Wastelands: Stories of the Apocalypse

Searched hard and long for a non "wasted" copy of
Wasteland...just as described and didn't have to
wait for an "atomic" event to get it just about
over night!! Exactly as described!!!

Highly recommend this site!!!

Like any other compilation there are some duds and some really great stories mixed in. I love the genre so I really enjoyed most of this book. More good than bad, and a couple really great short stories!

Obviously, the subject matter in this genre can be depressing, but I have read quite a few novels of this type that were tremendously entertaining (Alas Babylon, Lucifer's Hammer, The Road, etc.). Many of the stories in Wastelands are bleaker than the overall subject matter. People who have in some cases essentially given up, or have lost a real piece of their humanity. In my opinion it is the struggle to survive and stay human that makes stories of this sort entertaining, but many of these short stories were missing that and were just miserable. Almost none of them had any interesting action either. With all due respect to the many positive reviews here, I would suggest avoiding this book.

I would recommend this book to readers familiar with the genre of the apocalyptic as a sampler from the views of several well known authors. While some stories within paint a haunting imagery of humanity in a time of great chaos or immediately after, there are a couple in here that were downright disturbing. I read this with a group of people and the conversations that resulted were nearly as interesting. Due to some formatting issues, I give the book a solid 4/5.

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

This collection contains a set of stories that are diverse but tied together well. there is a lot of something here for every taste. This is the best short story collection I've read or purchased in many years and well represents both the genre and a plain-old good read.

Agood range of stories relating to the end of the world and how the characters cope. The stories range from very good to awful, but there's only a couple of stinkers, and they make the others stand out even more. If you're sick of family, colleagues, friends and other people in general, this is a book about the ultimate life style change.

This collection is not for readers who desire neat, concise, fully explained endings. Those expectations are better left in an 8th grade english class. If you want something thought provoking, emotional, and real read this book. No, not all of the stories are gold, and few of them are fully hashed out and explained, but all of them leave you with a profound feeling of...well, it feels like the end of the world. This anthology is a tribute to the genre. While it lacks the blood and gore of some post-apocolyptic novels, it compensates with true heart.

Read it. think about it. reread it. You'll find the world is a little different after.

This book contains many wonderful apocalyptic stories with a variety of courses for the end of the Earth, but without the currently trendy Zombie and Alien Invasion themes. There is great variety in the stories with some deadly serious and sombre and others amusing. One thing I love about such collections is that I can pick and choose to read those that I like and skip the ones that I don't.

These stories were not good at all. The one story that I thought was interesting, the last one ("Last Stand...Purple Flowers..."), was lacking in punctuation ending sentences. Was it on purpose? I don't know. Sentences ran on and on for pages, but it was one of the very very few good ones.

This was an extremely mediocre collection. The first two stories were the only ones I could read to completion (and those just barely). The others failed to hold my attention for more than a few pages. Very disappointing!

I enjoy this genre. Maybe I need counseling! Haven't completed this book yet but, so far, the stories and the writing have been good. The second book in the series might actually be a bit better. Recommend both to those who also may need counseling.

I enjoy this genre. Maybe I need counseling! Haven't completed this book yet but, so far, the stories and the writing have been good. The second book in the series might actually be a bit better. Recommend both to those who also may need counseling.

After reading gThe Road,h I found this particular book to be tepid. Yes, it is an anthology. But after reading the likes of the Hugo Award anthology as a teenager, I found this collection uninspiring. Even Stephen King's contribution, "The End of the Whole Mess," seems weak. Then, again, it's the Hugo Awards --I'm comparing Isaac Asimoff, Harlan Ellison, James Blish, and Robert Heinlein to anyone writing today ---get a grip!

The "Wastelands" has a few redeemable stories. My favorites were: "When sysadmins ruled the earth"; "Judgement Passed," and "Never Dispair." This book reminds me of a few old albums I bought where I loved two or three songs and barely tolerated the rest.

In "When sysadmins ruled the earth" computer geeks rise from the ash to become the new order after a terrorist-induced plague strikes the earth. "Judgement Passed" is about a shipload of atheist sent to explore a distant star arriving to find the Earth empty of people; has God taken everyone but them? In "Never Dispair" survivors of an apocalypse stumble on inspiration from the past.

