World's Collider: A Shared-World Anthology

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World's Collider: A Shared-World Anthology

by Richard Salter (Goodreads Author) (Editor), Steven Savile (Goodreads Author) (Contributor), James Moran (Goodreads Author) (Contributor), Aaron Rosenberg (Goodreads Author) (Contributor), Trent Zelazny (Goodreads Author) (Contributor), Jonathan Green (Goodreads Author) (Contributor), Simon Kurt Unsworth (Goodreads Author) (Contributor), Kelly Hale (Contributor) , more…

4.36 of 5 stars 4.36 · rating details · 56 ratings · 16 reviews

The Collision is the worst disaster in human history. So far…

In the near future, an experiment at the Large Hadron Collider causes an enormous explosion, known as the Collision. The blast flattens a huge chunk of central Europe and punches a massive hole in the Earth’s surface. Over the next decade, unspeakable horrors pour from the rift: vicious creatures with a taste for...more

Paperback, First Edition Trade Paperback, 470 pages

Published July 10th 2012 by Nightscape Press

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Oct 31, 2012 Tim rated it 4 of 5 stars

The editor and show runner of World's Collider is an old school friend, and Richard Salter is understandably proud of his first book with his own name on the front. World's Collider is a shared world anthology of short horror stories which come together to form a novel. The collection contains all human, and inhuman, suffering from the mild to the gory and violent, peppered with a little pathos and hope seasoning.

The premise is that the Large Hadron Collider, the 17 mile long circular particle a...more

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Jan 17, 2013 Jason Stewart rated it 4 of 5 stars

In Nightscape Press' anthology collection World's Collider, edited by Richard Salter, the world ends not with a bang or a whimper, but in a collision. In Salter's shared world tome, humanity is brought to its knees by a sinister accident caused by the CERN Super Collider in Switzerland. This accident of cosmic proportions opens up a rift that connects Earth to multiple realities filled with some not so nice characters. Let's just say, in this world, if the folks at CERN have found the “God Parti...more

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Oct 15, 2012 Hilary rated it 5 of 5 stars

Absolutely phenomenal. I couldn't stop reading this anthology! The group of authors created the best anthology I have ever read. Each chapter is one or part 2, etc. of a story for a small number of characters. The characters and stories flow so effortless it doesn't even feel as if this is multiple authors. Some novels written by just one author don't flow this much! I was impressed by how the individual stories came together to form a cohesive world. I will be thinking about these stories for t...more

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Dec 17, 2012 Matt Schiariti rated it 4 of 5 stars

And now for something completely different...

The worst disaster in human history is only the beginning. An experiment involving the Large Hadron Collider goes horribly awry, causing what will be known for the next ten years as 'The Collision'. A hole is punched in the earth, allowing unspeakable horrors to cross over into our universe. Flesh eating creatures, screams that drive people insane, a being that takes over human hosts and feeds on their fear and pain, a train made of bone, flesh and si...more And now for something completely different...

The worst disaster in human history is only the beginning. An experiment involving the Large Hadron Collider goes horribly awry, causing what will be known for the next ten years as 'The Collision'. A hole is punched in the earth, allowing unspeakable horrors to cross over into our universe. Flesh eating creatures, screams that drive people insane, a being that takes over human hosts and feeds on their fear and pain, a train made of bone, flesh and sinew... And that's not even the half of it. Humanity is on the brink of extinction and what's left of our planet may not even be worth inhabiting.

World's Collider is something completely different. It's an anthology...but it's also a novel. Huh? How can that be? Usually, anthologies have a common theme but that's where the similarities end. Not so with World's Collider. There is not only a central theme to this large collection of short stories, but there is also a central 'plot' to the whole thing, involving recurring places and characters, as well as a primary 'main' character and central 'villain'. Each story builds upon the center line of the collection and builds upon it, telling different tales of destruction, aftermath, and the fight for survival in the wake of the Collision. It's something entirely unique, at least it is to me.

I admit to not knowing the lion's share of the people featured in this book other than Richard Wright (I love his work) and Steven Savile but the talent pool pulled together for this collection is nothing short of fantastic. The stories are varied and well told and have differing perspectives of how the varying cast, both common to the overall plot and unique to each story, deal with what's thrown in front of them. Every story is a winner and the new talent hangs right in with the seasoned veterans.

