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After the Orange: Ruin and Recovery
After the Orange is what happens when 29 of the worlds best science fiction writers turn their talents to look 20 or more years in the future to envision a post Trump world. The stories are well considered visions that range from rebellion to sensitive endurance. What is it like to find yourself being forced to live on a patch of plastic in the Pacific Ocean? To have to say goodbye to your oldest friend and the environment at the same time. Award winning writers like John A. Pitts and Brenda Cooper bring their trademark skill to bear with powerful stories that will ring with truth. K.G. Anderson will bring tears to your eyes and soften your heart with her vision of the year 2032. All of this in a anthology envisioned by Robert N. Anderson, facilitated by B Cubed Press, and brought into being with the involvement of Janka Hobbs, Elizabeth Ann Scarborough, with stories selected and arranged by Manny Frishberg.
This book asks the questions on how will we cope? Originally conceived in Australia, this book found an American publisher that gave free reign to the writers to make their special visions. With writers from across the hemispheres, this book will give you hope with some stories, and make you fearful with others.
Only by reading this book can you fully envision what the world could be like, After the Orange.
This book asks the questions on how will we cope? Originally conceived in Australia, this book found an American publisher that gave free reign to the writers to make their special visions. With writers from across the hemispheres, this book will give you hope with some stories, and make you fearful with others.
Only by reading this book can you fully envision what the world could be like, After the Orange.
231 pages, Kindle Edition
Published July 16, 2018
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Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews
September 12, 2018
Definitely read After the Orange: Ruin and Recovery. You will be blown away.
After the Orange is an exceptional anthology of essays, poetry, and short fiction, the possibilities of what will happen in the future, with some reflections on the past. Editor Manny Frishberg, a well-respected writer in his own right, assembled twenty-eight authors to present visions of our near future. Elizabeth Ann Scarborough wrote the Foreword.
All twenty-eight works are engaging stories. The flavor of the anthology ranges from defiance, to acceptance, to consequence. Here are micro reviews of three randomly chosen stories.
John A. Pitts’ The Last Flight of Captain Kittredge, a defiant story, presents anarchy and civil war in a closely held area near an old, small airport once owned by Boeing. This story of desperation and hope is a classic war story that captures the essence of why people fight in a desperate situation.
Brenda Coopers’ Maybe the Monarchs, story of acceptance, is a tender tale of love and the inevitable loss of those near to us as we age. The story reflects on the personal loss felt by the extinction of Monarch butterflies that is woven into a deeply touching story of a woman on the cusp of another life change.
The Orange Street Parking Garage is FULL/OPEN by J.G. Follansbee, a story of consquences, follows a bum on the street through his rise and fall as a favorite of a president who hired him to destroy the EPA. If you enjoy schadenfreude, this is the story for you.
These are only three out of the twenty-eight stories, and they reflect the high-quality story telling found in each of the works. There isn’t dud among them. After the Orange anthology brings together very different visions of the future of the USA and those affected by the inevitable changes in touching and startling stories filled with love, longing, and a bit of gallows humor.
After the Orange is an exceptional anthology of essays, poetry, and short fiction, the possibilities of what will happen in the future, with some reflections on the past. Editor Manny Frishberg, a well-respected writer in his own right, assembled twenty-eight authors to present visions of our near future. Elizabeth Ann Scarborough wrote the Foreword.
All twenty-eight works are engaging stories. The flavor of the anthology ranges from defiance, to acceptance, to consequence. Here are micro reviews of three randomly chosen stories.
John A. Pitts’ The Last Flight of Captain Kittredge, a defiant story, presents anarchy and civil war in a closely held area near an old, small airport once owned by Boeing. This story of desperation and hope is a classic war story that captures the essence of why people fight in a desperate situation.
Brenda Coopers’ Maybe the Monarchs, story of acceptance, is a tender tale of love and the inevitable loss of those near to us as we age. The story reflects on the personal loss felt by the extinction of Monarch butterflies that is woven into a deeply touching story of a woman on the cusp of another life change.
The Orange Street Parking Garage is FULL/OPEN by J.G. Follansbee, a story of consquences, follows a bum on the street through his rise and fall as a favorite of a president who hired him to destroy the EPA. If you enjoy schadenfreude, this is the story for you.
These are only three out of the twenty-eight stories, and they reflect the high-quality story telling found in each of the works. There isn’t dud among them. After the Orange anthology brings together very different visions of the future of the USA and those affected by the inevitable changes in touching and startling stories filled with love, longing, and a bit of gallows humor.
June 22, 2020
‘After The Orange’ features twenty-four stories by a variety of writers contemplating the future of America and the world after 2032 or further ahead. The basic premise is that the current leader of the free world will make changes that have long-lasting effects. In the foreword, Elizabeth Ann Scarborough quotes an anthropologist discussing places and times where extremists take over: ‘Moderates are always the first to be killed.’
