Title: Dying for a Living
Author: Paul Lewis
Date of First Publication: 2000
Place of Publication: Hideous Progeny
Type: Short Story
Characters: No Character
Critical Summary: This story is set in the future. The narrator participates in deadly fights for money. After one of his fights, he is offered a fight against Johnny Steel, a big name whose fights are televised. The narrator and his manager then have a meeting with the owner of the show who presents the fights. Moore, the owner, tells the narrator that he wants Johnny Steel to lose because he is becoming a monster: Steel’s demands—for money, women, drugs—keep increasing and Moore does not want it to continue. If the narrator wins, he will make a lot of money and become a star on television. In the fight between the narrator and Steel, Moore adds a condition that is new to televised fights: brain death. The main difference between the fights that the narrator participates in and the televised fights is the possibility of brain death. In televised fights, fighters can be killed but because brain death is prohibited, their bodies are healed, and the fighters are brought back to life. Brain death is allowed in the fights that the narrator participates in. If a fighter’s brain is damaged, that person cannot be brought back to life. The fight is announced, and it attracts a lot of media attention. The fight begins with Steel, armed with a sword, attacking very aggressively. However, the narrator soon begins to control the fight. The narrator, with his sword, soon picks Steel apart. Steel is not only defeated but killed: the narrator puts his sword through his head. After the fight, the narrator learns that Moore fixed the fight by injecting Steel with a drug that slowed his senses. The narrator becomes a star and to prevent himself from becoming greedy like Steel, he has a jar in his room with the head of Steel to remind him of the consequences of asking for too much.
The ability to bring life to a dead body connects this work to Frankenstein. For that reason, I chose Android as one of the themes.
Administrative Notes: Juan Padilla, CSUF; Yesenia Rodriguez (editing)