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 A Marvelous Collection Of Wickedly Apocalyptic Stories By A Two-time Nebula Award Winning Author. Edward Bryant Is A Writer Of Depth And Compassion, At Once Au Courant And Concerned With The Timeless Study Of The Human Condition. I Recommend His Work Unequivocally. -harlan Ellison Not Since Harlan Ellison Has There Been So Energetic An Author; When You Read Bryant, You Are In Good Hands. -theodore Sturgeon (new York Times) These Are Contemporary Horror Stories With Monsters More Frightening Than Old-fashioned Ghosts And Vampires. -kirkus Reviews. Compelling And Totally Unnerving. -chicago Tribune