Itfs a good book to buy and share with friends, picking out a few gems from the rubble.
If this review was helpful, please add your vote.

WE NEED MORE ZOMBIE STORIES LIKE THIS! REALLY GOOD DEPTH AND CHARACTOR! I WAS IMPRESSED! AND THAT'S ALL I HAVE TO SAY ABOUT THAT...IT REALLY HAD A NICE COVER TOO AND THIS REVIEW PROCESS IS AWFUL

RUN FORREST RUN

Being the huge fan of apocalyptic fiction that I am, when I first heard of "Wastelands: Stories of the Apocalypse" I was pretty excited. An anthology of stories dealing with the end of the world sounded incredibly appealing to someone like me. Unfortunately, "Wastelands" was a HUGE and BITTER disappointment to me.
I knew going in (having read Adams' other anthology of zombie short fiction: "The Living Dead" and his penchant for choosing the most bizarre stories possible) that this wasn't typical fare and I tried, literally tried my very hardest to keep an open mind and not take things too seriously when reading this anthology. However, even I couldn't do that. Of the 22 stories collected in here only 7 of them are any good. And of those 7, there really are only 4 (only 18% of this entire 327 page book!!!!!!) that are even worth mentioning: of course the lead-off story "The End of the Whole Mess" by Stephen King (even if I already read it in "Nightmares and Dreamscapes"), "Artie's Angels" by Catherine Wells, "Judgement Passed" by Jerry Oltion (both of which have already been praised in previous reviews) and probably the best story in the whole collection, "The End of the World as We Know It" by Dale Bailey.
And really, that is it. Everything else in this book is, quite honestly, literary garbage that has little or nothing to do with the actual apocalypse aside from perhaps mentioning the word within the context of the stories.
Hands down the 2 worst, most horrible painful, agony inducing stories here are "The People of Sand and Slag" which makes absolutely NO sense whatsoever (evolved humans who don't know what a dog is yet can fly spaceships?) and the never ending and most ridiculously titled "Episode Seven: Last Stand against the Pack in the Kingdom of Purple Flowers". Aside from a lengthy and most ludicrous title, the final story in this collection jumps around more than a bullfrog on a hot date and is one run-on, never ending sentence (I'm serious here: ONE SENTENCE!!!!!!, try to read that story, it's damn near impossible to get through).
I won't even go into details over the numerous typo's and sentence errors found throughout this collection.
Take my word for it, don't even bother picking up this book. It's ridiculously bad. Sure there are a few bright spots here and there, but not even those could save this moribund, sad excuse for an "anthology". As a fellow reviewer wrote, "if this is surviving Armageddon, let me be at the epicenter of the blast."

A collection of apocalyptic stories this is not, rather it is a collection of post-apocalyptic stories during a time when this is all the rage among readers of fiction, (thank you very much Cormac McCarthy). As a science fiction reader, I have read a number of post-apocalyptic novels in my time (Ballard's The Drought, Stewart's Earth Abides, Wyndham's Day of the Triffids, Frank's Alas Babylon and hearty handful of others). So, the material is nothing new to me but I haven't been exposed to the short story side of the sub-genre. Much like all other collections about plot specific stories, the stories are hit and miss.

If the reader is looking for entertaining ways in which humans will perish from the planet, this really isn't it. If the reader is looking for ways in which humans cope with the aftermath of mass tragedy, this book really isn't all that either. But like a good collection of stories, it DOES have the entertaining bits, the humanistic bits and also the humor of human folly.

The End of the Whole Mess (Stephen King) - 5/5 - Elder brother to a genius writes his parting words before he succumbs to the disease unknowingly beset by his brother with only the best intention at heart: to save the world. 19 pages

Salvage (Orson Scott Card) - 3/5 - Mormons assist a salvager in probing the temple for the legendary promise of golden riches, as the salvager was told by other reliable truckers along the highway stretch. 15 pages

The People of Sand and Slag (Paola Bacigalupi)- 5/5 - Heavily modified truly omnivorous humans in an animal-less world discover a dog amidst their chemical wasteland and adopt it as their own after debating on whether or not to just eat the nuisance. 15 pages

Bread and Bombs (M. Rickert) - 3/5 - Neurotic post-trauma small town is leery of the immigrant neighbors with their goat cart with bells but the local children see an invitation for learning the truth, albeit at the expense of their parents' worrisome hearts and conniving minds. 11 pages

