Line #182 Literature/MachineOfDeath


1	[[quoteright:350:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/machine_of_death_cover.png]]
2
3	''Machine of Death'' is an anthology of short stories released in 2010, edited by Creator/RyanNorth (''Webcomic/DinosaurComics''), Matthew Bennardo, and David Malki ! (''{{Webcomic/Wondermark}}'', ''Podcast/TweetMeHarder'').
4
5	The anthology is centered on a premise from one episode of North's ''Webcomic/DinosaurComics'': A machine exists, capable of predicting a person's future cause of death through a simple blood test and revealing it via a few words printed on a simple white notecard. The machine's predictions are completely infallible and always correct, though they are not always as straightforward as they seem: for example, "old age" could mean anything from an uneventful death of natural causes to murder by an octogenarian, and such ironic and unusual deaths abound.
6
7	The stories in the collection were selected from nearly 700 submissions. Each story is accompanied by an illustration, many of them by well-known webcomic artists. It is available online [[http://machineofdeath.net/a/ebook as a free ebook]], while an audiobook version is being distributed as a [[http://machineofdeath.net/about/podcast series of podcasts]] (also free).
8
9	A second anthology (or a second volume of the same anthology, depending on your perspective), titled ''This Is How You Die'', was released on July 16th, 2013. This volume included a number of short standalone comic strips between some of the stories.
10
11	[[folder:List of stories]]
12	The name after the author's name is that of the illustrator.
13
14	!''Machine of Death''
15
16	* "Flaming Marshmallow" by Camille Alexa • Shannon Wheeler
17	* "Fudge" by Kit Yona • Vera Brosgol
18	* "Torn Apart and Devoured by Lions" by Jeffrey C. Wells • [[Webcomic/TheAdventuresOfDrMcNinja Christopher Hastings]]
19	* "Despair" by K. M. Lawrence • Dean Trippe
20	* "Suicide" by David Michael Wharton • Brian [=McLachlan=]
21	* "Almond" by John Chernega • Paul Horn
22	* "Starvation" by M. Bennardo • Karl Kerschl
23	* "Cancer" by Camron Miller • Les [=McClaine=]
24	* "Firing Squad" by J Jack Unrau • Brandon Bolt
25	* "Vegetables" by Chris Cox • Kevin [=McShane=]
26	* "Piano" by Rafa Franco • Kean Soo
27	* "HIV Infection From Machine of Death Needle" by Brian Quinlan • Creator/KCGreen
28	* "Exploded" by Creator/TomFrancis • Jesse Reklaw
29	* "Not Waving But Drowning" by Erin [=McKean=] • Carly Monardo
30	* "Improperly Prepared Blowfish" by Gord Sellar • Jeffrey Brown
31	* "Love Ad Nauseum" by Sherri Jacobsen • Creator/KateBeaton
32	* "Murder and Suicide, Respectively" by Ryan North • [[Webcomic/DresdenCodak Aaron Diaz]]
33	* "Cancer" by David Malki ! • Danielle Corsetto
34	* "Aneurysm" by Alexander Danner • Dorothy Gambrell
35	* "Exhaustion From Having Sex With a Minor" by [[Creator/BenCroshaw Ben “Yahtzee” Croshaw]] • Cameron Stewart
36	* "After Many Years, Stops Breathing, While Asleep, With Smile On Face" by William Grallo • Scott C.
37	* "Killed by Daniel" by Julia Wainwright • Marcus Thiele
38	* "Friendly Fire" by Douglas J. Lane • Kelly Tindall
39	* "Nothing" by Pelotard • [[Webcomic/{{Bobbinsverse}} John Allison]]
40	* "Cocaine and Painkillers" by David Malki ! • Jess Fink
41	* "Loss of Blood" by Jeff Stautz • Creator/KrisStraub
42	* "Prison Knife Fight" by Shaenon K. Garrity • Roger Langridge
43	* "While Trying to Save Another" by Daliso Chaponda • Dylan Meconis
44	* "Miscarriage" by James L. Sutter • Rene Engström
45	* "Shot by Sniper" by Bartholomew von Klick • John Keogh
46	* "Heat Death of the Universe" by James Foreman • Ramón Pérez
47	* "Drowning" by C. E. Guimont • Adam Koford
48	* "?" by Creator/RandallMunroe • Kazu Kibuishi
49	* "Cassandra" by T. J. Radcliffe • Matt Haley
50
51	!''This Is How You Die''
