Wastelands: Stories of the Apocalypse
by John Joseph Adams (Goodreads author) , Cory Doctorow George R.R. Martin Carol Emshwiller Jonathan Lethem Octavia E. Butler Stephen King Gene Wolfe more...book data
329 ratings,
3.74
average rating, 95 reviews
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published
January 15th 2008
by Night Shade Books
binding
Paperback, 352 pages
isbn
1597801054
(isbn13: 9781597801058)
description
Famine, Death, War, and Pestilence: The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse, the harbingers of Armageddon - these are our guides through the Wastelands......more
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avg 3.74
editions: all | this edition
editions: all | this edition
Read in February, 2008
recommended to Rob by:
Amy recommends it for: DOOM! DOOM! DOOM!
A tightly themed, well executed collection: Wastelands captures our apocalypse fears and fantasies equally well and sometimes even simultaneously.
Adams wisely chooses Stephen King's "The End of the Whole Mess" as an opener and moves into all manner of exciting territory from there. Wastelands is the expected mix of strong (and some average) short stories; most of them have a high re-read score and there is an good mix of diverse ideas and themes that keep within the centr...more
Adams wisely chooses Stephen King's "The End of the Whole Mess" as an opener and moves into all manner of exciting territory from there. Wastelands is the expected mix of strong (and some average) short stories; most of them have a high re-read score and there is an good mix of diverse ideas and themes that keep within the centr...more
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Read in February, 2008
An excellent collection of short stories of how post apocalyptic survivors would cope with the environment they find themselves in. It's a good introduction into the genre and most of the stories have a more hopeful mood rather than utter despair.
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Read in January, 2008
I love the end of the world. No, really. Nothing fascinates me more than the destruction of what we have. In that vein The Stand is an all time favorite of mine. Other books, including The World Without Us, are interesting and blend a touch of realism to the genre.
So I picked up Wastelands: Stories of the Apocalypse after a recommendation from a friend. The book is a collection of short stories that run the gamut from Nuclear Apocalypse, to Viral, and on. A veritable litany of it's t...more
So I picked up Wastelands: Stories of the Apocalypse after a recommendation from a friend. The book is a collection of short stories that run the gamut from Nuclear Apocalypse, to Viral, and on. A veritable litany of it's t...more
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Read in February, 2009
An excellent anthology of end-of-the-world stories. I was happy that it included my favorite Stephen King short story, "The End of the Whole Mess." All kinds of apocalypse scenarios are included--deadly virus, technological meltdown, global warming, nuclear winter, even the Christian Rapture. (There's a really interesting story about a group of researchers who were offworld when the Rapture came and didn't get taken...One guy goes crazy and starts trying to attract God's attention in o...more
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Read in January, 2009
I bought this collection as a Christmas gift for my boyfriend, who has been obsessively playing Fallout 3 and is a big fan of the post-apocalyptic genre in general. After he finished it on vacation, I picked it up for some bedtime reading. I guess I should have known after reading The Road that post-apocalyptic fiction does not make good bedtime reading, but I won't hold that against this collection.
Like all anthologies, it has its hits and misses. I happen to be a big fan of the ope...more
Like all anthologies, it has its hits and misses. I happen to be a big fan of the ope...more
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Read in March, 2009
It was good to read Stephen King's "The End of the Whole Mess" again. Orson Card's "Salvage" was ok. But after a couple pages of Paolo Bacigalupi's "The People of Sand and Slag", I skipped it, too Space Channel for me. "Bread and Bombs" was so-so. I liked Jonathan Lethem's "How We Got In Town and Out Again", I've always been interested in virtual reality stuff. I really liked GRRM's "Dark, Dark Were The Tunnels" .Tobias Bucknell's "...more
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Read in December, 2008
This is a better than average anthology, and there are no really awful pieces included. There are of course some high points and a few less interesting stories. These were my favorites:
"Still Life with Apocalypse" by Richard Kadrey - Short but not at all sweet. Will the last person on the planet please turn off the lights?
"Speech Sounds" by Octavia E. Butler - Through some unknown disease, humanity has lost the ability to speak or read. Those who c...more
"Still Life with Apocalypse" by Richard Kadrey - Short but not at all sweet. Will the last person on the planet please turn off the lights?
"Speech Sounds" by Octavia E. Butler - Through some unknown disease, humanity has lost the ability to speak or read. Those who c...more
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Read in January, 2009
This is a very nice anthology exploring a not-so-nice subject. A number of the stories were familiar to me, reminding me that I've been reading in the genre for a long time, spanning Card's story that first appeared in Asimov's in 1986, to Emshwiller's marvelous "Killers" a full 20 years later, in F&SF. A number of the stories are even earlier than Card's, giving us a variety of end-of-the-world visions over time as well as from the varied perspectives of the writers.
