Showing results for "Immortals" in Anthologies & Short Stories

For almost thirty years, Shirley Jackson Award–winning horror author Gemma Files has consistently served up tale after tale celebrating monstrosity in all its forms: the imperfect, the broken, the beautifully alien, and the sadly familiar. Her characters make their own choices and take their own chances, slipping from darkness into deeper darkness yet never losing their humanity—not even when they’re anything but.

As identical twins, Bothan and Calum MacNachton share a bond stronger than most brothers, one forged by a terrible secret. Rumors and dark tales have been whispered about their clan for centuries. For they roam the Highlands at night, driven by a savage hunger that can never be sated. Their only hope lies in marriage to Outsiders, mortal women whose pure blood will weaken the hold of their eternal curse.

"The Mortal Immortal" (1833), a short story by Mary Shelley, relates the life of Winzy, a man who gains eternal life after taking a mysterious drink. At first elated, Winzy likes immortality less and less as time passes and his loved ones grow old and die. Winzy starts considering himself a pariah among people because they die, while he cannot. He even envies the mortality of others but at the same time dreads death more and more, due to having witnessed the deaths of so many, including that of his beloved wife, Bertha.

An ancient alchemist drags out his weary life in search of the elixir of immortality. But, when his vengeful assistant quaffs the mixture, he discovers that the effects of the draft of immortality may never wear off. Mary Shelley explores the concept of immortality, following a character that never ages through a ponderous and thought provoking life.

Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley was an English romantic and gothic novelist who is most famous as the author of Frankenstein, or The Modern Prometheus. She was married to the notable Romantic poet Percy Bysshe Shelley. She also wrote a number of shorter "tales of the unnatural", of which "The Mortal Immortal", a story of a man who will not die, is the most famous.

Durante su vida, Mary Shelley fue tomada en serio como escritora. A su muerte, sin embargo, fue principalmente recordada como la esposa de Percy Bysshe Shelley y autora de una solo obra: Frankenstein. En décadas recientes, la reedición de casi todas sus obras ha ocasionado un mayor reconocimiento de su valor, reconociéndola como una de las principales figuras del romanticismo.

Un hombre, al tratar de torcer su destino, por vanidad o codicia, se fabrica su propio infierno en este relato, el protagonista, un joven inmortal, ve envejecer a su amada, huye de un lado a otro para evitar que los demás lo acusen de brujo, sufre la imposibilidad de hacer nuevos amigos y anhela la muerte.