The Ruins of Earth

by Thomas M. Disch (Editor, Contributor), Kurt Vonnegut Jr. (Contributor), Gene Wolfe (Contributor)

Man is at last waking up to the terrible damage he is inflicting on his environment. The various routes to disaster have already been charted.

But the damage still goes on.

This collection of stories by leading science-fiction writers — each committed to a human vision of society — attempts to take the ecological inquiry one stage further. To indicate why we are destroying our world — and what the possible consequences for us all may be.

Contents:
- Introduction (1971) by Thomas M. Disch
Part 1: The Way It Is
- Deer in the Works (1955) by Kurt Vonnegut, Jr.
- Three Million Square Miles (1971) by Gene Wolfe
- Closing with Nature (1970) by Norman Rush
Part 2: Why It Is The Way It Is
- The Plot to Save the World (1970) by Michael Brownstein
- Autofac (1955) by Philip K. Dick
- Roommates (1971) by Harry Harrison
- Groaning Hinges of the World (1971) by R.A. Lafferty
Part 3: How It Could Get Worse
- Gas Mask (1964) by James D. Houston
- Wednesday, November 15, 1967 (1971) by George Alec Effinger
- The Cage of Sand (1962) by J.G. Ballard
- Accident Vertigo (1971) by Kenward Elmslie
- The Birds (1973) by Thomas M. Disch [see below]
Part 4: Unfortunate Solutions
- Do It for Mama! (1971) by Jerrold Mundis
- The Dreadful Has Already Happened (1971) by Norman Kagan
- The Shaker Revival (1970) by Gerald Jonas
- America the Beautiful (1970) by Fritz Leiber

This edition does NOT contain The Birds by Daphne du Maurier, but instead a work of the same title by Disch. This was due to copyright reasons.

Genres: Science Fiction, Short Stories, Anthologies, Post Apocalyptic

349 pages, Mass Market Paperback

First published November 1, 1971

About the author

Thomas Michael Disch was an American science fiction writer and poet. He won the Hugo Award for Best Related Book—previously called "Best Non-Fiction Book"—in 1999. He had two other Hugo nominations and nine Nebula Award nominations to his credit, plus one win of the John W. Campbell Memorial Award, a Rhysling Award, and two Seiun Awards, among others.

His writing includes substantial periodical work, such as regular book and theater reviews for The Nation, The Weekly Standard, Harper's, The Washington Post, Los Angeles Times, The New York Times, The Times Literary Supplement, and Entertainment Weekly.

As a fiction writer and a poet, Disch felt typecast by his science fiction roots. "I have a class theory of literature. I come from the wrong neighborhood to sell to The New Yorker. No matter how good I am as an artist, they always can smell where I come from".

Following an extended period of depression after the death in 2005 of his life-partner, Charles Naylor, Disch stopped writing almost entirely, except for poetry and blog entries, although he did produce two novellas. Disch fatally shot himself on July 4, 2008, in his Manhatten (NYC) apartment.

Naylor and Disch are buried alongside each other at Saint Johns Episcopal Church Columbarium, Dubuque, Iowa. His last book, The Word of God, which was written shortly before Naylor died, was published a few days before Disch's death.

Reviews

[Tim Meechan]

Jim Valvano claimed in his famous speech that there were three things we should do every day - laugh, think, and cry - and I agree. I also believe any decent book or story should create these same experiences. In this collection, aptly titled, The Ruins of Earth, Thomas M. Disch has managed to group (16) unique speculative stories, many that end unresolved, all of them with a distinctive negative outlook and an over-arching feeling of dread, including one titled The Dreadful Has Already Happened. They will definitely require you to think. You may even be moved to cry occasionally. What you will not do ever....LAUGH!

This is by far the darkest anthology of SF I have ever read. That should be no surprise to me. My history reading his novels began with The MD:A Horror Story. It shocked me to the core, having at that time the opinion that SKing was intense. Disch did not garner the attention of the masses like King, but he blew me away thirty years ago and is again impressing me with his choices in this 1971 publication. His foreword is incredibly revealing and each story is presented with its own accompanying introduction, often by an unknown voice, adding intrigue. And, although the included author list is robust - Vonnegut, Wolfe, Ballard & others, there were (8) stories by authors I either didn't recognize or have never read. A couple of them were great.

The big bonus was Daphne du Maurier's The Birds, a movie I've seen many times in full, and so compelling that I'm sure I've watched parts of it another dozen times just while channel surfing. The story is condensed when compared with Hitchcock's version, but is more impactful and the atmosphere matches exactly. A nod to Hitchcock and du Maurier. I loved finally enjoying this original novella/short?