Nanc...more
Nanc...more
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Read in June, 2009
Wastelands: Stories of the Apocalypse is a collection of 22 short stories with a common theme of what life is like for those that survive the apocalypse. Most of the stories were originally published during this decade. However, a few are from the 70s and 80s. My favorite stories include: "The End of the Hole Mess" first published in 1986 by Steven King; "When Sysadmins Ruled the Earth" published in 2006 by Cory Doctorow; and "Mute" published in 2002 by Gene Wolfe. ...more
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Read in December, 2008
WASTELANDS: STORIES OF THE APOCALYPSE EDITED BY JOHN JOSEPH ADAMS: In this riveting collection edited by John Joseph Adams, it is everything post-apocalyptic. We know one day the world is going to kick it, and here’s what some writers think might happen. Wastelands runs the gamut from a rapture story; to how we might survive in a dead world (even if we’re disfigured mutants); to stories that may not be about the end of the world, but at times certainly seem like it. Featuring a wide varie...more
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Read in April, 2008
I've read other sci/fi anthologies about the end of the world/civilization. Many fall into a variety of scenarios.
Usually there is a reluctant hero trying to survive among the savage hoardes of a post apocalyptic landscape. Sometimes its a small group of people assembling the pieces for a new civilization.
This book is very differnt. Most of these short stories have a post 9/11 twist which makes them more conceivable and terrifying. Before 9/11 these types of stories were very...more
Usually there is a reluctant hero trying to survive among the savage hoardes of a post apocalyptic landscape. Sometimes its a small group of people assembling the pieces for a new civilization.
This book is very differnt. Most of these short stories have a post 9/11 twist which makes them more conceivable and terrifying. Before 9/11 these types of stories were very...more
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Read in March, 2008
recommended to Clackamas by:
Amazonrecommends it for: Lovers of post-apocalyptic lit
If you are a big fan of apocalyptic and post-apocalyptic fiction, or even fantasy/sci-fi you'll recognize most of these authors. You may even be familiar with some of the stories. That said, this isn't just a random collection of a bunch of stuff you've already seen.
The editor picked the material for this volume carefully. These stories together pretty fairly represents the "end of the world is nigh" genre. Some of the stories have detailed accounts of what caused the apoc...more
The editor picked the material for this volume carefully. These stories together pretty fairly represents the "end of the world is nigh" genre. Some of the stories have detailed accounts of what caused the apoc...more
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Read in January, 2009
I love short stories, and themed anthologies like this one are a great way to cover a lot of authorial ground for your buck. This one, edited very capably by John Joseph Adams, had some true standouts - Elizabeth Bear's "And the Deep Blue Sea" is a clever, somewhat spooky tale,and David Grigg's "A Song Before Sunset" is a beautifully written and imaginative take on what the Apocalypse might mean to the cultural spirit of humanity. I can't say there were any stories I didn't...more
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Read in February, 2009
Above-average collection of short stories, which benefits from a wonderful focus and tightness of theme: it’s the apocalypse, baby! This assortment of post-apocalyptic worlds gets a boost from some truly stellar contributions from Paolo Bacigalupi, Cory Doctorow, and Octavia Butler. Other entries are less joy- and more WTF-inducing (WTF, Orson Scott Card?), and rather too many focus on post-apocalyptic traveling carnivals (um, obviously, right?). But in general, this is one of the rare antholo...more
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Read in April, 2009
This is a good collection.
It captures the breadth of the human stories that draw me into the apocalyptic genre. It's fun to chuckle at an ironic way that mutually assured destruction backfires or gaze in horror at the depths of depravity at the end of the road. But for me, it's always about the empathy with the people in a world of hard edges and few choices.
The thing about apocalyptic fiction is that the characters are caricatures of themselves and the world is simplif...more
It captures the breadth of the human stories that draw me into the apocalyptic genre. It's fun to chuckle at an ironic way that mutually assured destruction backfires or gaze in horror at the depths of depravity at the end of the road. But for me, it's always about the empathy with the people in a world of hard edges and few choices.
The thing about apocalyptic fiction is that the characters are caricatures of themselves and the world is simplif...more
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Read in December, 2008
Post-apocalyptic fiction may well be my favorite genre, so I was excited to read this anthology. Like most, it's a mixed bag. A few standouts: "The End of the Whole Mess" - Stephen King (natch), "Inertia" - Nancy Kress and "Judgment Passed" by Jerry Oltion. I also appreciated the "For Further Reading" section, and I'll certainly seek out some of these books.
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03/12/09
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Read in April, 2009
The stories in this book presented a variety of end of the world/post apocalyptic scenarios. They were all interesting in terms of the different scenarios. Some of them were good. Some were very good and a few were outright great. Neither S. King nor O. Butler were a dissappointment. Loved their stories. The very last story was a take on another take on the genre. Loved it as well...it appealed to the analytical critic in my head. Meanwhile, the stories about mutations and genetic alterati...more
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Read in December, 2008
Like every anthology, this one was up and down. For the most part, though, it was very up. Writers who normally bore and/or disgust me raised their game for these short stories about the End of Things. Or maybe I was just in the mood to read about the Apocalypse. Now what would bring a mood like that about?
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Read in December, 2008
Would've been ideal if I hadn't read most of the stories in this before, since I'm a big fan of postapocalyptic fiction. But this does collect all my favorite PA stories, so it's handy when I want to go re-read them. Even better was the handful of new stories in the volume.
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Read in May, 2009
Despite myself (I didn't exactly find this comforting pre-sleep reading), I really enjoyed this collection of short stories of the apocalypse. As with many collected works, the quality was a tad uneven but there were enough quality pieces that kept me turning the pages.
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