How He Got in Town and Out Again (Jonathan Lethern) - 3/5 - A transient and his galfriend stumble upon and agree to enter in the trader's dealing, whose only service for sale is a city-wide tournament of will and endurance for thirty-two contestants who experience cyberspace, with its promises of fulfillment and its lure of alternate realities. 19 pages

Dark, Dark Were the Tunnels (George R.R. Martin) - 4/5 - A mutant subterranean human scouts the upper levels of the earth for secret passages while a excavation crew from Luna open a cave and find intriguing hints of an underground civilization, but when the two groups meet each others physical limitations, words have no meaning. 13 pages

Waiting for the Zephyr (Tobias L. Buckell) - 2/5 - Girl wants to leave the family wind farm for the hope for a better life aboard the ship of the traveling traders... the end. 5 pages

Never Despair (Jack McDevitt) - 4/5 - A duo of explorers traversing eastern America lose a fellow traveler and debate as to whether to return home or trek on when one of them is approached by a historic apparition in a derelict amphitheater, but to each of the dialoguers is a history of incomprehensibility. 9 pages

When Sysadmins Ruled the Earth (Cory Doctorow) - 4/5 - The keepers of internet equipment outside of Toronto are hermetically sealed when bio-terror strikes the globe and the group strive to keep the net alive, form a cyber-government and come to terms with having to breach the seal and meet their fate on the earth. 31 pages

The Last of the O-Forms (James Van Pelt) - 3/5 - A post-global-bio-agent attack freak show conductor and his babyish 12-year old financer daughter stop in a town where the Mississippi holds a troublesome brew of its own. 11 pages

Still Life with Apocalypse (Richard Kadrey) - 4/5 - Menagerie of images from the dreamscape of the author: `The sky is mostly a swirling soup of ash... the government wants us to help gather up the remaining body parts... a dissatisfied citizen had gutted an auditor... they're dragging another horse from the canal.'3 pages

Artie's Angels (Catherine Wells) - 4/5 - Teenaged academic achiever is the leader and hero of a ghetto in a secluded bubble in Kansas, where the rich lead their lives to escape the Earth and the poor merely hope to live through the day. 11 pages

Judgment Passed (Jerry Oltion) - 4/5 - After twelve years on a space mission to visit another planet, the crew arrive back on Earth to read in the newspapers that second coming of Jesus and the great Judgement was held four years ago, with no one left on the face of the planet, which is mixed bag of blessings for the crew. 19 pages

Mute (Gene Wolfe) - 2/5 - Siblings take a bus to their father's house, only to find his TV on mute and his corpse in the basement. 9 pages

Inertia (Nancy Kress) - 3/5 - Communicable disease colony houses three generations of victims, the oldest of which is being interviewed by a doctor from Outside who is untouchable to the disease and also needs a promise from the younger victims to help the rest of the world bent of destruction. 21 pages

And the Deep Blue Sea (Elizabeth Bear) - 3/5 - Very reminiscent of Damnation Alley, a messenger must across a radioactively hot zone to deliver a medical parcel but is met midway by her debtor who tempts her to forget her mission in order to cancel her debt. 15 pages

Speech Sounds (Octavia Butler) - 3/5 - The mental center for language formation and language understanding have been destroyed by a plague, but some aspects of everyday life still manage albeit with difficulty, frustration and confusion. 11 pages

Killers - (Carol Emshwiller) - 2/5 - America is at war at her home turf and one village is only left with four men and where the women get on with getting' on except for someone, possibly the protagonists brother or perhaps not, is on a murder spree. 9 pages

Ginny Sweethips' Flying Circus (Neal Barrett, Jr.) - 3/5 - An attempt at a humorous post-apocalyptic situation but really just a silly mix of silliness along the lines of `a taco and sex circus troupe take their wares to a village, keep their profit of gasoline and get a repair at the next town over but fail to adhere to the repairman's advice and find themselves at the mercy of underwriters. 15 pages

The End of the World as We Know It (Dale Bailey) - 5/5 - The one-in-the-same narrator and character has a knowledge of all the apocalyptic novels and avoids setting himself in-line with the cliché, misses his wife, likes a good gin and tonic, enjoys the country home he's squatting in and reflects upon all of our personal apocalypses. 13 pages

