Wastelands: Stories of the Apocalypse

Famine, Death, War, and Pestilence: The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse, the harbingers of Armageddon — these are our guides through the Wastelands... From the Book of Revelation to The Road Warrior; from A Canticle for Leibowitz to The Road, storytellers have long imagined the end of the world, weaving eschatological tales of catastrophe, chaos, and calamity. In doing so, these visionary authors have addressed one of the most challenging and enduring themes of imaginative fiction: the nature of life in the aftermath of total societal collapse. Gathering together the best post-apocalyptic literature of the last two decades from many of today’s most renowned authors of speculative fiction — including George R.R. Martin, Gene Wolfe, Orson Scott Card, Carol Emshwiller, Jonathan Lethem, Octavia E. Butler, and Stephen King — Wastelands explores the scientific, psychological, and philosophical questions of what it means to remain human in the wake of Armageddon. Whether the end of the world comes through nuclear war, ecological disaster, or cosmological cataclysm, these are tales of survivors, in some cases struggling to rebuild the society that was, in others, merely surviving, scrounging for food in depopulated ruins and defending themselves against monsters, mutants, and marauders. Complete with introductions and an indispensable appendix of recommendations for further reading, Wastelands delves into this bleak landscape, uncovering the raw human emotion and heart-pounding thrills at the genre’s core. Contains the following stories: Introduction by John Joseph Adams The End of the Whole Mess by Stephen King Salvage by Orson Scott Card The People of Sand and Slag by Paolo Bacigalupi Bread and Bombs by M. Rickert How We Got In Town and Out Again by Jonathan Lethem Dark, Dark Were the Tunnels by George R. R. Martin Waiting for the Zephyr by Tobias S. Buckell Never Despair by Jack McDevitt When Sysadmins Ruled the Earth by Cory Doctorow The Last of the O-Forms by James Van Pelt Still Life With Apocalypse by Richard Kadrey Artie’s Angels by Catherine Wells Judgment Passed by Jerry Oltion Mute by Gene Wolfe Inertia by Nancy Kress And the Deep Blue Sea by Elizabeth Bear Speech Sounds by Octavia E. Butler Killers by Carol Emshwiller Ginny Sweethips’ Flying Circus by Neal Barrett, Jr. The End of the World as We Know It by Dale Bailey A Song Before Sunset by David Grigg Episode Seven... by John Langan Appendix: For Further Reading