52
53	Standalone comic strips are labeled accordingly.
54
55	* "Old Age, Surrounded by Loved Ones" by Nathan Burgoine • Danica Novgorodoff
56	* "Rock and Roll" by Toby W. Rush • [[Webcomic/OctopusPie Meredith Gran]]
57	* "Natural Causes" by Rhiannon Kelly • Leela Wagner
58	* "Bear" (comic strip) by KC Green
59	* "Shiv Sena Riot" by Creator/RyanEstrada • Ben [=McSweeney=]
60	* "Zephyr" by George Page III • c.billadeau
61	* "Old Age" (comic strip) by Ryan Pequin
62	* "Execution by Beheading" by Chandler Kaiden • Mike Dawson
63	* "Dracula" (comic strip) by Anthony Clark
64	* "Lazarus Reactor Fission Sequence" by Tom Francis • Les [=McClaine=]
65	* "Drowning Burning Falling Flying" by Grace Seybold • Carla Speed [=McNeil=]
66	* "Conflagration" by D.L.E. Roger • Sam Bosma
67	* "Got Too Extreme" (comic strip) by KC Green
68	* "Screaming, Crying, Alone, and Afraid" by Daliso Chaponda • Greg Ruth
69	* "Apitoxin" by John Takis • Indigo Kelleigh
70	* "Blue Fever" by Ada Hoffmann • Alice Duke
71	* "Skydiving" (comic strip) by Kris Straub
72	* "Tetrapod" by Rebecca Black • Carly Monardo
73	* "Machine of Death" by Karen Stay Ahlstrom • Alexandra Douglass
74	* "Unwise Decision" (comic strip) by KC Green
75	* "Monsters from the Deep" by David Malki ! • Mike Peterson
76	* "Toxoplasmosis of the Brain; Candidiasis of the Esophagus; Candidiasis of the Trachea; Candidiasis of the Bronchi; Candidiasis of the Lungs; Kaposi's Sarcoma; Pneumonia; Tuberculosis; Stab Wound in the Belly; and Bus Accident" by Gord Sellar • Nick Abadzis
77	* "Cancer" by Ryan North • Lissa Treiman
78	* "Massive Blood Loss" (comic strip) by Ryan Pequin
79	* "Two One Six" by Marleigh Norton • Shari Chankhamma
80	* "Blunt Force Trauma Delivered by Spouse" by Liz Argall • Emily Partridge
81	* "Meat Eater" by John Chernega and Bill Chernega • Dana Wulfekotte
82	* "Abandoned in Space" (comic strip) by KC Green
83	* "Made into Delicious Cheeseburger" by Sarah Pavis • Becky Dreistadt
84	* "Your Choice" by Richard Salter • Creator/GrahamAnnable
85	* "Mauled" (comic strip) by Kris Straub
86	* "In Battle, Alone and Soon Forgotten" by Ed Turner • Tony Cliff
87	* "Lake Titicaca" by M. Bennardo • Dustin Harbin
88	* "In Sleep" by Ren Warom • Claire Hummel
89	* "Poison" (comic strip) by KC Green
90	* "Cecile" by Hollan Lane • Ramón Pérez
91	* "La Mort d'un Roturier" by Martin Livings • [[Webcomic/DresdenCodak Aaron Diaz]]
92	* "Bite Wound" (comic strip) by Kris Straub
93	* "Not Applicable" by Kyle Shoenfeld • Chris Schweizer
94	* "Eaten Alive by Insects" (comic strip) by Ryan Pequin
95	* "Peacefully" by M.J. Leitch • Tyson Hesse
96	* "Old Age" by Brigita Orel • Braden Lamb
97	* "Furnace" by Erika Hammerschmidt • Trudy Cooper
98	[[/folder]]
99
100	----
101	!!This anthology's frame story or the shared elements of the stories contains examples of:
102	* BlackBox: No one knows exactly how the Machine works. It was invented by accident, and while it is easily and cheaply reproduced, its workings are impossible to understand.
