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Stories of Life After Apocalypse Jan 16, 2008 (80 of 82 found this helpful)
What is in a name? A title? Wastelands: Stories of the Apocalypse suggests that the anthology will cover stories directly dealing with various versions of the apocalypse, the end of the world. That is not quite what this Wastelands anthology is about, though. The original title Wastelands: Stories of Life After Apocalypse was a bit more apt in describing the content of this anthology. The stories collected here by editor John Joseph Adams are not about the apocalypse, but rather about life after apocalypse. The wastelands made of our world is not the primary point of any individual story, but rather the survival of the species told in small human stories. In that sense the majority of the stories here are filled with beauty and not just the desolation of the landscape.
What is most remarkable about Wastelands is just how varied stories about living after the destruction of civilization is. Take Octavia E. Butler's Hugo Award winning "Speech Sounds", a story where humanity has lost the power of speech and must find other ways to communicate and society has broken down. Telling the story from the perspective of a woman named Rye, Octavia Butler is able to really give the reader a sense of the terror a woman may feel in such a situation and the emptiness of that life, of the snap anger and body language required to get by, and the barest hint of hope. "Speech Sounds" has been anthologized before, but is a truly outstanding story.
The range of stories collected in Wastelands runs the gamut from "Bread and Bombs" by M. Rickert, a post 9/11 story with kids feeling the fear of their parents, to the future history of "Dark, Dark Are the Tunnels" by George R. R. Martin, a post nuclear holocaust story with the remants of humanity living deep under ground, or Paolo Bacigalupi's "The People of Sand and Slag" where humanity is barely recognizable and a dog reminds the survivors of what life must have been like before, and filled with sadness of the setting and situation. Bacigalupi's story is especially surprising to me because of how negatively I reacted to his story "Yellow Card Man", but "The People of Sand and Slag" is a heartbreaking, beautiful, and painful story.
Other standout stories in Wastelands include Cory Doctorow's "When Sysadmins Ruled the World", "Artie's Angels" by Catherine Wells, and most surprisingly, the anti-Rapture and anti-religion "Judgment Passed" by Jerry Oltion. A spacecrew who were away from Earth return to find that Christ had returned and the Rapture occurred. I had expected that Oltion's anti-Rapture theme would overwhelm the story, but Oltion was very thoughtful and the way he had the characters respond seemed reasonable and plausible.
There are stories in the Wastelands anthology which did not quite work. Gene Wolfe's "Mute" is about as inscrutable as one would expect and despite Neil Gaiman's insistence on Wolfe improving with re-reading, "Mute" fails to connect. "Still Life With Apocalypse" and "Episode Seven" both did not seem to tell a coherent story.
"Episode Seven" is notable because John Langan was inspired to write the story in response, partly, by Dave Bailey's "The End of the World As We Know It", a very different story of "post-apocalyptic" fiction. In this story the survivor has a passive response to the end of the world, drowning it in alcohol rather than fighting actively for survival. Outstanding story, one of the best in the anthology.
Also notable are Elizabeth Bear's driven "And the Deep Blue Sea" and Neal Barrett Jr's "Ginny Sweethips' Flying Circus".
The bottom line is that collectively the stories John Joseph Adams has put together here in Wastelands shows off the range of the post-apocalyptic sub-genre of fiction. Wastelands is an excellent anthology of short fiction and one that would easily fit on any collector's shelves. There are far more standout stories than there are misses, and even tha
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Wastelands certainly is not a waste of time! Dec 19, 2007 (26 of 29 found this helpful)
I know if your like me you view "theme" books with a bit of skepticism. Assembling a collection of any size with only one "type" of story can be daunting. I have often found many of these types of books containing one or a few really top notch stories and the rest relegated to filler. Collections like Ellison's Dangerous Visions is a shining example of how to do it right. Is Wastelands in that league? Not quite, but DAMN close. The stories are not as "dangerous" as DV and it's no where near the size of DVs. However, don't take me wrong, the tales in Wastelands are the crème de la crème of this genre and for that matter science fiction as a whole. Often the editors choice of covers is their attempt to put their best foot forward, so by looking at just the cover of Wastelands, one might suspect that the author is attempting to snare you on name recognition alone. Believe me, this is not the case. Yes, notable names all, however the tales between those names are every bit as strong. A good example is one of my favorites in this book and appearances elsewhere - The People of Sand and Slag, by Paolo Bacigalupi, or better called a boy and his dog and an appetizer. An absolutely stunning story of the far future and an equal to any of the "names" on the front. The whole book is like this. One retina blasting mind numbing yarn after another. King's story alone is worth the price of the book. (a kind of sideways retelling of Flowers for Algernon) The only suggestion is that you read each story straight through and put the book down and walk away for a time. Each story deserves to be considered on it's own merit. The subject matter and the tales themselves are often so strong and different that you very well could miss the high point of one while recovering from the blast received from the previous reading. Wastelands is well worth the cost. The author has done his job in exemplary manner. Wastelands would make an excellent gift for the jaded science fiction fan.
Paul Cole
host Beam Me Up radio program & podcast
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Tomorrow never comes. Jun 19, 2008 (14 of 16 found this helpful)
Somebody once said that after a disaster there is always at least one survivor to tell the story to others. But what if you are the sole survivor and there is no-one else on Earth to talk to?
Long ago I read a SF-story (or should I say a post-apocalyptic story? Oh well, what's in a name?) about a man who was not only the sole survivor of the human species but of all existing life including vegetation. Because of his injuries he could only crawl. After several months he finally reached the Ocean, crawled into the water and died. His decomposing body would provide the Ocean with atoms and molecules so that in a far future, new life could emerge from it.
