trippe, and Matt Haley!! They will sign your books! They are contractually obligated to.

Special guest! “MISCARRIAGE” author James L. Sutter will also be in attendance on Sunday, March 6th, signing books from 1-2 PM at the TopatoCo booth! Don’t miss this rare chance to fill out your MoD Contributor Signature Checklist — or at least make some progress towards ULTIMATE COMPLETION.*

Bring your own copies of MoD to be signed, or we’ll also have a limited number available for purchase directly from us with free smiles included (while supplies last). See you this weekend!

* First person to have their copy signed by every single contributor gets an AMAZING prize.

“EXPLODED,” by Tom Francis. Read by Christopher Joseph.

“It’s going to look like we’re profiting from it? Pete, it’s going to look like we did it. You don’t seem to realise how sceptical people are going to be about something like this. You’re the only person in the world who has any idea how this box works, and to the rest of us it looks a hell of a lot like a hoax. And when some small-minded prick with a bag of pipe bombs decided commuters were responsible for all the world’s problems this morning, it became the most vicious hoax in history. We’re going to have protesters on your lawn around the clock, we’re going to get ripped to shreds in the press, we’re going to be hounded by cameras. We’re going to get mail bombs, Pete.” I sat down, and lowered my voice. “They’re gonna try and kill us. Nobody knows yet, but I promise you that at some point in the next eighteen hours, someone Googling the victim names is going to find our prediction list and our lives as they stand will be over.”

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Tom Francis is a writer and editor for PC Gamer magazine and PCGamer.com. He blogs at pentadact.com.

Christopher Joseph is a filmmaker in Los Angeles. His website is palmeralley.com.

In the book, “Exploded” is illustrated by Jesse Reklaw!