A Song Before Sunset (David Grigg) - 4/5 - Ex-pianist and now scavenger rediscovers his love for music as he searches out his old grand piano in the abandoned theater and later hears about an attack on houses of art by vandals but remains diligent as he tunes his piano for a grand return to the art. 9 pages

Episode Seven (John Langan) - 4/5 - A detailed account of two survivors of a pollen invasion/monster attack/deadly virus who, by night lead a normal life and sleeping and standing guard and by day they battle against the baddies in an epic struggle between good and evil. 21 pages

I know people rarely base their the store book purchases off of reviews, but I might as well do my part to dissuade you. This is a mediocre collection of stories at best. There are a few good ones, but many of them are available for free on the internet, and several of them ARE NOT ABOUT AN APOCALYPSE. The bulk of the stories in this book are forgettable, and some are downright stupid. For example, there's one story that's specifically about incest, and I don't mean in a deep, thoughtful way; the whole point of the story was to say "and then the brother and sister slept with each other." I really have to question the motives of an author who writes such a simplistic story about incest. Another story was about a group of children who burn their parents (and infants) to death for being too conservative. That one wasn't even about an apocalypse- it was just a hamfisted political message written by a left-wing author in protest of the invasion of Afghanistan. I do not recommend this book, and give it two stars only for the few interesting stories within.

Apocalyptic fiction is s subgenre of science fiction, perhaps horror or paranormal fiction depending on the how of the fall of civilization. If you are unfamiliar with this subgenre you may appreciate editor John Joseph Adams' introduction and further reading list.

Usually in anthologies I find 25-33% of the stories to be both interesting and entertaining. I found most of the stories, 21 out of 22, fit at least one of the two categories of interesting or entertaining. Most of these stories have been published elsewhere so you may be familiar with them if you can look inside the table of contents. If you liked those stories you recognized, you might like the others as well.

Stand outs from any anthology for me are stories that made me think and that I will definitely re-read again. In this book these stories were written by Paolo Bacigalupi, Tobia S. Buckell, Jack McDevitt, Octavia E. Butler, Carol Emshwiller, and New Barrett, Jr. 12 more of the stories I liked a lot and might re-read in the future while another 3 more were interesting but probably not something I'd return to. Oddly the final story really didn't work for me almost entirely on a layout level which I found made it difficult to read in a physical sense, however I can't say it was a bad story, only that I hated the formatting of it so much that I couldn't bring myself to continue reading.

John Joseph Adams' anthology "Wastelands: Stories of the Apocalypse" has collected 22 stories, some optimistic, some dark, some with hope for a new beginning. Many of this stories follow the humans reactions facing their tragedy and the outcome of the humanity. The range of the worlds is excellent and every one of them makes you curious about the next author's vision of the post-apocalyptic world. To give you the best idea of the stories collected in this anthology, I will go over them one by one.

"The End of the Whole Mess" by Stephen King. It is the story of two brothers with an above average intelligence, the older one is telling the story and the little one, a genius, tries to find a cure for human violence. After developing such a cure and spreading it in the world he discovers that the side effect is worst. I liked this story because it is told in the first person, actually the main character writes his story as his last words, and because the author manages to create a connection between me and the character. I also liked a little thing imagined by Stephen King, Mexico being communist and between Mexico and USA exists a wall like the Berlin wall.

"Salvage" by Orson Scott Card. The story is about an orphan young boy, Deaver, that looks for and retrieves old machines. He is looking for a treasure buried in a Mormon Temple, under water. When he finds out that what was buried isn't exactly what he is looking for new emotions overcome him. The story is about religion, about faith or the lack of it and about friendship and human emotions.

"The People of Sand and Slag" by Paolo Bacigalupi. In the future humans become almost invincible and immortal through technology, "weeviltech". They can eat mud, dirt and sand, every wound heals very fast and the body parts which they lose can grow back. Three guards of a mining company found a dog, a real dog not an engineered one, they're facing their humanity, or what it is left of it. It's an interesting story, about the outcome of the human emotions and feelings in a technological future.

"Breads and Bombs" by M. Rickett. A family of refugees comes to a small town and being former enemies doesn't help them to integrate in this society. Adding the paranoid behavior of some of the town's inhabitants they face the threat of lynching also. The story deals mainly with the loss of innocence, about prejudice and the fear of terrorism.