103	* CapsLock: Nearly every story writes the Machine's predictions in all-caps, presumably to make them feel emphatic and mechanical.
104	* CruelTwistEnding: Surprisingly avoided for the most part; the majority of the stories ''don't'' end in the main character dying a terrible, ironic death, despite the premise, since the editors thought this kind of story was too obvious or tacky.
105	* DeathByIrony: The Machine's vagueness can lead to these, for example predicting death by OLD AGE, so a person believes he's safe, until he's killed by an old man, or the already vague NATURAL CAUSES.
106	* ExactWords: The Machine loves this.
107	* TheFatalist: Too many to count. If you know how you're going to die, some people just accept it.
108	* IdiosyncraticEpisodeNaming: Every story is named in the style of one of the Machine's predictions. In almost all cases, the title is also the predicted death of someone ''in'' the story (frequently the protagonist).
109	* ProphecyTwist: Often mentioned in passing; occasionally also ends a story, although for the most part the stories end before we see how the main characters' cards work out.
110	* ScrewDestiny: Plenty of people adopt this mindset and go on living with their lives. It doesn't help.
111	* SelfFulfillingProphecy: The Machine says you'll commit suicide. You commit suicide. But as several stories note, maybe you only went to the machine because you already had suicidal tendencies, and it only confirmed your prior urges.
112	* ShortStory: All the ones in the book, but taken to the extreme with "HIV Infection from Machine of Death Needle".
113	-->[[spoiler: "'Well,' I thought, 'that sucks.'"]]
114	* ThingsManWasNotMeantToKnow: In most of the stories that go far enough into the future, the knowledge from the Machine of Death essentially consumes society and turns life into a state of constant paranoid madness while awaiting death at any moment. There are even groups that protest it.
115	* TwentyMinutesIntoTheFuture: Some of the stories set further past the Machine's introduction have a whole extrapolated future culture developed from the Machine of Death's existence.
116	* TwistEnding: Usually a ProphecyTwist or PropheticFallacy. Usually.
117	* YouCantFightFate: [[ArcWords The Machine is]] ''[[ArcWords never]]'' [[ArcWords wrong]]. What the Machine prints on your card is how you're going to die - though [[ProphecyTwist it doesn't have to happen in the most]] ''[[ProphecyTwist obvious]]'' [[ProphecyTwist fashion]]. This also means that circumstances will generally conspire to keep you alive (even against all odds) in situations that ''aren't'' printed on your card, in an odd inversion of NecroNonSequitur - but [[ProphecyTwist your death can still sneak up on you in unexpected ways, like "Old Age" turning out to mean "shot to death by octogenarian."]]
118
119	----
120	!!The individual stories contain examples of:
121	* AllLowercaseLetters: Used in "Natural Causes" for the Machine's predictions, in contrast to the usual CapsLock. And italicized for good measure. This may be {{Foreshadowing}}, since [[spoiler:the Machine in question is a fake]].
122	* ApocalypticLog: In "Almond", kept by the Machine's operator.
123	* BigBrotherIsWatching: In "Meat Eater", the United States government is "detaining" everyone with a death prediction that suggests they might be a threat to national security. And testing is mandatory. For six-year-olds.
124	* TheCassandra: Lampshaded with the MeaningfulName of the main character of the story "Cassandra". [[spoiler:Instead of trying to warn others, she finds a way to circumvent her prophecy altogether.]]
125	* DarkSecret: In "Natural Causes", [[spoiler:the reason the fake machine doesn't get caught is that everyone in town hides the prediction they ''actually'' got from it, out of embarrassment at having such an UndignifiedDeath]].
126	* DecadentCourt: "Blue Fever" is set in one, and the lord at the head of it is the worst and most dangerous of the lot.
