CATASTROPHIA

A copy of Allen Ashely's top-drawer collection Catastrophia popped through the door today. As a contributor (my story is called 'Noose') I got the fancy-pantsy traycased polyautographed hardback edition -- you can see what it looks like over on Ian Sales blog. But you can get your own edition, cheaper than that, over at the PS Publishing Site. I urge you to do so. It's a very good collection:

Did you grow up on a diet of catastrophe novels? Classics such as "War of the Worlds", "Death of Grass", "Day of the Triffids", "Greybeard", "The Purple Cloud" and so forth? Did you hone your teen angst through a diet of disaster stories?

This book won't exactly take you back to that Golden Age . . . because the purpose of "Catastrophia" is to revitalise this sub-genre of Science Fiction for the early twenty-first century. To bring a modern sensibility and craft to the business of ending the world as we know it. These days, there's plenty of catastrophe on screen - whether it be at the cinema or on TV - but we have somewhat let the subject slip in the literary world. No longer!

Award-winning editor Allen Ashley has collected 18 brilliant brand new stories from a mix of established and emerging authors that will take you way beyond Wyndham and well past Wells. Catastrophe stories are alive and kicking.

Buy this book, read this book . . . while we still have a world in which to do so!

Fade - David Gullen

A Hard Place - Carole Johnstone

Up - Andrew Hook

Stephen's Boat - Billie Bundschuh

Noose - Adam Roberts

Check - Robert Guffey

Something For Nothing - Joe Essid

The Phoney War - Nina Allan

Happy Ending - Simon Clark

Nanoamerica - David John Baker

Pixels on a Screen - Patrick Shuler

Scalped - Jet McDonald

Gravity Wave - Douglas Thompson

In The Face of Disaster - Ian Sales

Trouble With Telebrations - Tim Nickels

The Long Road to the Sea - James L. Sutter

Crashes Stuart Young

Hapless Humanity - Brian W. Aldiss