The Book of the Dead

Award-winning editor Jonathan Strahan collects brand-new stories of murder, myth, and misadventure including contributions from international bestsellers Garth Nix, Paul Tremblay, Stephen Graham Jones, Tamsyn Muir, and featuring stunning illustrations from Galen Dara.

We are all going to die. But how? Will it hurt? Where will we go? What will we find there? What will happen to the people we leave behind?

From our earliest myths to our most advanced scientific theories, humanity has grappled with the nature of dying, and what, if anything, comes after. The Book of the Dead confronts our terrible mortality with unflinching honesty and breathtaking imagination, taking us on a journey from the dusty plains of the Australian Outback where wives mysteriously vanish, to the fog-shrouded interstates of a man’s regret, to the deep, dark tombs of Martian queens, and to the somber shores of a world where the dead refuse to stay buried.​

Bringing together some of the most iconic and compelling voices in speculative fiction today, The Book of the Dead features stories from Indrapramit Das, Paolo Bacigalupi, Daryl Gregory, Andy Duncan, Jeffrey Ford, Kelly Robson, Cadwell Turnbull, Elizabeth Bear, K J Parker, Cassandra Khaw, Samantha Mills, Premee Mohamed, Darcie Little Badger, Garth Nix, Paul Tremblay, Wole Talabi, Tobi Ogundiran, Silvia Park, Isabel J Kim, Vajra Chandrasekera, Priya Sharma, Angela Slatter, Stephen Graham Jones, Catherynne Valente, Tamsyn Muir, Nghi Vo, E. Lily Yu, and Kaaron Warren, all of whom look unflinchingly at death in stories that will terrify, fascinate, and resonate with readers long after the final page.

About the author

Jonathan Strahan has co-edited The Year's Best Australian Science Fiction and Fantasy series of anthologies, co-edits the Science Fiction: The Best of… and Fantasy: The Best of…anthology series with Karen Haber, edits the Best Short Novels anthology series, and co-edited The Locus Awards for Eos with Charles N. Brown. He is also the Reviews Editor for Locus: The Magazine of the Science Fiction and Fantasy Fields, and reviews for the magazine regularly.