Wastelands Edited by John Joseph Adams

The title of this short story collection, featuring mostly reprints and a few original pieces, is perfect.  The subtitle 'Stories of the Apocalypse' and in particular all the crap on the back of the book are as misleading as can be.  Luckily for me, the bad stuff on the back and subtitle were irrelevant to the stories within.  All of which makes me wonder how I came across this collection.  That said, don't let the publishers promotion deter you from checking this collection out.

This science fiction collection deals with "the nature of life in the aftermath of total societal collapse."  (That is the only salvageable blurb from the back of the book.)  Most all the stories deal with story, and character more so than science and that is exactly how I liked my science fiction; so if you're in it for the super hardcore stuff you may want to look elsewhere.

There were very few inclusions that actually dealt with bringing about the end of the world.  The first in the collection: The End of the Whole Mess by Stephen King was one of them and one of the collection's finest.  The narrator's super-genius brother is fed up with mankind's pettiness and negativity.  Thinking he has found a way correct man's aggression and general bad attitude he enacts a briliant plan with the best of intentions and the worst of results.

Judgement Passed by Jerry Oltion was perhaps my favorite in terms of concept.  A group a colonist preparing another planet for colonization returns home to Earth to find the planet utterly deserted of life.  Their only clues as to what happened are newspapers and magazines saying Jesus came back, and took everybody with them.  The execution was strong, but not as fulfilling as I would have liked.

Mary Riket's story Bread and Bombs was a profound look at what happens to those who escape the end of a particular place in the world and how they incorporate themselves into life elsewhere.  I'm not sure it's fair to call this one science fiction: it's just a damn good story that the collection could hang it's hat on.

Nancy Kress can tell a helluva story.  Inertia is about a colony of people who have survived a global epidemic that horribly disfigures them.  It's intimate and personal with a contrast of youth and old age; naivety and innocence against pessimism and experience; and what it means to being alive while living outside of the world's notice, and what one can do with their life even under the heaviest of restrictions.

The End of the World as We Know It by Dale Baily was--against all odds--the strongest in the collection.  Take every cliche about the last man alive, the fall of mankind and how a person could carry on in such a circumstance and you'll end up with these thirteen pages.  Except the story is phenomenal and anything but cliched.  This is the story you can't put down and upon finishing makes you say "Wow" out loud.

There were other strong inclusions by Elizabeth Bear, David Grigg, George RR Martin, Gene Wolfe, and Jonathan Lethem's 'hunger games-ish' farce.  There were also a handful of story that didn't do it for me.  Those stories reflect more upon than author's style not really meshing with my preferences than the quality of what they wrote.

If nothing else, reading Wastelands reinforced the longstanding hunch that I need to check out Nancy Kress and Stephen King; that alone made the book worth it to me.  I don't really like science fiction and a story about the apocalypse will probably make me roll my eyes upon first mention.  This collection is light on both: check it out.  

Flights: Extreme Visions of Fantasy edited by Al Sarrantonio

I should start off by saying 'I've no idea what 'Flights' is supposed to mean and only a vague idea of what the secondary title is supposed to infer.'  While this bothered me, it didn't affect my enjoyment in reading this mammoth collection.  The unifying element is fantasy of all kinds.  There are some great stories, some great writing and on a few occasions, both at the same time.  

Riding Shotgun by Charles de Lint is the connoisseurs gem in this collection.  A man lives his life in shame as he was the drunk driver in an accident that killed his brother only to be given a second chance and see what would have happen had their places been switched.  What we see in the alternate life is anything but what the narrator expects and he quickly tries to find a way to make sure his brother stays dead.  This was an interesting look at the 'one more chance at life' ghost story and it's de Lint's voice and story twist that make it so special.  

Robert Silverberg in The Sorcerer's Apprentice (that has to be the title of hundreds of short stories and novels) also subverts common troupes as the down on his luck, broke, middle-aged man decides on a career change and puts himself in the tutelage of a younger, beautiful sorcerer and the ensuing relationship is anything but cliched.  

Nina Kiriki Hoffman was not content in giving readers the expected story in Relations where a capricious spirit seeks to enthrall a young man with her spells only to find out that she has been subtlety beaten to the punch and that perhaps, despite her anger at being out witted, she doesn't want to fight against him.  

