After: Nineteen Stories of Apocalypse and Dystopia

As part of her interview in Nightmare Magazine's January 2013 issue, Ellen Datlow discussed her recent YA anthology, After: Nineteen Stories of Apocalypse and Dystopia.  Based on her description, I decided to check it out, and I'm glad I did.

After isn't just an anthology of end-of-the-world stories.  Sure, the world did end in several of them, but in most, it's about what came next.  There are a number of good stories in a variety of styles.

One of my favorite stories (and since it is first in the anthology, it got things started with a bang) is Genevieve Valentine's "The Segment."  In this story, real news is a thing of the past (the network's motto is "Let Those Who Would Be Fooled, Be Fooled"), and one of the sources of employment for the undesirables is city is becoming an actor on the news, performing in news stories designed by the government and businesses to further their goals.  Poppy, the protagonist of the story, gets cast in a news story about a war, but it's her friend Bree who has to teach her everything she needs to know to make it through.

Carrie Ryan has a great zombie story, "After the Cure," that explores what would happened to the former zombies once a cure was found.  A similar idea was explored in 21st Century Dead in Stephanie Crawford and Duane Swierczynski's "Tender as Teeth."

Katherine Langrish creates an eerie post-global warming London, with buildings ravaged by floods and people by drugs and gang warfare, in her "Visiting Nelson."  Richard Bowes draws a similar bead on New York, describing a city destroyed by war and environmental damage, with the ultra-rich and ultra-poor picking over the remains.

The most daring story in the anthology is Matthew Kressel's "The Great Game at the End of the World."  In this story, God decides he's gone about as far with this world as he can, and in the middle of the day destroys it, leaving behind fragments of the world, on one of which, a brother and sister play a final game of baseball against of team monsters, the left over inhabitants of previous worlds God destroyed.

Sci-fi is well represented in the anthology with Beth Revis' "The Other Elder," set in a generation ship that was nearly wiped out by internal rebellion, Richard Bowes' "How Th'irth Wint Rong by Hapless Joey @ Homeskool.guv" about survivors left after an accident at the Hadron Collider, "The Marker" by Cecil Castellucci set in a future where GMO crops became poisonous to humans, Garth Nix's "You Won't Feel a Thing" featuring humans who have been reengineered by aliens to better suit their purposes, Carolyn Dunn's "Before," where a genetically engineered virus has decimated European Americans, leaving the Western hemisphere back in the hands of its indigenous people, and N.K. Jemisin's excellent story about conformity in a world hemmed in by the unknown, "Valedictorian."

There's even a werewolf story; Nalo Hopkinson's "The Easthound" about a violent change that spares children until puberty.

For the more politically inclined, there is "Blood Drive," a look at an American high school after the government gets rid of gun restrictions and child labor laws.

I was a huge fan of dystopian literature when I was a kid (books like The Stand, Alas, Babylon, and Lucifer's Hammer still rank among my favorites and are frequently reread).  I only wish I had had an opportunity to read stories written for young adults and featuring young characters when I was still a teen.

After: Nineteen Stories of Apocalypse and Dystopia is an excellent anthology and has a little something for everyone.



Kindle



Paperback

21st Century Dead: A Zombie Anthology

In the January 2013 issue of Nightmare Magazine, E.C. Myers interviewed award-winning editor Ellen Datlow about horror writing.

The interview is worth a read, not only because Datlow has some really interesting things to say about horror and sci-fi, but because she gives some examples of books and anthologies that she has worked on or that should be read.

At one point, she was discussing horror tropes, and found that despite finding certain tropes worn out, there were always stories that could make them fresh for her again.  She gave the example of zombie stories, and gave Dan Chaon's "How We Escaped Our Certain Fate" in the anthology 21st Century Dead as a prime example, calling it "a fantastic, wonderful zombie story."

Well, that was good enough for me.  I've been on a bit of a zombie kick recently, so I checked out the collection.

Dan Chaon's story was indeed wonderful, a meditation on loss and what happens when someone comes back.  But this was just one of the outstanding stories in this anthology.

S.G. Browne's "Reality Bites," is a humorous look at the ambiguous morality of Hollywood and the reality television craze.  It explores what a TV executive is willing to do when he meets the perfect reality star.

Actress Amber Benson (from "Buffy the Vampire Slayer") has a story, "Antiparallelogram," that touches on zombies, but is really about the lengths an orphan will go to in order to raise his state.

Among the creepier and more traditional zombie stories are John McIlveen's "A Mother's Love," about the lengths a mother will go to save her child, Jonathan Maberry's "Jack and Jill," which along with Ken Bruen's "The Dead of Droore" will probably appeal the best to Romero zombie fans (I recently discovered Maberry's work and have read 4 or 5 of his novels and several anthologies featuring his work), and "All the Comforts of Home," a story about post-zombie apocalypse San Francisco by John Skipp and Cody Goodfellow.

Other favorites of mine in this anthology include the Kurt Sutter's creepy "Tic Boom: A Slice of Life" and the sci-fi zombie story, "Parasite" by Daniel H. Wilson.  There is even a zombie tale about homelessness, Simon R. Green's "Down and Out in Dead Town."

21st Century Dead is a strong, well-crafted anthology (and the introduction by editor Christopher Golden should not be skipped).  If the zombies don't keep you awake at night, the desire to know what the next story holds will.


Nightmare Magazine - January 2013



21st Century Dead - Kindle



21st Century Dead - Paperback