There were two stories that were really trippy, The Dreadful....., I mentioned earlier, seemed to start in the middle, as well as have no ending, and Accident Vertigo read like a chapter out of Burrough's Naked Lunch. Having read Disch's Camp Concentration these choices bolster my vision of Disch as pure insane genius.

In The Shaker Revival; the Believers' Creed states "No hate, No war, No money, No sex." Although I understand the sentiments, it would be the end of us, unless you're proposing 100% test tubing. Sounds bleak. Sounds eerily similar to today's cries. This anthology is very much a warning against our impending eco disasters and more. As I said, DARK.

Possibly the most disturbing is a story titled Do it for Mama. The author, Jerrold J. Mundis, presents us with a dilemma in which society is split. Not politics, not climate change, not vaccines, abortions, gender identity or even whether a good steak should be "sauced" or left to its' own juices.....but that of dog ownership in a major metropolitan city. I remember reading, roughly twenty years ago, that within the Seattle "City" limits, their existed more canines than humans.

This story theorizes the tons of waste, often deposited inconveniently on sidewalks and the like, the millions of gallons of urine, the constant noise pollution, and the significant cost in medical treatments from attacks has finally pushed the authorities to declare a ban on all dogs within the city, few acceptions. The law to take affect thirty days hence. The lead up to the eventual HUMAN bloodshed is exactly as I imagine it would be. Today's pets are more often our "family" members, and most of us would go well beyond sane to keep and protect them. What would you do? Which side would you choose?

I call myself an animal lover, averaging 2.17 cats (plus two dogs) in my house over my entire life, but witnessing an 80lb Rottweiler leave his calling card smack in the middle of the nice, new sidewalk in my well maintained neighborhood, less than fifty yards from the police station....that chapped my you know what. It did NOT make me laugh, but it did make me THINK. A great analogy having little to do with our pets. Who is being "removed?"

This read started out being a three but had some real winners/fives so I give it a strong four.

Enjoy.

[Craig]

A nice but not outstanding anthology of dystopian stories set in the immediate future (the book was published in 1971), broken into four different categories: The Way It Is, Why It Is The Way It Is, How It Could Get Worse, and Unfortunate Solutions. The authors include Kurt Vonnegut, Jr., Harry Harrison, Gene Wolfe, Philip K. Dick, Fritz Leiber, and others. My favorites were by George Alec Effinger and, of course, The Birds by Daphne du Maurier.

[Checkman]

This anthology is set in the "immediate future" and the theme is one of ecological collapse. Assembled in the early 1970's when the enviroment was suddenly on everyone's mind and therefore a hot seller.It was edited by Thomas M. Disch. Disch was an author famous for his intelligent and original fiction as well as his cynical and satirical outlook.He also suffered from depression and would eventually kill himself in 2008.I added that last bit because it can explain much about this anthology that he edited. It's unrelenting in it's pessimism.

If this anthology is anything to go off of most thought we were doomed and more than likely ecological collapse would occur before the dawn of the 21st Century. Well here we are at the start of 2014 and we're still chugging along. As I type this review I am looking out at a very clear blue sky and the air is safe to breath without the assistance of a respirator. I have yet to eat any Soylent steaks, the cities are not radioactive mausoleums and my children are reaching adulthood without any mutations. The years 1984, 1995 and 2000 have come and gone as has 2012. Incidentally I'm still waiting for my flying car as well. Not in sight yet.

This is always a problem for science fiction stories that are set in the future - especially the near future with dates. The stories in this anthology are uniformly dark and offer no hope. Many of them are intelligent and well written, but the unrelenting pessimism can be a bit of a grind after awhile. In addition ,in 2014, they have the effect of making one realize that things are not necessarily destined to always get worse.

The stories were written in the sixties and early seventies and reflect the time. I suppose it could be argued that such stories might have helped to scare and influence people to change some behavior and develop new technologies and sciences. It's a strong possibility actually. There will always be problems and there will always be those who say we aren't doing enough or going about it all wrong and sometimes I'm one of those people, but this anthology will show that the Human race isn't necessarily a myopic/suicidal species.

An interesting anthology, but dated badly.

[Nadienne Williams]

This is an...intriguing...collection of science fiction stories, some of which illustrate the horrifically over-populated, over-polluted, and nearly dead world of the 1990s, where 35 million people inhabit New York and live with stringent food and water rations...