"How We Got in Town and Out Again" by Jonathan Lethem. In a land where the resources are scarce and where the towns became real fortresses guarded by local militia two teenagers that wander the land in search of food, enter in such a town with a troop who stages virtual reality competitions. They take part in a contest that awards the most resistant player in this virtual reality marathon with 1000$ and for their participation they get free food. The characters, in spite of their fight for survival and their dealings with human exploitation, keep a measure of hope and optimism.

"Dark, Dark Were the Tunnels" by George R.R. Martin. Half of a millennium after a global nuclear war, two groups of humans that have survived encounter each other. Geel is a scout of The People, a group of humans that survived and lives in deep underground tunnels, and he explores the upper tunnels. Cliffonetto and Von der Stadt are two explorers of the group of humans that survived in a lunar colony, and they arrived on Earth in a research team. Their surprising encounter is not as those three characters expected and has a terrible end. I liked this story because George R.R. Martin manages to create new species, like the predatory worms or like the rats that cohabitate with the humans and I liked how the author saw the outcome of human kind, forced by an apocalyptic event to separate in two groups, becomes two two different races every one transformed and adapted to its own new environment.

"Waiting for the Zephyr" by Tobias S. Buckell. In a world that has a shortage of oil and relies on wind power, Mara, a inhabitant of a small town seeks a new faith. She believes that in a larger city she will fare better, but she faces the opposition of her family. When Zephyr, a wind driven ship, arrives in her town she grabs the chance to escape. This story is the most optimistic of the entire anthology.

"Never Despair" by Jack McDevitt. Two survivors of an apocalyptic event are in search of Haven, a city that is supposed to have the records of the lost world. When they almost abandoned their search, one of them, Chaka, meets with a hologram, a character that will be very familiar to the readers, and after their conversation Chaka founds new courage and hope to continue their search.

"When Sysadmins Ruled the Earth" by Cory Doctorow. In this story we get to live the apocalyptic event as it happens. Some systme administrators are working on their servers after an emergency call and they are trapped in their building when some terrible events, nuclear, biological and human agression, occur. Felix, the main character, loses his wife and child, but tries to build a new and better world. Even though I was lost sometime in the technical language I liked the story because Cory Doctorow puts us in the middle of the apocalyptic events.

"The Last of the O-Forms" by James Van Pelt. The world suffers from a plague that produces great genetic mutations. Trevin collects mutated creatures and expose them in Dr. Trevin's Travelling Zoological Extravaganza. But his business is running low because the mutations are a common thing and the people are losing interest in them. But maybe the answer is found in the original form of animals and humans, the so called 0-form. I found the names of the mutated beings, crocomouse, tigerzelle, funny and interesting, and they let my imagination go wild.

"Still Life with Apocalypse" by Richard Kadrey. This is the shortest story of the anthology but creates a sensation of desperation and futility in the human actions after an apocalyptic event.

"Artie's Angels" by Catherine Wells. The people live under domes that protect them from the radiation. Life under the domes is getting harder with the increasing numbers of people that are let inside them. Artie is a young boy, charismatic and very active. He leads a group of children, giving them hope and a sense of living in a lawless and hopeless environment. The story is told through a young girl, Morgan, her real name Faye, that assists Artie and in the end manages to transform the tragedy of the group in a new hope.

"Judgment Passed" by Jerry Oltion. A space flight crew returns to Earth only to find out an empty planet. According to an old newspaper Jesus has come back and took with him all the Earth inhabitants. The eight astronauts found themselves in front of a dilemma, to try to contact God and find out what will happen to them or to try to live their lives on the empty planet. The Jerry Oltion's story talks about some theological and philosophical themes, like the existence of God, the religion through the eyes of the world and the afterlife. It is an interesting read.

"Mute" by Gene Wolfe. The story is about two children that come home and find it empty and find an empty land. I have to admit that I didn't understand this story.