I think the most impressive aspect of this anthology, however, is the editing. That's not to downplay how good the writing is because it's all fantastic, but I can't imagine what a task it was to assemble this many different writers, give them a central theme and story line and let them have at it, giving them free rein to tell their stories but also maintaining a sense of cohesiveness between the lot. My hat is off to Richard Salter for taking on such an ambitious project and turning it into a reality. Some of the stories are told in the third person, some are first person, and a few are even told in the form of social media updates, yet everything just...fits. You would think that so many authors with different takes, styles and point of view preferences would derail a centrally-themed collection like this but that just doesn't happen here and that's due in large part to fantastic editing, without a doubt. I'm sure many sleepless nights were involved in putting this whole thing together.

If I do have one complaint, it would be the ending: there really isn't one. Considering there's a shared plot line running throughout the entire collection, I was hoping for an ending that was a little more...definitive. Still, it's left open to interpretation and perhaps a follow up? If so, consider me there.

World's Collider is something fresh in the world of sci-fi, horror, and post apocalyptic fiction. Different, unique, well written, and fantastically edited.(less)

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Jan 11, 2013 Wayne rated it 4 of 5 stars

When it comes to apocalyptic tales, I figured I had read just about every version of the concept possible. This collection, however, offered a fresh approach in both story and presentation. Every story, written by various authors, told the full tale, and the differences in the style of each story is what made the book really interesting. The fact that disparate writers could come together to build a unified narrative with its own style and feel is pretty incredible, and well worth reading for th...more

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Apr 25, 2013 Mark Nuhfer rated it 3 of 5 stars

Things I LIKED about this book:
- It was a crazy mashed up wild read.
- Just in the first few pages I wondered if I was reading sci-fi, apocalypse, zombies, horror or something else.
- It had what might be my all-time favorite line in a book: "Lots of people were killed by falling chunks of France."
- I think I got it for free.
- It kind of reminded me a little bit of Stephen King's "The Stand."
- It was an interesting concept, combining short stories by multiple authors into a single coherent novel,...more

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Jan 27, 2013 Jackie Blewett rated it 4 of 5 stars

This was a great idea and it worked. Each chapter is a story or part of a story (which is continued later in the book) of different characters within the main story of 'The Collision'. It is fortunate that this book is hard to put down as the approach - jumping around from story to story within a bigger story - can be confusing and requires some concentration. As a skim reader I suffered a little. Also as a kindle reader, I couldn't flick back to check things that I couldn't remember fully or di...more

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Nov 09, 2012 Mieneke rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: 2012, science-fiction, horror

World's Collider is an interesting experiment in which eighteen short stories tell one continuous story. It's a largely successful experiment too. While the narrative is formed from a host of disparate voices, it creates an intricate whole and Salter's made sure that the main characters' personalities don't shift too much between the stories and that there aren't too many inconsistencies. The premise of the story – what if we discover what in essence are wormholes using the Hadron Collider in Ge...more World's Collider is an interesting experiment in which eighteen short stories tell one continuous story. It's a largely successful experiment too. While the narrative is formed from a host of disparate voices, it creates an intricate whole and Salter's made sure that the main characters' personalities don't shift too much between the stories and that there aren't too many inconsistencies. The premise of the story – what if we discover what in essence are wormholes using the Hadron Collider in Geneva – is interesting and the vision of the slow apocalypse that follows is quite frightening, showing both the best and worst mankind has to offer.

The stories are told in different formats, via blog posts and comments, in journal format, as flashes of vision, in first person and third. This creates a dynamic feeling and also allows for the different writing styles to blend, so the narrative doesn't feel too choppy. The characters are quite interesting too; the different authors capture the different ways humans cope with disaster quite well. There are several main returning characters, that of Scott Fletcher, Natalie Murphy and Joseph Tern. If Scott and Natalie are on the side of the angels – not literally, though some would have you believe differently – then Joseph Tern is the devil incarnate. He's a full-blown psychopath, who kills people for pleasure and forms a conduit for something that is even less pleasant. Their development across the stories is not as completely as one might like, but it went further than I had expected. I would have liked to have seen more of how the years after the Collision had affected Scott and where Natalie came from before she became the hardened soldier we meet in The Coming Scream. Scattered about the narrative are several returning characters with larger or smaller parts and it's fun to spot the connections.