127	* DeathSeeker: In an oddly upbeat example, the protagonist of "Torn Apart and Devoured by Lions" thinks his predicted death is ''very exciting'', and is saving up for a trip to Africa.
128	* DeathsHourglass: While it's averted in most of the stories, there are a handful of exceptions:
129	** In "Exhaustion From Having Sex With a Minor", a leading politician has a prediction stating that he will be killed by a car when he is 57, and has built his entire campaign around it. [[spoiler: Turns out to be a ProphecyTwist. The ExactWords of the prediction were "knocked down by a car aged fifty-seven"; when the man's death arrives, fifty-seven is the age of the ''car''.]]
130	** In "While Trying to Save Another", a very small minority of death predictions come with dates attached. The story focuses on a support group for people with these predictions.
131	** "Zephyr" has computers (separate from the Machine) that extrapolate from the cause of death to compute the approximate time of death as well. Your chance of death remains zero until a few years before your predicted time of death; after that, you are "on the curve", meaning your odds of dying at any given moment get higher and higher, until they finally hit 100%. In other words, you can die a bit early, but you will ''never'' die late.
132	** Subverted in "Apitoxin". Franchise/{{Sherlock Holmes}}'s latest client has been given the prediction "GARROTED THURSDAY NEXT". Holmes notices that this is the ''only'' example of a prediction with a date attached; based on this, the circumstances of how the prediction was made, and a close analysis of the slip of paper in question, he deduces that it must be a fake.
133	** The infobubble predictions from "In Sleep" include the date of death. In at least some cases, the precision is down to the minute.
134	* DespairEventHorizon: "Despair", naturally. [[spoiler:Although the protagonist is fated to die by crossing the Horizon, she does not actually cross it in the course of the story. But she notes that she does get a little bit closer to it.]]
135	* {{Dystopia}}:
136	** "Loss of Blood" is set in a world where all the predicted deaths are organized by the government as soon as possible to prevent collateral damage from people who try in vain to avoid their fate.
137	** "Not Applicable" uses the PoliceState variant, with a leader referred to only as "the Speaker". The reasons for the formation of the state are left ambiguous.
138	** In "Meat Eater", the United States is either a dystopia or fast becoming one. See BigBrotherIsWatching, above.
139	* TheEndOfTheWorldAsWeKnowIt: There are a few stories where death predictions foretell civilization-ending or species-ending levels of destruction, including [[spoiler:"Cassandra"]], [[spoiler:"Conflagration"]], and [[spoiler:"Monsters from the Deep"]].
140	* EternalEnglish: Averted with tragic results in "Furnace". Archaeologists in the distant future uncover a Machine of Death, but their only Rosetta Stone for the English language is a disc full of porn. A critical mistranslation results in them assuming that the Machine predicts what will bring its users the ultimate sexual satisfaction, and things turn ugly when people start dying thanks to its "suggestions."
141	* EvilGloating: Dr. Jeth towards the American agent near the end of "Lazarus Reactor Fission Sequence." Though the "evil" part is questionable from the reader's perspective.
142	* FateWorseThanDeath: "Starvation". The main character, who got the titular prediction takes a very long time to die, legs broken in a hole and on top of that [[spoiler:he is rescued, so now he knows what it feels like and he will have to endure it again.]]
143	* {{Gamebook}}: The appropriately titled story "Your Choice".
144	* GratuitousLatin:
145	** The illustration for "Cecile" has a banner with the words ''Is est vestri nex'' ("This is your death").
146	** See also the subtrope PretentiousLatinMotto, below.
147	* HistoricalInJoke: "La Mort d'un Roturier" is set during a party in 18th-century France where the protagonist runs a clockwork-operated version of the Machine of Death for the amusement of the guests. She herself claims the device is merely a cleverly-built fraud, but all the guests receive the same inscrutable prediction nonetheless: ''[[UsefulNotes/TheFrenchRevolution "Guillotin."]]''
148	* IslandBase: Dr. Jeth's island in "Lazarus Reactor Fission Sequence", where he is building the titular device.