Aside from the unexpected twist in the familiar settings by short story masters Flights was also filled with a lot of humor.  Tots by Peter Schneider detailed an illegal child fighting ring similar to MMA and while I'll understand if you're skeptical, trust me: it was hilarious.  Tourist by Neal Barrett, Jr. is a realistic bus tour through hell with a particular group of 'little old ladies' who have the most bizarre questions and thoughts on the sights they see.  Fallen Angel by L. E. Modessitt, Jr while not exactly written as comedy has more than enough implied jokes and social thought for those who aren't afraid to laugh at the serious nature of church dogma.  Bill, the Little Steam Shovel was easily the most surprising in the collection.  After all, children's stories and Joe R Lansdale should never be put together.  Happily he started swearing in the third paragraph destroying all pretense and farce.  This story felt like a "Thomas the Train" episode gone horribly wrong, with death, sex, swearing and even morals.  While the story was great--and extremely funny in places--parts felt forced and Lansdale was pigeon holing himself into a character's voice that never really felt his own.    

There was also a handful of very well done 'standard fantasy' tales which are always welcome in an anthology of this size and variety.  The Silver Dragon by Elizabeth A Lynn has everything any fan of traditional secondary world fantasy could want.  A Tower with No Doors by Dennis L. McKiernan reads like a fairy tale in the most comforting sense of the phrase as we see a young prince get himself into trouble with a beautiful, damned, young woman who is more than she seems.  Patricia Mckillip delivers with Out of the Woods as she continues to prove genius in terms of short fiction and not so much in her novels, or at least for this reader.  

It's no stretch to say that there is a fair bit of horror in Flights.  What was easily the best inclusion in the entire, near 600 page collection was Six Hypotheses by Joyce Carol Oates.  It attempts to chronicle an entire family's fall into madness and the 'illness' that claimed them.  It's not scary, nor would I call it uncomfortable.  It is without doubt horror.  It's also brilliant.  Perchance to Dream by David Morrell dealt with a man's unique sleep disorder and how it was affecting his life.  Unfortunately while the story was great and the writing more than held up the psychological revelations at the end underminded the power of my imagination and the resulting conclusion left me a bit angry.  Neil Gaiman's--yes, I'm talking about horror in a fantasy anthology and mentioned Neil Gaiman--The Problem of Susan is a profound look at the sole Pevensie survivor from C.S. Lewis' The Chronicles of Narnia.  Ever wonder how Susan's life went post-Narnia?  Gaiman, through a contemporary lens that is sure to be at-odds with Lewis, gives us his take.  It's brutal and terse and very unapologetic and probably far more realistic in direction than Lewis would ever have thought to go.  That last one might have been my favorite even if I never did want to think about Edmund being decapitated.  

If Riding Shotgun is only for the hardcore, and Six Hypotheses for the willing adventurous few, then Golden City Far by Gene Wolfe has to be the mass market appeal system seller.  If ever there were a short story I wanted to be expanded into a full blown novel of it's own, this would be it.  (Which is part of the reason Golden City Far works so well as a long short story.)    A schoolboy dreams and treats his dreams as real.  People tell him he's crazy and his psychologist has a hard time pinning down his ailment.  Other people start affecting his dreams and the dream people interact with folks from his school and readers have a very difficult time understanding what is the real reality: school and football or what we thought to be his 'dreams.'  Wolfe has a way of writing that makes me feel that every now and then I skipped a page, but he also empowers me enough to make sense of things on my own.  All is explained at the end and this story is so good that I feel it would justify the purchase of Flights to the reader who didn't like anything else in the collection.    

There were a few that aren't worth mention and a few others that had no appeal to me (the attraction to Tim Powers and Elizabeth Hand still elude me) but as big and varied as Flights is I should think there is more than a little for everyone to like.  Easily the best short story collection I've come across this year and while I haven't read many, the quality of the collections I have read make that last comment hit hard if only to me.   

Adding to the list

I'm currently reading an anthology called Warriors edited by Gardner Dozios and George Martin.  There are some rather liberal takes on the theme but thus far the writing has been fairly consist in this mammoth collection with only one story leaving me questioning it's inclusion.  I've got five-hundred more pages of fiction left before I have any final thoughts on this collection, but in reading last night I reminded myself of a boring task that I always say I'm going to do every time I read a multi-author collection: I need to flag the authors whose works I really like so I can track down more of their stuff.

I kinda do this mentally, and while my current wish list for books is comically large I need to sit down and add to it further by going through the collections and I have and putting some authors names down for further investigation.