Interestingly, the world is never really destroyed in any of these stories, or really on the brink of destruction, it's just kind of a little sucky. Oh, I take it back...there was one which is written in the format of the last person on Earth writing a journal, where a "disaster" killed everyone, but the disaster remains undescribed, as the journal writer states that whatever new replacement race inhabits the Earth will already know what happened - and often states that he knows they'll be some kind of insect.

I read this whilst on a recent camping/boating vacation, and I feel like this review isn't doing it justice and I have forgotten quite a bit, as I didn't take any notes or update as I read it...I'll have to revisit it later.

[EmBe]

Möglicherweise die erste Anthologie mit "grünen" SF-Geschichten. Das Thema Ökologie drang damals mit Macht in die Gesellschaft vor. Die Öko-Bewegung bekam ein Sprachrohr im Parlament der BRD.
Die Geschichten sind mir nicht mehr so klar in Erinnerung, wiewohl ich an dem Thema damals wie heute stark interessiert bin. Aber keine war schlecht. Und das Cover gefiel mir auch.
Bastei-Lübbe hat damals eine Reihe von sehr interessanten thematischen Anthologien herausgebracht: Schwarze Löcher, Erotik und das Jenseits bekamen so Raum.

[Mark Cheverton (scifipraxis)]

An anthology dedicated to ecological crisis. Disch snares some of the top names of the new wave to write about the consequences of capitalism, urbanisation, pollution, and societal collapse.

The result is mixed. There's a smattering of memorable stories and a whole lot of really really bad ones that drove me to dnf — rare for short stories. This was a slog with the jems too widely spaced, I can't recommend it in spite of the thematic promise.

Do it for Mama! Jerrold J Mundis ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐

Owning dogs in NYC is outlawed. The police prepare to confiscate 750k dogs while pro and anti dog movements are at each other throats. Social collapse ensues. Written as a character-less expositional newspaper article, it's a vivid history of the descent into chaos as the city riots. Whilst at the time, a critique of environmentalism, overreach, and civil liberty, this could today be reinterpreted as an allogory for the dangers of America's ICE raids.

Deer in the Works, Kurt Vonnegut Jr ⭐⭐⭐⭐

A young man's first day in a sprawling company campus makes him rethink his desire for the company lifestyle. Vonnegut's surreal satire nails the otherworldly reality of life on the other side of the corporate fence.

Autofac, Philip K. Dick ⭐⭐⭐⭐

The OG AI paperclip problem. Post WW3, unstoppable automated factories continuously consume resources to produce consumer goods. The world is stripped bare in an orgy of industrialisation. A cautionary tale for our AI mediated future.

Roommates, Harry Harrison ⭐⭐⭐

The story that became the novel Make Room! Make Room! which became the film Soylant Green. An overpopulated US, on the verge of famine and social breakdown. A very grim slice of life tale.

The Cage of Sand, J G Ballard ⭐⭐⭐

Three squatters roam the sands along the cape. A quarantine zone of abandoned hotels buried under transported Martian dust containing an alien virus. Typical Ballard, they exist in a desolate liminal zone while the bodies of dead astronauts circle endlessly overhead. Trapped in this desolate landscape, they each come to terms with their personal trauma rooted in the space industry.

Three Million Square Miles, Gene Wolfe ⭐⭐

One man's obsession with finding unspoilt nature in a world of endless urban sprawl. Short and abrupt.

Gas Mask, James D Houston ⭐⭐

A city becomes totally gridlocked for days.

Wednesday, November 15, 1967, George Alec Effinger ⭐⭐

The diary of the last man on earth as the world dies from its poisoned atmosphere.

The Birds, Thomas M Disch ⭐⭐

Two ducks in a poisoned world have a terrible time. Grim.

America the Beautiful, Fritz Leiber ⭐⭐

Future America where all problems are solved by science and computerisation. A bland tale with little to remember.

The Dreadful Has Already Happened, Norman Kagan ⭐

Rubbish. Dnf

The Shaker Revival, Gerald Jonas ⭐

Epistolary and suffused with hip slang. Documenting a new shaker religion. Dnf.

Closing With Nature, Norman Rush ⭐

A woman attends a retreat and explores the surrounding forest. Absolutely nothing happens, and we're treated to pages of her stream-of-consciousness internal monologue as she free-associates, interspersed with Wes Anderson-esque content-free dialogue. Awful.

The Plot to Save the World, Michael Brownstein ⭐

No idea what this was about.