149	* JokeAndReceive: "Cocaine and Painkillers": At a semi-shady small company that sells random products through {{Infomercial}}s, the employees are trying to figure out how to sell the Machine...which they think is an instant drug-test machine. (Long story.) After a few weeks of trying to figure out how to sell a drug-test machine that keeps spitting out seemingly-random words instead of the names of drugs, they jokingly guess at what the machine is ''actually'' printing out; one of their guesses is "circumstances of one's demise". And ''then'', one employee lets off some steam by cutting together a spoof infomercial about how the product is actually "The Machine of Death"...
150	* LastOfHisKind: The old man in "Nothing" is keenly aware that he is the last of his generation, and describes how it feels.
151	* MadScientist: Dr. Jethmalani of "Lazarus Reactor Fission Sequence" is a {{Deconstruction}}. He is a brilliant, obsessed scientist with all the standard trappings of a classic Bond villain: an IslandBase, an army of loyal henchmen in charge of murdering the secret agents who show up, and even a touch of [[EvilGloating "Evil" Gloating]] once his [[EvilPlan "Evil" Plan]] nears completion. And what is his plan? He wants to invent a new kind of nuclear power plant that produces enormous amounts of power with zero waste for hundreds of years. And then share his research with the entire world. For free. But since most governments would prefer to hoard that kind of knowledge for themselves, and he doesn't ''trust'' most governments, he had to keep going to greater and greater lengths to continue his work in the way he wanted. You could argue that he was ''forced'' into villainy.
152	* MemoryGambit: In the first book's final story, "Cassandra", the main character [[spoiler:erases her own memory as well as all evidence of her fate [[Film/WarGames (GLOBAL THERMONUCLEAR WAR)]] in an attempt to reset the quantum uncertainty of it and prevent it from occurring to the world.]]
153	* MissionFromGod: In a very dark example, the killer from "Screaming, Crying, Alone, and Afraid" believes that he is reuniting his victims with God, [[spoiler:and that their death predictions were God's way of expressing His desire for this reunification]].
154	* TheMultiverse: The alien interstellar-travel-drive in "Drowning Burning Falling Flying" works by linking its passengers together with all of their alternate possibilities, and then "outbranching" to a version of themselves where they (and the ship) exist at their destination. The protagonist uses the word "multiverse" to describe this, but the aliens are hesitant to adopt the term.
155	* NoPlansNoPrototypeNoBackup: Played with in "Apitoxin". The Machine is one-of-a-kind and its inventor is dead, but after it is destroyed, the protagonists ''do'' find the plans...written in a cypher that will probably take years to crack, if not decades.
156	* OneParagraphChapter: "HIV Infection From Machine of Death Needle" is ''shorter than its own title''.
157	* OpenSecret: In "La Mort d'un Roturier", everybody knows which of the guests at the masquerade is [[spoiler:King Louis XVI]], but good manners require them to pretend they don't recognize him.
158	* OperatorFromIndia: The protagonist of "Shiv Sena Riot" is an Indian woman working at a call center for Machine of Death Analysis, which tells people the most likely outcomes for their given death prediction.
159	* OriginalFlavour: "Apitoxin" is a Franchise/SherlockHolmes mystery in the style of [[Literature/SherlockHolmes the original short stories]]. The first Machine has just been invented, and Holmes is hired by a man who is being extorted over his predicted death.
160	* OurOrcsAreDifferent: "In Battle, Alone and Soon Forgotten" focuses on Grun, an orc in the service of an evil sorcerer who is told repeatedly - in poetry, no less - that all orcs are fated to be CannonFodder and nothing more. [[spoiler: We never learn what his death prediction ''really'' is, but it isn't the one from the title - instead, he ends up fulfilling the ''sorcerer's'' death prediction, and writes his ''own'' poem declaring that the orcs have a right to ScrewDestiny.]]
161	* PassedInTheirSleep: The titular deaths from "After Many Years, Stops Breathing, While Asleep, With Smile On Face" and "In Sleep".