Because of the atomic bomb on Hiroshima and the Cold War, post-apocalyptic literature was popular. But the fall of the Berlin Wall meant also the end of post-apocalyptic literature.
Today there is a revival of this genre. Probably because adventure and the possibility of starting all-over have a kind of charm. Maybe the most notorious example is Cormac McCarthy who received the Pulitzer-Price for his novel 'The Road'.
In this collection, you won't find stories where an invasion by Aliens or an uprising of Zombies are responsible for wastelands all over the globe. The editor of this anthology, John Joseph Adams, says that they could be the subject for another anthology.
The best thing I can do right now is to give you the name of each author and the title of his/her story.
The End of the Whole Mess - Stephen King
Salvage - Orson Scott Card
The People of Sand and Slag - Paolo Bacigalupi
Bread and Bombs - M. Rickert
How We Got In Town and Out Again - Jonathan Lethem
Dark, Dark Were the Tunnels - George R.R. Martin
Waiting for the Zephyr - Tobias S. Buckell
Never Despair - Jack McDevitt
When Sysadmins Ruled the Earth - Cory Doctorow
The Last of the O-Forms - James Van Pelt
Still Life with Apocalypse - Richard Kadrey
Artie's Angels - Catherine Wells
Judgement Passed - Jerry Oltion
Mute - Gene Wolfe
Inertia - Nancy Kress
And the Deep blue Sea - Elisabeth Bear
Speech Sounds - Octavia E. Butler
Killers - Carol Emshwiller
Ginny Sweethips' Flying Circus - Neal Barret, Jr.
The End of the World as we Know It - Dale Bailey
A Song Before Sunset - David Grigg
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Hope and hopelessness on the branches of the tree of time Nov 20, 2008 (4 of 4 found this helpful)
Wastelands: Stories of the Apocalypse is a series of dark future tales written between the 1970's and 2008 by some of the most talented writers in science fiction, fantasy and horror. The book is full of haunting visions of survival at the end of humanity, survival after a great change in humanity and survival after a great reshaping of humanity.
Of particular note, from my perspective was the extremely haunting The People of Sand and Slag by Paolo Bacigalupi. Without giving away the entire plot, humanity is certainly going to change - that is the only inevitable thing we can count on with the passage of time. Mr. Bacigalupi's vision of those changes haunts me. I am a dog owner and lover. If you are as well, it is likely you will be haunted by vision of what mankind becomes portrayed in this story.
Of the 22 stories in this anthology about 18 of them were worthy of inclusion. Of particular note, in my mind, are the stories When Sysadmins Ruled the World, by Cory Doctorow and Speech Sounds by Octavia Butler. The bottom line in regards to Wastelands is that you'll love most of the stories and probably feel a few of them were a waste of your time.
The book is a great way to pass a few hours being exposed to a really wide range of what-if scenarios with the common theme being that the world inevitable changes drastically. For us, living in the moment, it is good to step outside our tiny bubble of comfortable time/space continuum and examine other possibilities, even if it is only so we can contribute to a society in which none of them ever come to pass.
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A fine collection of Apocalypse stories by great authors Sep 24, 2008 (4 of 4 found this helpful)
With anthologies, I normally list the Table Of Contents, however because it can be viewed by rolling your mouse over the second available image below the book picture, I won't list it. There are 22 stories in this collection, by such authors as Stephen King, George R.R. Martin, Orson Scott Card, Nancy Kress, and many more. Each story begins with a short paragraph of notes and achievements by each author.
Religion, Armageddon, virus, plague, bombs, accidents, incidents, pollutants, natural disaster, and more, are all waiting to destroy the earth as we know it. Rising like the phoenix comes the new earth, explored in these tales of apocalypse. Barren landscapes, alternate ways of life, deserts, oceans, mangled cities, ragged suburbs: all are settings typical of destruction. Some of the stories in this collection are "realtime", meaning the apocalypse as it happens, such as The End Of The Whole Mess by Stephen King, When Sysadmins Ruled The Earth by Cory Doctorow, and The End Of The World As We Know It by Dale Bailey. Most, however, are post-apocalyptic, documenting humanity's struggle in the aftermath of destruction.
My favorites are The People Of Sand And Slag by Paolo Bacigalupi, a tale of futuristic inhabitation, human regeneration, and the finding of a real flesh-and-blood dog wandering the sere landscape. Dark, Dark Were The Tunnels by George R.R. Martin is a tale of two separate surviving factions, one Lunar faction and another faction deep beneath the earth. The question is, who are the real people of the long lost earth civilization? Waiting For The Zephyr by Tobias S. Buckell is a short but impacting tale of desperation to leave behind the scavenged farmlands. The Last Of The O-Forms by James Van Pelt highlights the journeys of Dr. Trevin's Traveling Zoological Extravaganza. This is a fun tale of a traveling freak show, with the question of who and what are the real freaks. Artie's Angels by Catherine Wells is the tale of teenagers growing up in a Kansas Habitat shelter, hoping for a better life in an off-world colony. Ginny Sweethips' Flying Circus by Neal Barrett Jr. is another fun story of a traveling entertainment van offering $ex, Tacos, and Dangerous Drugs. The End Of The World As We Know It by Dale Bailey offers a real time look at the confusion and loneliness of a single survivor.
There are some great stories and some mediocre stories, but there are no bad stories in this collection. A special, not to be missed feature is the For Further Reading guide at the end of the book. John Joseph Adams has created a list of books whose tales are based on the apocalypse and post-apocalyptic civilizations. Many of these I've read, but to my delight there are many I haven't. It's like having your own personalized reference of future reading material.
I'm a fan of apocalypse novels and a fan of short story anthologies, so Wastelands was a double treat for me. If you're into End-Of-Times or an aficionado of anthologies (or both), I highly recommend you pick up this book. Enjoy!