Groaning Hinges of the World, R A Lafferty ⭐

Fantastical story written in the narrative style of a fable.

Accident Vertigo, Kenward Elmslie ⭐

Doesn't deserve even one star.

[Grond]

OK then. Let's get this out of the way right out of the gate. This anthology did not win any awards. This anthology is pretty weird and very much a product of its time. It's the early seventies. Thomas Disch decides to scrape together some short stories in service of a collection of Sci-Fi concerned with the (assumed) impending destruction of the biosphere, or the anthro-sphere or, you know, the *world*.

Stories from the mid to late 50s through to his present are up on offer for readers to consider. They seem to range from pretty OK to pretty terrible. Interestingly enough how I felt about them and how other readers have felt about them varies wildly.

Observations: More than a few seem to have authors who sense of 'scale' is just terrible. They come across as the imaginings of Urban dwellers who are utterly incapable of concieving the sheer size of the natural landscape and/or simply ignore how preposterous their premises are given a hint of actual, like, perspective. Or they feel super naive as if the authors hadn't really met people who they couldn't pigeonhole into caricatures. The breathless lift quotes that accompany each story also come across as extraordinarily trite each one with it's version of 'It's Doom I tellz yah! Doom!'.

That being said.

J.G. Ballard tells a pretty cool story about a few people trapped in a situation that is presented with great clarity and solid storytelling chops but has to hang on the utterly ridiculous premise that I mentioned. Cool story, laws of physics out the window.

P K D Probably does the best with a story of humankind having to deal with the consequences of their cleverness in automating, well, pretty much everything. Although the people are presented in a way that feels pretty dated the situation they are dealing with hits pretty hard.

Vonnegut presents an amusing snippet that feels like it could have been written by a mid-century Mark Twain.

Other authors come in with parables and whimsy and weirdos and a disturbingly fetishistic retelling of the *dog ownership war* in a future New York.

Like me your results are likely to vary wildly. I kinda dug some stories other reviewers hated and was very unimpressed with one they rated highly.

Maybe 2 and a half stars?

[Reader]

Here’s another review that’s really a warning to future readers. Don’t bother with this trashy collection.

Introduction - pretty good, maybe even gets your hopes up that there will be some important SF in here to illuminate or spark an idea that could lead to the solution of some of society’s problems.

Deer In The Works - already read this in Welcome to the Monkey House. It’s Vonnegut, it’s readable. Not his best though.

Three Million Square Miles - 2

Eww, no. Hopeless and pointless. Boredom warning!

Closing with Nature - DNF

I can see what Dion was talking about with the author of this story using a slur. Unacceptable. The story was already bland, but once that came out so effortlessly I didn’t even want to see where it was going. Wack.

The Plot to save the world - 3.5

Cool idea here that actually feels a little hopeful at first. But there were weird questionable bits like the last story and then it just peters out so quickly at the end it wasn’t even worth it to begin with.

Autofac

It’s PKD so it’s going to be better than most or all of the other stuff here. Better to find a collection of his short stories with this in it than to get this book to read his work.

Room Mates - 2

Yikes! Bleak as hell. There’s just no hope at all in this story as it gets darker and darker as it goes on, but the situation at the end is more annoying than anything.

Groaning Hinges of the World - 4

See my review of the PKD story except replace PKD with Lafferty. It’s gruesome, but amazing and important. There’s a reason he mentions “the Germanies” in here.

Gas Mask - 3

This is the one about the traffic jam (that lasts for days)… The writing is decent but it’s pretty obvious what’s going to happen.

Wednesday, November 15, 1967 - 1

This story is pointless and pretentious! So wack! Stories included in this book were not required to have plots, as this one proves.

The Cage of Sand - 2

Meh. Mars is on earth because of some dumb astronaut ideas and some people want to stay in the quarantined zone. Yawn.

Accident Vertigo - 1, actually 0

This was complete nonsense. Unintelligible. Another “story” that was focused more on experimenting with writing style than actually telling a story. The only problem was the (writing) experiment failed.

The Birds (by Thomas Disch) - 2

Well-written but hastily put together. Bleak for bleakness sake. The story of some sad birds.

Do it for mama! - 2, no 1, maybe less than that…

A lame story about fascism and dog-hating. But sadly it seems to be encouraging those two things.

The Dreadful has blah blah blah - 0

Drugs, drugs, drugs. Hey kid - want some drugs? Here! Take that! Another unintelligible story about a future where everyone seems to be on drugs, written by someone who probably never tried any with no plot or trajectory to follow. Just awful.