162	* ThePlan: The protagonist of "Aneurysm", Sid, ''really'' hates party games. When his ex-wife tells him that she will be hosting a dinner party where guests will take the test then guess each other's deaths as a party game, he [[spoiler:uses sleight-of-hand to toss in a forged death, "party game mishap", which simultaneously ends the game and makes it so he will never have to play a party game again]].
163	* PreppyName: Cotton Remington Weathington-Beech, and his school friends, in "Prison Knife Fight".
164	* PretentiousLatinMotto: In "Not Waving But Drowning", the Machine, or the company that makes it, has the motto ''Dum vivimus vivamus'' ("while we live, let us live").
165	* ProphecyTwist: In one story, a man is told he'll die by suicide. He resolves to [[spoiler: take the life of another in a way that contradicts their machine-predicted death, then kill himself--when instead, a suicide bomber was in line behind him and sets off the bomb. The machine never said he'd die by ''his'' suicide...]]
166	* RageAgainstTheHeavens:
167	** Randall Munroe's story, "?", consists almost entirely of a rant against some higher power, the universe itself, or [[RageAgainstTheAuthor the author]].
168	** A character in "Vegetables" mentions that people started burning churches after they realized [[YouCantFightFate how absurdly unavoidable the death predictions were]].
169	* SchmuckBait: The "NO SPIKES"/"SPIKES" lever in the comic "Unwise Decision".
170	* SerialKiller:
171	** One pops up unexpectedly in "Vegetables". [[spoiler:It's the protagonist.]]
172	** The protagonist of "Screaming, Crying, Alone, and Afraid" is on the trail of a serial killer in Zimbabwe. She hopes that the death predictions of the victims (ironically, taken ''post''-mortem) will give her some kind of clue.
173	* SetRightWhatOnceWentWrong: This turns out to be the premise of [[spoiler:"Not Applicable"]]. Everyone who [[spoiler:gets the titular prediction]] is fated to [[RetGone never be born in the first place]] after the timeline is re-written.
174	* ShoutOut:
175	** Several oddly internal examples, where stories from the second anthology make shout-outs to stories (by other authors) from the first anthology.
176	*** "Screaming, Crying, Alone, and Afraid" mentions a person who received the prediction "WHILE TRYING TO SAVE ANOTHER" and wound up dying in a fire, just like the main character in "While Trying To Save Another".
177	*** In "Machine of Death", one of the causes of death is "ALMONDS", which is apparently a reference to "Almond". There's also some discussion of how a line of poetry would make a good death prediction, which is the kind of prediction used in "Not Waving But Drowning".
178	*** In another possible reference to "Almond", the small town in "Natural Causes" is named Almond Hill.
179	** One of the main characters in Ryan North's "Cancer" is loosely based on [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Henrietta_Lacks Henrietta Lacks]], as he explains in an author's note at the end of the story.
180	* StateTheSimpleSolution: In "Lazarus Reaction Fission Sequence", the main character works for a MadScientist. His job is to kill intruders in ways that technically match what is on their slip. During one portion of the story, he struggles to come up with a way to kill a man whose slip reads "Victoria Falls." He eventually finds a two-thousand pound island tapir, names it Victoria, and [[DeathFromAbove drops it on the man's head.]] Afterwards, his colleague points out that since his boss owns the island, he could have just had him rename a waterfall.
181	* StupidSacrifice: in the story "While Trying to Save Another", [[spoiler:Timothy reaches the exact moment and circumstances of his death and knows he can't possibly save Isma either, but charges into a burning building anyway.]]
182	** [[spoiler:He could have just made the final decision to die with her; giving himself a noble death.]]
183	* SubspaceAnsible: "Murder and Suicide, Respectively" points out that the Machine could be used as one.
184	* TheyWouldCutYouUp: The immortal grandfather in "Nothing" came to this conclusion, figuring that if the religious nutcases didn't burn him at the stake or force him to play at being messiah, then the scientists would try to kill him to figure out why.
185	* ThisIsGonnaSuck: How the protagonist of "HIV Infection From Machine of Death Needle" reacts upon receiving that prediction.