"Inertia" by Nancy Kress. The people infected with a disfiguring disease live in encampments build by the government. After many years in which the government tried to find a cure for the disease, it stopped the researches and now the inhabitants of the encampments live in isolation. Now, an outsider comes to an encampment and talks with its inhabitants. He is Tom McHab, a doctor that studies the disease and thinks that he has a cure for the physical affections of the disease. The doctor and his colleagues found out that the disease inhibits the urge for violence in the affected people's brains. And considering that the outside world is dominated by rage and violence he wants to spread the disease, treated at the skin level, in the world. It's an interesting story about hope and resignation.

"And the Deep Blue Sea" by Elizabeth Bear. Harrie, a motorcycle courier, has to deliver a case containing fetal cell stem cultures to Sacramento. She has to ride through a desolated land, full of toxic radiations and through towns ruined and destroyed. Beside that she has to rationalize her fuel and a time limit she also has to deal with a man, Nick, which wants to collect a debt. Harrie is confronted with a dilemma, the personal gain or to save some people that she doesn't know. And the end of Elizabeth Bear's story leaves you with an option of your own.

"Speech Sounds" by Octavia E. Butler. In a post-apocalyptic world, after a disease affected the population taking their capacity of speech, Rye travels in a bus from LA to Pasadena. Rye is a former history teacher and her illness has affected her capacity to read and write, but not her speech although she has to hide this fact. In the bus where she travels a violent conflict occurs and at the scene comes a man that seems to be a cop, although such institutions don't exist anymore. After he ends the conflict Rye leaves with him. Despite her envy for his capacity to write and read she longs for the human contact and after the interaction with another human being. At the end of the story Rye finds two children with their capacity of speech intact and the new human contact gives her hope and a new meaning.

"Killers" by Carol Emshwiller. After many years of war the towns miss the presence of males, many of them killed or disappeared in the conflict. In such a town, our heroine misses her brother and thinks he is missing in the war. In the nearby mountains live and hide veterans of war. When their bodies appear in town and our heroine finds a stranger in her house, in spite of the common sense she, longing for her brother and for a male companionship, takes him in her care. She cleans him and hides him in her house and after a while she introduces him to the community. The end of the story is brutal and talks about human desperation and egoism.

"Ginny Sweethips' Flying Circus" by Neal Barrett, Jr. A troop composed by Del, an android barker, by Possum Dark, a marsupial bodyguard and Ginny, the star of a sexual show, travels through land offering to the survivors sex, tacos and dangerous drugs in exchange for gasoline or other goods. After they stop in a town for repairs they found themselves confronting a group of insurance salesman. In spite of the humor of the story and some comic situations, the story is one of the few of this anthology that didn't hit the mark with me.

"The End of the World as We Know It" by Dale Bailey. The main character, Wyndham, finds himself alone in the world after an apocalyptic disaster. But Wyndham is affected more by the loss of his wife than the apocalyptic event. I liked this story a lot, because Dale Bailey includes in his story some references to real historical events that seemed apocalyptic at their time like the bubonic plague that hit Europe, the eruption of Krakatoa in 1883, the Holocaust and other events and the fact that a personal loss can be as catastrophic as an apocalyptic event.

"A Song Before Sunset" by David Grigg. Parnell, a former piano player, fights for survival in his apocalyptic world. He hunts rats and seeks different objects in order to trade them for food and clothes. After discovering a sledgehammer he works his way into a concert hall and finds a piano. He retunes it and he plays it, but finds himself confronting one of a Vandalmen, a group that roams the land destroying the cultural edifices. The story is about the need for culture and art and about the human need for appreciation of his talents.

"Episode Seven..." by John Langan. The two protagonists, a pregnant young lady, Jackie and a comic book fan, Wayne, try to escape of a pack of mutant animals that chases them, after escaping of a mortal virus that killed the world. Like the author said in the introduction this story is a response to Dave Bailey's story. If Wyndham is hopeless and has no desire for survival, this story's characters fight for their lives, and that of the unborn child, with all they got. They lay traps, they run and they try to kill the pack that chases them. The original part of the story is the way the author writes it. There are very long sentences, pages that are long phrases and the story is interrupted by the present actions only by sentences written in bold. Even though the style is complicated it is interesting and gives the story pace and thrill.

Overall I really enjoyed John Joseph Adams' anthology. There were very few stories I didn't like, but that is the case with all the anthologies; you can't love them all. I also enjoyed the recommendation list on the subject that I found at the end of the volume. It is a very good book, with different stories that gathers different views of the apocalyptic events and I highly recommend it.

