Margins
Bystanders book cover
Bystanders
2025
First Published
4.27
Average Rating
90
Number of Pages

Benjamin Percy expertly fuses social horror and supernatural dread in this edge-of-the-seat novella about the true cost of consuming today's online content. Our first instinct these days is not to run into the burning house or stop the fistfight on the plane or check on the person who fell down the stairs—it's to pull out our phones. It's to record. When a group of college students witnesses something terrible, they do the same. But upon reviewing the videos later, they discover something has glitched and bled through their phones. Something that looks real. But can't be. A vision of their own individual deaths—dark prophecies they may or may not be able to avoid. The chain of horror begins. A contagion is spreading, bystander to bystander, phone to phone. And these students are now desperately searching for the very thing they weren’t willing to offer—help. About the Benjamin Percy is the author of seven novels – most recently The Sky Vault (William Morrow, 2023) – as well as three story collections and a book of essays, Thrill Me, that is widely taught in creative writing classrooms. Since 2017, he has written Wolverine for Marvel – and he currently writes the comics Deadpool Wolverine, Red Hulk, Hellverine, and the "Predator vs" series. His novella – American Criminal (NeoText, 2023) – is presently in development with Amazon MGM Studios, with Gavin O'Connor attached to direct. His honors include a Whiting Award, an NEA Fellowship, a McKnight Fellowship, the Plimpton Prize, two Pushcart Prizes, the iHeartRadio Award for Best Scripted Podcast, and inclusion in Best American Short Stories.

Avg Rating
4.27
Number of Ratings
11
5 STARS
36%
4 STARS
55%
3 STARS
9%
2 STARS
0%
1 STARS
0%
goodreads

Author

Benjamin Percy
Benjamin Percy
Author · 157 books
Benjamin Percy is the author of seven novels—most recently The Sky Vault (William Morrow) — three short fiction collections, and a book of essays, Thrill Me, that is widely taught in creative writing classrooms. He writes Wolverine, X-Force, and Ghost Rider for Marvel Comics. His fiction and nonfiction have been published in Esquire (where he is a contributing editor), GQ, Time, Men's Journal, Outside, the Wall Street Journal, Tin House, and the Paris Review. His honors include an NEA fellowship, the Whiting Writer's Award, the Plimpton Prize, two Pushcart Prizes, the iHeart Radio Award for Best Scripted Podcast, and inclusion in Best American Short Stories and Best American Comics.
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