Anthologies

We burn them to ashes and then burn the ashes. In Ray Bradbury’s Fahrenheit 451, that’s the motto of the Firemen who hunted down and burned books wherever they found them. Bradbury warned of a world where our literary history is taken from us. In Burn the Ashes, some of the best science fiction authors working today continue to explore the dystopic worlds they introduced in volume one.

Edited by bestselling author Hugh Howey and award-winning editors John Joseph Adams and Christie Yant, The Dystopia Triptych is a series of three anthologies of dystopian fiction. Ignorance is Strength—before the dystopia—focuses on society during its descent into absurdity and madness. Burn the Ashes—during the dystopia—turns its attention to life during the strangest, most dire times. Or Else the Light—after the dystopia—concludes the saga with each author sharing their own vision of how we as a society might crawl back from the precipice of despair.

Or Else the Light

edited by John Joseph Adams, Christie Yant, and Hugh Howey

The Dystopia Triptych #3

Into the darkness within; or else the light… When Margaret Atwood wrote these words, she left open the possibility that even our darkest tales may harbor a glimmer of hope. In Or Else the Light, the third and final entry of The Dystopia Triptych, over a dozen of the best minds in science fiction conclude their stories with a descent into darkness, or perhaps a ray of light.

Edited by bestselling author Hugh Howey and award-winning editors John Joseph Adams and Christie Yant, The Dystopia Triptych is a series of three anthologies of dystopian fiction. Ignorance is Strength—before the dystopia—focuses on society during its descent into absurdity and madness. Burn the Ashes—during the dystopia—turns its attention to life during the strangest, most dire times. Or Else the Light—after the dystopia—concludes the saga with each author sharing their own vision of how we as a society might crawl back from the precipice of despair.

Best American Science Fiction and Fantasy 2019

edited by Carmen Maria Machado & John Joseph Adams

BASFF #5

Today’s readers of science fiction and fantasy have an appetite for stories that address a wide variety of voices, perspectives, and styles. There is an openness to experiment and pushing boundaries, combined with the classic desire to read about spaceships and dragons, future technology and ancient magic, and the places where they intersect. Contemporary science fiction and fantasy looks to accomplish the same goal as ever—to illuminate what it means to be human. With a diverse selection of stories chosen by series editor John Joseph Adams and World Fantasy Award finalist Carmen Maria Machado, The Best American Science Fiction and Fantasy 2019 explores the ever-expanding and changing world of SFF today.

Wastelands: The New Apocalypse

edited by John Joseph Adams

The new post-apocalyptic collection by master anthologist John Joseph Adams, featuring never-before-published stories and curated reprints by some of the genre’s most popular and critically-acclaimed authors.

In WASTELANDS: THE NEW APOCALYPSE, veteran anthology editor John Joseph Adams is once again our guide through the wastelands using his genre and editorial expertise to curate his finest collection of post-apocalyptic short fiction yet. Whether the end comes via nuclear war, pandemic, climate change, or cosmological disaster, these stories explore the extraordinary trials and tribulations of those who survive. Continuing in the tradition of WASTELANDS: STORIES OF THE APOCALYPSE, these 34 stories ask: What would life be like after the end of the world as we know it?

A People’s Future of the United States

edited by Victor LaValle and John Joseph Adams

In these tumultuous times, in our deeply divided country, many people are angry, frightened, and hurting. Knowing that imagining a brighter tomorrow has always been an act of resistance, editors Victor LaValle and John Joseph Adams invited an extraordinarily talented group of writers to share stories that explore new forms of freedom, love, and justice. They asked for narratives that would challenge oppressive American myths, release us from the chokehold of our history, and give us new futures to believe in. They also asked that the stories be badass. The result is this extraordinary collection of twenty-five stories that blend the dark and the light, the dystopian and the utopian. These tales are vivid with struggle and hardship—whether it’s the othered and the oppressed, or dragonriders and covert commandos—but these characters don’t flee, they fight. A People’s Future of the United States is a call to arms for anyone who believes in our power to dream a just world. Thrilling, inspiring, and a sheer joy to read, this anthology reminds us of the life-giving power of storytelling.