The Shaker Revival - 1

Like, whoa man, dig this - in the future everyone is into sex and drugs and being a consumer except for the kids who get into this crazy rock band called the Shakers. Because once they’re into The Shakers they become New Shakers themselves, saying no to hate, war, money and sex! Then they go live on a rock and roll commune where they speak in tongues and fix hot rods. And most New Shakers make this decision to run away from home at 15! No one over 30 allowed.

Yeah, if that isn’t the most dated and unlikely concept of SF to demonstrate a possible “utopia” I don’t know what is. This story was horrendous.

America the Beautiful - 3

Very well-written account of a future United States that has seemingly conquered all its problems, but not quite. I liked the critique of Americans' Puritanical nature. At the same time it didn't really do enough to get me thinking in any new ways. Still, one of the best stories in this collection.

Overall, this book has maybe 3 or 4 stories worth reading if you haven't come across them already in other collections. But the rest of the stuff that fills in the gaps is sheer time-wasting crap. There is nothing to get out of any of it and the same goes for the dated intros to each story. Pass on this.

[Josh]

This book was really good. Although, it bugged me as much as I enjoyed it. From the title alone, it's obvious that it's a dark collection of stories by the name alone. Still, some of these stories hit the nerves a little hard.
My best example of this has to be Jerrold J. Mundis' "Do It For Mama!" Although, I can see something like this happening, it scares me a little to know that this could happen. If you haven't read it, (no spoilers here) it revolves around man's best friend. I love animals, especially dogs & this one grated on my nerves a little. Still, it was a really good story. With authors like Daphne du Maurier, R.A. Lafferty & George Alec Effinger, this book gives you your money's worth. Dark science fiction, which makes you consider horrible scenarios. I love that tinge of horror added to it.
The only reason I liked this book so much, was that it was so dark. "Wednesday, November 15, 1967" for example, made me cringe just a little. I don't remember the last time a horror movie even startled me, but this story was unsettling. It doesn't just show the darkness we're capable of. It shows the darkness already inside us. It tears at your nerves, not so much frightening you, but making you uncomfortable & making you question your own resolve & moral integrity.

[Erik Graff]

A near-future science fiction anthology of established writers edited by Thomas M. Disch.

[Dion]

Absolutely awful. There was only one story in it worth reading - Birds by Daphne Du Maurier whom I think was the only female author in the entire anthology - and the rest were either bland or outright terrible.

One story featured a New York that had outlawed dogs apart from service animals and went into grotesque detail about normal human beings banding together to kill other people's dogs. That was probably the most disgusting one and I was unable to finish reading it.

Another story features a man stuck in a traffic jam, which is at least somewhat interesting, and another talks about a world covered with smog, but those were the only other two stories that were even remotely memorable.

There's very little diversity in the sense that it's mostly white straight protagonists with an instance of homophobia where the POV char - a female - hopes that it's not a gay place she's going to, except she uses a slur instead of gay.

[Royce Ratterman]

Good for back in its day and the related topics covered in this collection of short stories.
Read for personal historical research. I found this work of interest and its contents somewhat inspiring - star rating relates to the book's contribution to my needs.
Overall, this work may be a good resource for the researcher, enthusiast, and those looking into the issues displayed in this work.

[Leo McPherson]

Five stars for 'Autofac', by Philip K. Dick.

Four stars for 'Wednesday, November 15th, 1967', by George Alec Effinger

Four stars for 'Roommates' by Harry Harrison.

One star for all the others.

[Kon]

really expected a lot better from the lineup in this

[Jay Mathias]

Mostly quite enjoyable! Tons of inspiration here for speculative fiction and sci-fi. It’s always interesting to hear the earlier voices heralding climate collapse, especially within the realm of fiction. My favorites were ‘Deer In The Works’ K Vonnegut, ‘Closing With Nature’ N Rush, ‘Autofac’ (my most favorite) P. K Dick, ‘The Cage of Sand’ JG Ballard, ‘The Birds’ D du Maurier , and ‘Do It For Mama!’ JJ Mundis

[Zach S]

Many of the stories are forgettable. However, there are a few gems such as Vonnegut's, Harrison's, and PKD.

[Chris]

Good stories of the end of the world via environmental problems.

[Douglas Barker]

SciFi short stories from the early 60's with some interesting takes on the future and mostly without clean endings. Something to kill time on some work flights.

[Bill]

Short Stories

[Lera]

Some fine authors but I have little recollection of this one, apart from a feeling of general grimness.