For instance, in reading Warriors I came across the name Joe Haldeman.  I've never heard of him but he has apparently been being awesome without my knowledge for a very long time, hence the need for me to chronicle my favorite writers from the collections I've read in the past.  When a collection such as Warriors crest the seven-hundred page mark even the stand-out stories and writers get a bit lost by the time the end is reached.  This is particularly true for me as I rarely read anthologies straight through to the end.  

It sounds like a boring exercise and in my case a bit of an unneeded one considering how much I have to read and how long my wish list already is but I'm gonna go through with doing it in hopes of remembering to check out some of those 'new to me authors' and not just relying on the old familiars.   

The Month in review and of Things to Come

I'm posting a few days earlier as I'm anticipating taking a temporary leave of absence from my senses this long holiday weekend.

Not the most productive month, I'll admit; nor am I happy about it. I've already complained enough about The Count of Monte Cristo cramping my style, and now that I've learned how to handle it, I'm hoping for a better June: a return to regularity with reviews, and a new monthly feature (which will be awesome and perhaps unprecedented) in place of the rum reviews.

I wrote the first draft of my statement of purpose in hopes for Ph.D admissions. The deadlines aren't even in sight but I like to be ahead. It's way too long but I find it easier to edit when you have something on the page.

My near insolvency is yet again hindering my new book acquisitions. I used credit card rewards points to pick up Daniel Abraham's Leviathan Wept, because he is awesome. (Should you be unaware of his awesomeness read this.) I quite literary can't hardly wait for that to get here. Also I picked up The Dragon Book as edited by Jack Dann and Gardner Dozois. I read Wizards by the same editors last year and greatly enjoyed it and have similar high hopes for this original collection. Both of these books can be had for great prices right now. Wizards for five bucks at the Barnes and Noble bargain bin and The Dragon Book for the same price at Books-a-Million. If you like to read--even if you don't--I highly recommend both, one on the strength of the other. Speaking of dragons…

The homogenous landscape of speculative fiction book blogging seems to have collectively overlooked Wings of Fire from Nightshade Books in March. (Or perhaps I'm being premature? Due to that homogenous landscape I don't read many fantasy book blogs. Or perhaps the collection is completely unremarkable, which I doubt.) Rest assured, I'll be picking that up shortly. Briefly scrolling through Nightshade's catalogue is mind-blowing in how much awesome stuff the publish. (I must have those Kage Baker short story collections.) I could easily read exclusively from Nightshade and Taychon for a three to five years and be happy.

What's in store for June? Other than the previously mentioned new monthly feature, which I hope to kick off with Subterranean Press (Who needs the Six Sisters!?!) June doesn't hold anything new that I can foresee. I'll choke down three hundred more pages of The Count because I'm too stubborn to put it down, The Dispossessed by Ursalua le Guin, and the previously mentioned Abraham collection are up for reading. Also I hope to do one of my, "Not a commentaries" for Greg Keyes The Kingdom of Thorn and Bone.

As boring and inactive as May has been, I'm planning on creating work for myself in June.

The Best Short Story Anthologies

They can’t all be the best

The Best Science Fiction of the Year, edited by Gardner Dozois; The Best Science Fiction and Fantasy of the Year, edited by Jonathan Strahan; The Best American Fantasy, edited by Jeff and Ann VanderMeer, and a host of other anthologies of science fiction and fantasy all have superlative titles to try to entice readers into purchasing their product. But how many compilations--covering the same time frame--can truly contain the best material?

If they all had 'the best' literature then surely then would have near identical table of contents… but they don't. I'm aware that, "The Best…" is a much stronger title, "What I think was the Best whatever publishing in 2009" but as a consumer, what makes a person choose on collection over another?

I’ve had a few subscriptions to literary magazines in the past and for me it took a year long subscription to learn which editors at which journals published stories that coincided with my interest. In the case of the anthologies, there is--as the titles implies--one published a year per editor. So using the same logic as magazines, I would have to purchase an editors' anthology every year for six years (the magazines I’m refereeing are bi-annual productions) before learning whether or not I truly like the stories that the editor touts as the years ‘best.’

Do you purchase 'years best' anthologies of short stories? While I'm always hard pressed not to buy something with Michael Swanwicks's name on the cover it does take more than a potentially awesome table of contents to get me to open my wallet when it comes to anthologies. (Okay, maybe if the cover had Swanwick's and Daniel Abraham's name on it…) Perhaps the 'best' thing about about this quandary is the fact that the sf/f short story market is alive and kicking.

How do you decide which anthology to purchase and why?