Wastelands Conquers All, Says Omnivoracious

Over at the Amazon blog, Omnivoracious, Jeff VanderMeer has a nice piece about Wastelands, which is, incidentally, awesomely titled "Apocalypse Wow: Wastelands Conquers All." In it, Jeff says: "[Wastelands] has been one of the great success stories of the early part of 2008–selling out its initial print run (and going back to reprint), garnering rave reviews, and just generally conquering all in its path. Given the volatile nature of anthologies, which have a high failure rate, that’s quite an accomplishment. But it’s no surprise, given the careful editing and packaging of Wastelands, which has its own website (including free downloads of some of the fiction) and includes reprinted stories from the likes of Orson Scott Card, Jonathan Lethem, George R.R. Martin, Gene Wolfe, and many other luminaries." Jeff then sprinkles in some commentary by me, along with a selection of first lines from the stories, which he leaves un-identified to entice readers and leaving them to guess which stories and authors they come from.

Jeff says that the full interview he did with me will appear on the book’s Amazon page in the next week or two. Meanwhile, on his own blog, Ecstatic Days, Jeff leaked a bit of the interview, displaying my answer to his question: "Any funny stories in the anthology, and how did you deal with the possible problem of similarity of tone throughout the book?" Click through to find out!