Even if World's Collider is one narrative, as with any anthology there are bound to be stories that click better with each individual reader than others. In my case, my favourite stories were Keep Calm and Carry On Parts I-IV, The Rise and Fall of the House of Ricky, What Little Boys Are Made Of, and Caught. The Keep Calm and Carry On sequence was a great look at how social media, in this case blogs, might function in an apocalypse, but also how tenuous a link it is to the outside world—once WiFi and electricity goes, you're lost. I also liked how it gave us snap shots of the same people not at the heart of the narrative, at different points of the apocalypse. The Rise and Fall of the House of Ricky was just very fun, as I love Project Runway – yes, I watch horrible reality TV shows to turn my brain off – and I can so see this happening, a fashionista giving up their soul for fashion. It's a creepy story, but despite that fun! What Little Boys Are Made Of broke my heart. Not just the fact that these two small children were left alone, but the way the eldest tried her best to care for her little brother knowing full well that it was almost beyond hope. One might say it was an easy play on sentimentality, but I found it well-written and I loved the voice of this little, six-year-old boy. Caught was a mixture of dread and paranoia shaken with a good bit of suicide mission and served on ice-cold cubes of creepy. I'm quite afraid of spiders and the fact that the 'enemy' here had taken the form of a spider gave me chills, but despite this I liked the way the relationships and interactions between the characters were drawn.

The ending is of the narrative is nebulous. While it might be the happy ending humanity hoped for, it never explicitly says so and there are some loose ends which make me wonder about a possible sequel. Because if they are not there to serve as plot hooks for a further novel, they are just very glaring loose ends. Still, as it stands World's Collider is an engaging read, which is both scary and encouraging; humanity sinks deeply, but also shows its resilience and rises above itself. The book might not work for everyone, as it is not quite fish nor fowl due to its experimental nature, but I appreciated the concept and its execution, even if it wasn't completely flawless. If you're a fan of anthologies and would like to see what the form can stretch to, World's Collider is well worth a read.

This book was provided for review by the publisher.(less)

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Sep 30, 2012 Kim Sofia rated it 5 of 5 stars

I've just read this, and consider re-reading it again in about a month. I feel having read it as pieces, I'd like to now enjoy it as a whole story. Each story, all different authors, wove a complete fabric, with main characters drawing everything together...This was absolutely fantastic,quite needed since I've been reading zombie horror and that starts to wear a bit...something completely different, unpredictable, and wonderful! Please read this book!!!

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Jan 03, 2013 Keith Craig rated it 3 of 5 stars

I borrowed this book for free from Amazon from the sci-fi anthology category. Calling it sci-fi is valid, but it's not particularly tech or science heavy. It does a good job at its blurb, which is a shared story written by a collection of authors, although its ending leaves a bit to be desired.

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Nov 09, 2012 Pete731 rated it 4 of 5 stars Recommends it for: People that like Post-Apocalyptic fiction, or shared worlds

Got this as a freebie for Kindle, was better than I thought it would be. The stories follow a couple story arcs, and there are some interesting ideas. As with any anthology, some stories are better and some are worse, but overall the quality was high.

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Oct 03, 2012 Jackie added it

Shelves: kindle-android

an anthology with a concurrent story. characters reappear. the world as we know it has collapsed. I thought the opening story could have been stronger, but a few chapters in and it was quite gripping.

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Jul 11, 2012 Hermione marked it as to-read

Shelves: dystopia-post-apocalyptic, sci-fi, wantwantwant

Oh my God, oh my God, oh my God.

I don't think I've ever been tempted by a synopsis this much.

I may just be willing to steal this book if I ever see it.

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Jan 29, 2013 Mark Healey rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Fascinating book. I was hooked from the start. highly recommended!

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Jan 01, 2013 Marie bishop rated it 2 of 5 stars

I didn't enjoy this book at all, it was hard going at times, well most of the time, it was boring, and had nothing a good book needs really, it felt more like i have to read it to finish it, rather than wanting to.

It was well written in a sense that punctuation , spelling, prose etc were fine, it was just not very good.

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Sep 23, 2012 Katherine rated it 4 of 5 stars

I usually approach anthologies of short stories as that book I have ongoing... Always available to pick up and read a bit here and there as the need or spirit arises. This collection though? This is a shared world collection that weaves together the vision of a group of authors so effectively that I was glued to the stories page after page...

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Nov 28, 2012 Sheri White rated it 4 of 5 stars

Fun and interesting shared world anthology. Real review to come soon.

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May 31, 2013 Magda marked it as maybe-to-read

May 15, 2013 Tanner Carter rated it 4 of 5 stars

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Apr 10, 2013 Jenn marked it as to-read · review of another edition

Shelves: kindle

Apr 04, 2013 Alison rated it 2 of 5 stars

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About Richard Salter

Richard Salter is a British writer and editor living near Toronto, Canada with his wife and two young sons. He edited the short story collection Short Trips: Transmissions for Big Finish Productions and the mosaic-novel anthology World’s Collider. He has sold over twenty short stories including tales in Solaris Rising, Warhammer: Gotrek & Felix The Anthology, Phobophobia and This is How you Di...more

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