As with most anthologies, there's great, meh, and bad, leading to an overall meh rating.

The best: "Speech Sounds" by Octavia Butler, "Judgement Passed" by Jerry Oltion, and "When Sysadmins Ruled the Earth" by Cory Doctorow

The worst:"Salvage" by Orson Scott Card, "Still Life with Apocalypse" by Richard Kadrey, and "The End of the World as We Know It" by Dale Bailey.

Consider the rest to be the meh.

That said, there's a good variety of end of the world scenarios, here. Most are set so far in the future that we don't know HOW it happened, but a good number have some unique mechanics. "Speech Sounds" is especially interesting, being set in a world where all of humanity lost the power of speech.

So, good for anthology lovers, but obviously not the best for everyone.

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 that is subjective.

Post-Apocalyptic fiction is a favorite sub-genre of mine, and getting the chance to see just how wide ranging the genre can be is a treat. As a bonus, Adams includes a bibliography at the end of the anthology of other prominent post-apocalyptic novels and short stories.

Reading copy provided courtesy of Night Shade Books.

this entry into my 2012 Collections category is a book that I stumbled across a couple of years ago, and slowly read and digested. Post-apocalyptic fiction is an increasingly popular sub-genre of science fiction (it may even claim it's own title as a separate genre altogether), and one that I only started seriously reading a decade or so ago (outside of Stephen King's The Stand By Stephen King and maybe Lucifer's Hammer by Jerry Pournelle)...

Wastelands: Stories of the Apocalypse ed. by John Joseph Adams; this collection of post-apocalyptic stories contains entries from Stephen King, Orson Scott Card, Paolo Bacigalupi, Gene Wolfe, and several other 'big' names in SF & Fantasy. The official website includes a table of contents and a short introduction to each story:

[[...]

As you would expect, most of the stories were superb... I could not pick a favorite, probably because, to avoid depression, I read the stories over a period of many months... but the King story was one that I went back and reread. Adams includes a reading list in an appendix containing a 100+ books (I've only read ~20 of them, but I came late to the genre), and of course we frequently have new additions to the list (The Hunger Games, World War Z, The Forest of Hands and Teeth, Uglies, Life as We Knew It, etc)

Highly recommended for all fans of science fiction.

The thing about Wastelands is that it is very uneven. Perhaps it is because the post-apocalyptic genre is so wide, or so bare, but for every great story there are three or four or five which is a chore to read. Joe Sherry and Slippard do a great job breaking down the stories individual without spoiling anything, so instead I will focus just on the tales that make this volume worth it.

* "The End of the Whole Mess," by Stephen King. King is a great writer, always fun and easy to read.
* "The People of Sand and Slag," by Paolo Bacigalupi. Perhaps the most disturbing book in the collection, as Bacigalupi seems to understand where genetic engineering is going.
* "Dark, Dark Were the Tunnels," by George R.R. Martin. A Cold War parable. Anyone who loved golden age Isaac Asimov and Arthur C. Clarke will feel at home here.
* "Judgment Passed," by Jerry Olten. An odd story as it deals with the rapture from the point of view of atheist astronauts who were out of the solar system at the time.
* "Mute," by Gene Wolf. You need to read this. Mute, alone, makes buying this book worth it, even if you just buy the Kindle edition and read it on your computer. Mute is only ten pages, but that includes a short intro in which Neil Gaiman gives the following advice:

(1) Trust the text implicitly. THe answers are in there.
(2) Do not trust the text farther than you can throw it, if that far. It's tricksy and desperate stuff, and it may go off in your hand at any time.
(3) Reread. It's better the second time.

Actually, it's more confusing the second time. The third time I really paid attention to why the protagonist could be thinking her thoughts. And I drew a map.

(Mute tends to have negative reviews in summaries. If you only read it once it's disturbing, but you completely miss what is happening.)
* "The End of the World As We Know It," by Dale Bailey. The end of the world is not the most important thing to happen to the protagonist, to a local consequence of it is. A wonderful story of grieving.
* "A Song Before Sunset," by David Grigg. Reads like an episode of The Twilight Zone, in the best sense.

If the same book for the same price was just these stories, it would have been a great deal, well worth the $10.85 paperback price. Don't feel obligated to read the rest.

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