Futures & Fantasies [Free eBook]

edited by John Joseph Adams

Futures & Fantasies is an anthology of science fiction and fantasy culled from the pages of the digital short fiction magazine, Lightspeed. In its pages, you will find science fiction: from near-future, sociological soft SF, to far-future, star-spanning hard SF—and fantasy: from epic fantasy, sword-and-sorcery, and contemporary urban tales, to magical realism, science-fantasy, and folktales. The stories in Futures & Fantasies run the gamut from mythic, lyrical epic fantasy (“A Love Story Written on Water” by Ashok K. Banker) to far-future space opera (“A Bond as Deep as Starlit Seas” by Sarah Grey)… from rough-and-tumble cyberpunk dystopia (“And You Shall Know Her by the Trail of Dead” by Brooke Bolander) to historical, tragic fantasy (“The Litigation Master and the Monkey King” by Ken Liu)… from post-modern portal fantasy (“Not by Wardrobe, Tornado, or Looking Glass by Jeremiah Tolbert) to counterfactual hard science fiction (“The Old Equations” by Jake Kerr). Download the ebook for free and discover the wonders within!

Best American Science Fiction and Fantasy 2018

edited by N.K. Jemisin & John Joseph Adams

BASFF #4

The Best American series is the premier annual showcase for the country’s finest short fiction and nonfiction. Each volume’s series editor selects notable works from hundreds of magazines, journals, and websites. A special guest editor—a leading writer in the field—then chooses the best twenty or so pieces to publish. This unique system has made the Best American series the most respected—and most popular—of its kind. Science fiction and fantasy can encompass so much, from far-future deep-space sagas to quiet contemporary tales to unreal kingdoms and beasts. But what the best of these stories do is the same across the genres—they illuminate the whole gamut of the human experience, interrogating our hopes and our fears.

Best American Science Fiction and Fantasy 2017

edited by Charles Yu & John Joseph Adams

BASFF #3

The Best American series is the premier annual showcase for the country’s finest short fiction and nonfiction. Each volume’s series editor selects notable works from hundreds of magazines, journals, and websites. A special guest editor—a leading writer in the field—then chooses the best twenty or so pieces to publish. This unique system has made the Best American series the most respected—and most popular—of its kind. Science fiction and fantasy can encompass so much, from far-future deep-space sagas to quiet contemporary tales to unreal kingdoms and beasts. But what the best of these stories do is the same across the genres—they illuminate the whole gamut of the human experience, interrogating our hopes and our fears. With a diverse selection of stories chosen by series editor John Joseph Adams and guest editor Charles Yu, The Best American Science Fiction and Fantasy 2017 continues to explore the ever-expanding and changing world of SFF today, with Yu bringing his unique view—literary, meta, and adventurous—to the series’ third edition.

Cosmic Powers

edited by John Joseph Adams

The foundation of science fiction and fantasy is sense of wonder. And nowhere is sense of wonder more prevalent than in stories of larger-than-life heroes battling menacing forces, in far-flung galaxies, with the fate of the universe at stake. The stories in Cosmic Powers all exemplify this, and the result is an anthology of gonzo science fiction adventure stories by some of today’s most exciting writers, including Dan Abnett, Jack Campbell, Linda Nagata, Seanan McGuire, Alan Dean Foster, Charlie Jane Anders, Kameron Hurley, and many others.

What the #@&% Is That?

edited by John Joseph Adams & Douglas Cohen

Fear of the unknown—it is the essence of the best horror stories, the need to know what monstrous vision you’re beholding and the underlying terror that you just might find out. Now, twenty authors have gathered to ask—and maybe answer—a question worthy of almost any horror tale: “What the #@&% is that?” Join these masters of suspense as they take you to where the shadows grow long, and that which lurks at the corner of your vision is all too real. Includes stories by Laird Barron, Amanda Downum, Scott Sigler, Simon R. Green, Desirina Boskovich, Isabel Yap, Maria Dahvana Headley, Christopher Golden, John Langan, D. Thomas Minton, Seanan McGuire, Grady Hendrix, Jonathan Maberry, Gemma Files, Nancy Holder, Adam-Troy Castro, Terence Taylor, Tim Pratt, An Owomoyela & Rachel Swirsky, and Alan Dean Foster.

edited by John Joseph Adams, Christie Yant, and Hugh Howey

The Dystopia Triptych #2

edited by John Joseph Adams, Christie Yant, and Hugh Howey

The Dystopia Triptych #3

edited by Carmen Maria Machado & John Joseph Adams

BASFF #5

edited by John Joseph Adams

edited by Victor LaValle and John Joseph Adams

edited by John Joseph Adams

edited by N.K. Jemisin & John Joseph Adams

BASFF #4

edited by Charles Yu & John Joseph Adams

BASFF #3

edited by John Joseph Adams

edited by John Joseph Adams & Douglas Cohen