186	* TheTimeTravellersDilemma: The protagonist of [[spoiler:"Not Applicable"]] has an option to go back in time sixty years to stop the rise of an evil dictator. ([[HitlersTimeTravelExemptionAct No, not Hitler.]]) The catch is that nearly everyone he's ever known would be RetGone. And his friends ''know'' they would be part of that group. [[spoiler:They're the ones who help convince him to go through with it anyway.]]
187	* ToiletHumour: In [[spoiler:"Natural Causes"]], the main character gets the prediction "on the john". [[spoiler:And so does everyone else in town; the machine is a fake.]]
188	* TooDumbToLive: The comic "Unwise Decision" shows a woman contemplating a lever with two settings: "No Spikes" and "Spikes".
189	* TomatoSurprise:
190	** The protagonist of [[spoiler: "Exhaustion From Having Sex With a Minor"]] is blackmailed with the threat of having his titular death revealed, which he believes would destroy his political career. He reveals his secret to the public himself, both to break his blackmailer's hold on him, and because he doesn't ''want'' to be Prime Minister. [[spoiler:We find out at the end that he's only seventeen years old himself (there's an offhand mention of other teenagers running for office earlier in the story; presumably the laws have changed), which means the public didn't particularly care about him having sex with ''other'' minors. So [[SpringtimeForHitler he won in a landslide.]]]]
191	** The protagonist of [[spoiler: "Zephyr"]] turns out to not be one of the Ephemerals (soldiers predicted to die in battle) at all, but rather one of the Invincibles (soldiers predicted to die of other causes). He's assigned to Ephemeral units incognito to improve their combat effectiveness without impacting their morale.
192	* TwinsAreSpecial: "Old Age, Surrounded by Loved Ones": An [[AlwaysIdenticalTwins identical twin]] receives two death predictions, their own and their twin's, with no way to tell which is which.
193	* UndignifiedDeath: Several examples. Though in some cases the "undignified" part is suggested rather than confirmed, since the predicted death has not yet come to pass and the Machine doesn't give that much detail.
194	** Patrice in "Flaming Marshmallow" thinks that the titular death is going to be one of these.
195	** The protagonist of "Vegetables" fantasizes about his boorish co-worker electrocuting himself by drooling into a power outlet.
196	** A mathematician mentioned in "Cassandra" received an "unlikely and unpleasant" death prediction involving "sex and horses". And yes, it happened as predicted. (Doubles as a NoodleIncident.)
197	** From "Natural Causes", the death prediction [[spoiler:"on the john"]].
198	** "Machine of Death" shows us a few, including "a boy accidentally shorting out an electric fence while trying to spray-paint his name on a cow", and a woman who crashes her car because she's eating a burger while driving.
199	** "Monsters from the Deep" mentions that very few people would publicly admit to getting a death prediction like "IMPALED BY BRATWURST".
200	* WeirdTradeUnion: The psychic-dreaming protagonist of "Drowning" belongs to Local 111 of the S.S.C.W.I. (Sub and Supra Consciousness Workers International).
201	* WhoWantsToLiveForever:
202	** [[spoiler:The protagonist of "Flaming Marshmallow" (cause of death: "millennium space entropy"), if only because she has no idea what death-based high school clique she's supposed to join.]]
203	** The protagonist of "Heat Death of the Universe" has nightmares about being the last living thing in existence.
204	* Main/{{Yakuza}}: The characters in "Improperly Prepared Blowfish".
205	* YouCantFightFate: Despite the above, there has been ''one'' noteworthy subversion. In "In Sleep," it's possible to ''trade deaths'' with someone, as the protagonist discovers to her horror: her death, in peaceful slumber 80 years in the future, has been stolen from her by an influential political figure and exchanged with his own violent (and imminent) death by defrag weapon. [[spoiler: While she's unable to avert this fate, she ultimately survives it nonetheless: she has a rare gift that makes her an ideal candidate for [[EmergencyTransformation being transformed into a Machine of Death herself.]]]]
206	* ZombieApocalypse: A pretty standard one in "Peacefully". The zombies apparently get their own death predictions, separate from who they were in life.

Context Literature / MachineOfDeath