It's a very good collection with many great stories. I really liked ‘Garbage Patch Kids’ by Chris Bullard. It’s done in the style of a leaflet that begins ‘Welcome to Plasticia, the multi-hued gem of the Pacific Ocean.’ Plasticia began as a scientific research station when it was discovered that waste plastic in the ocean could be fused together to make a sort of platform.
In fact, there was a news story about this the other day. The research station expanded when it took in refugees from the desert wastes and the flooded cities. Luckily, there was plenty of plastic to keep building. This is full of interesting details about everyday life in a city built of plastic rubbish floating on a dangerous ocean in a hot world. Plasticia: it’s not a nice place to visit and you definitely wouldn’t want to live there. Your grandchildren might have no choice.
‘SIXTY-EIGHT’ by Frog and Esther Jones has secret agent Dana Lui rescuing a new kind of President-Elect. This starts as an adventure yarn then turns into a political debate as she is lectured by the masterful kidnapper, a man as smooth as a Bond villain in the first reel. This takes a proper science fictional approach to the future with new technologies involved as well as politics.
Tamara is dissatisfied with the New Republic of America in ‘A New Republic’ by Hannah Trusty. Everyone has a similar house, a similar medium-size car and people are appointed careers according to their talents. Her son, Nick, is musically inclined but there are enough musicians and he has an aptitude for mechanical work so that’s his life sorted. The tone makes it clear that the writer disapproves of this society but is it really so bad? Everyone’s fed and housed. In our current system, most people hate their jobs anyway and the majority of would-be artists struggle along at some routine job and fail to make the big time. The story provokes thought about what kind of society we want and how much freedom we will give up for security.
It’s the eve of Trump Memorial Weekend and senior staff member Roy Burton has been called out in the wee small hours for a crisis at Truth Department. Dave is the only junior on duty. In ‘True Values’, Ben Howels supposes a future in which the news is totally under the control of the state. Clearly, this is meant to echo The Ministry of Truth in Orwell’s ‘1984’. The crisis worsens until… This was another one of my favourites but there are plenty to choose from. A timely book that's worth a look.
It's a very good collection with many great stories. I really liked ‘Garbage Patch Kids’ by Chris Bullard. It’s done in the style of a leaflet that begins ‘Welcome to Plasticia, the multi-hued gem of the Pacific Ocean.’ Plasticia began as a scientific research station when it was discovered that waste plastic in the ocean could be fused together to make a sort of platform.
In fact, there was a news story about this the other day. The research station expanded when it took in refugees from the desert wastes and the flooded cities. Luckily, there was plenty of plastic to keep building. This is full of interesting details about everyday life in a city built of plastic rubbish floating on a dangerous ocean in a hot world. Plasticia: it’s not a nice place to visit and you definitely wouldn’t want to live there. Your grandchildren might have no choice.
‘SIXTY-EIGHT’ by Frog and Esther Jones has secret agent Dana Lui rescuing a new kind of President-Elect. This starts as an adventure yarn then turns into a political debate as she is lectured by the masterful kidnapper, a man as smooth as a Bond villain in the first reel. This takes a proper science fictional approach to the future with new technologies involved as well as politics.
Tamara is dissatisfied with the New Republic of America in ‘A New Republic’ by Hannah Trusty. Everyone has a similar house, a similar medium-size car and people are appointed careers according to their talents. Her son, Nick, is musically inclined but there are enough musicians and he has an aptitude for mechanical work so that’s his life sorted. The tone makes it clear that the writer disapproves of this society but is it really so bad? Everyone’s fed and housed. In our current system, most people hate their jobs anyway and the majority of would-be artists struggle along at some routine job and fail to make the big time. The story provokes thought about what kind of society we want and how much freedom we will give up for security.
It’s the eve of Trump Memorial Weekend and senior staff member Roy Burton has been called out in the wee small hours for a crisis at Truth Department. Dave is the only junior on duty. In ‘True Values’, Ben Howels supposes a future in which the news is totally under the control of the state. Clearly, this is meant to echo The Ministry of Truth in Orwell’s ‘1984’. The crisis worsens until… This was another one of my favourites but there are plenty to choose from. A timely book that's worth a look.
September 24, 2021
After the Orange concerns what remains of the United States and/or the world after Trump's stint in the White House. Some of the stories are set in the immediate aftermath and some 20 years and more after the fact. It's a country/world, in many instances that is overrun by climate change as well as political mayhem. No two stories offer the same take, and some are action-packed while others go for your heartstrings. Some ask deceptively simple questions about life lived in exile on top of the Pacific Garbage Patch or in various prisons where you earn your living by serving time in place of the actual criminals. Some amount to magic realism. Many are alarmingly prescient now that more and more facts are surfacing about the course actually struck by the Orange One while in office. Recommended for those with apocalyptic tastes in their science fiction.
Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews