Tag: Anthologies

THE LIVING DEAD 2

The Living Dead 2I just turned in the manuscript for The Living Dead 2, the follow-up to my World Fantasy Award-nominated anthology The Living Dead. Here’s the cover copy:

Two years ago, readers eagerly devoured The Living Dead. Publishers Weekly named it one of the Best Books of the Year, and Barnes & Noble.com called it “The best collection of zombie fiction ever.” Now acclaimed editor John Joseph Adams is back for another bite at the apple — the Adam’s apple, that is — with 44 more of the best, most chilling, most thrilling zombie stories anywhere, including virtuoso performances by zombie fiction legends Max Brooks (World War Z, The Zombie Survival Guide), Robert Kirkman (The Walking Dead), and David Wellington (Monster Island).

From Left 4 Dead to Zombieland to Pride and Prejudice and Zombies, ghoulishness has never been more exciting and relevant. Within these pages samurai warriors face off against the legions of hell, necrotic dinosaurs haunt a mysterious lost world, and eerily clever zombies organize their mindless brethren into a terrifying army. You’ll even witness nightmare scenarios in which humanity is utterly wiped away beneath a relentless tide of fetid flesh.

The Living Dead 2 has more of what zombie fans hunger for — more scares, more action, more… brains. Experience the indispensable series that defines the very best in zombie literature.

The Living Dead 2 comes out in September is now available!. Meanwhile, here’s the table of contents (original stories are in bold text, reprints are in regular text):

  • Introduction — John Joseph Adams
  • Alone, Together — Robert Kirkman
  • Danger Word — Steven Barnes & Tananarive Due
  • Zombieville — Paula Stiles
  • The Anteroom — Adam-Troy Castro
  • When the Zombies Win — Karina Sumner-Smith
  • Mouja — Matt London
  • Category Five — Marc Paoletti
  • Living with the Dead — Molly Brown
  • Twenty-Three Snapshots of San Francisco — Seth Lindberg
  • The Mexican Bus — Walter Greatshell
  • The Other Side — Jamie Lackey
  • Where the Heart Was — David J. Schow
  • Good People — David Wellington
  • Lost Canyon of the Dead — Brian Keene
  • Pirates vs. Zombies — Amelia Beamer
  • The Crocodiles — Steven Popkes
  • The Skull-Faced City — David Barr Kirtley
  • Obedience — Brenna Yovanoff
  • Steve and Fred — Max Brooks
  • The Rapeworm — Charlie Finlay
  • Everglades — Mira Grant
  • We Now Pause For Station Identification — Gary Braunbeck
  • Reluctance — Cherie Priest
  • Arlene Schabowski Of The Undead — Mark McLaughlin & Kyra M. Schon
  • Zombie Gigolo — S. G. Browne
  • Rural Dead — Bret Hammond
  • The Summer Place — Bob Fingerman
  • The Wrong Grave — Kelly Link
  • The Human Race — Scott Edelman
  • Who We Used to Be — David Moody
  • Therapeutic Intervention — Rory Harper
  • He Said, Laughing — Simon R. Green
  • Last Stand — Kelley Armstrong
  • The Thought War — Paul McAuley
  • Dating in Dead World — Joe McKinney
  • Flotsam & Jetsam — Carrie Ryan
  • Thin Them Out — Kim Paffenroth, Julia Sevin & RJ Sevin
  • Zombie Season — Catherine MacLeod
  • Tameshigiri — Steven Gould
  • The Days of Flaming Motorcycles — Catherynne M. Valente
  • Zero Tolerance — Jonathan Maberry
  • And the Next, and the Next — Genevieve Valentine
  • The Price of a Slice — John Skipp & Cody Goodfellow
  • Are You Trying to Tell Me This is Heaven? — Sarah Langan

UPDATE: The website for the anthology is now live! It features the introduction, header notes to the stories, and interviews with most of the authors, PLUS 8 FREE STORIES!

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Stories Eligible for the Nebula Award

Nebula Awards season is upon us. Current Nebula rules dictate that during the annual nomination period (November 15th thru February 15th), eligible members of SFWA can nominate works for the Nebula. The six works that receive the highest number of nominations during the nomination period in each category will be placed on the final ballot. Due to changes in Nebula rules, for this year’s Nebula Awards, works published from July 1, 2008 thru December 31, 2009 are eligible during the current nomination period.

My anthologies include several works that are currently eligible. All stories belong in the short story category unless otherwise noted. Linked stories are available online in their entirety. SFWA members can download the stories via the links provided (email me at johnjosephadams@gmail.com if you’re a SFWA member and have issues downloading the files).

Seeds of Change [SFWA members download]
Prime Books, August 2008

The Living Dead
Night Shade Books, September 2008

Federations [SFWA member download]
Prime Books, May 2009

  • Carthago Delenda Est by Genevieve Valentine
  • Life-Suspension by L. E. Modesitt, Jr.
  • Terra-Exulta by S. L. Gilbow
  • Different Day by K. Tempest Bradford
  • Twilight of the Gods by John C. Wright (novelette)
  • Swanwatch by Yoon Ha Lee
  • Pardon Our Conquest by Alan Dean Foster
  • My She by Mary Rosenblum
  • The Culture Archivist by Jeremiah Tolbert
  • The Other Side of Jordan by Allen Steele
  • Like They Always Been Free by Georgina Li
  • Eskhara by Trent Hergenrader
  • The One with the Interstellar Group Consciousnesses by James Alan Gardner
  • Golubash, or Wine-Blood-War-Elegy by Catherynne M. Valente

By Blood We Live

The Improbable Adventures of Sherlock Holmes

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Anthologies are Like a Box of Chocolates, and Apparently, I’m Willy Wonka

Reviewer Paul Goat Allen seems to be my biggest fan. In his recent blog post for Barnes & Noble’s BN.com, “The Candy Man Can: Or Why John Joseph Adams is Genre Fiction’s Willy Wonka,” he said so many kind things about me and my anthologies you’d think he was on the Night Shade payroll.

Here’s a taste:

  • “The reigning king of the anthology world is John Joseph Adams.”
  • Every anthology this guy is associated with seems to turn to gold: and by gold I mean jaw-droppingly brilliant anthologies with no weak links that I’ll not only read again and again but treasure until the day I die.”
  • “[Wastelands] is arguably my favorite anthology of all time – just packed with speculative masterworks.”
  • The Living Dead was, simply put, the best collection of zombie fiction stories ever collected. … This anthology is, like Wastelands, one of my all-time favorite short story collections. Fans of zombie fiction shouldn’t just read this anthology – they should own it.”
  • By Blood We Live [is] a killer collection of simply stellar vampire stories that just floored me from beginning to end. … Yet another masterful – dare I say perfect – anthology.”
     

And as if that wasn’t cool enough for one day, Allen’s article also inspired some…fan art?

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Way of the Wizard update

This is just a note to say that I’ve read everything submitted to The Way of the Wizard that was submitted on 9/10/09 or earlier. Submissions made during that period should have either received a rejection, or a note from me indicating that I’d like to hold onto your submission for further consideration.

I also just wanted to point out that there is no need to query me to see if your wizard story is wizardly enough for my purposes. Please just submit the story and I’ll make a judgment call when I read it. I’ve been getting a lot of queries posted to the guidelines thread, so I just wanted to clarify that there is no need to query. If you have a story that you think might qualify as a wizard story, and you’d like to submit it to the anthology, please do so.

(Don’t feel bad if you’re one of the folks who *did* query and please don’t post another comment or email me to apologize–it’s not necessary.) 

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The Game is Afoot!

Amazon.com is now showing stock of my new anthology The Improbable Adventures of Sherlock Holmes, which means the game is officially afoot!

Please note that if you’re going to go look for it in a brick & mortar store, there’s a good chance the book will be located in the mystery section, so if you don’t see it in SF/fantasy, be sure to look for it there.

If you’re on the fence about it, take a look at the anthology’s website, which features some interviews with the authors and several pieces of free fiction.

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Before the Apocalypse, There was Reggaetón

People sometimes ask me about the cover of Wastelands, wondering where they might have seen it before. Some of you may remember that when the cover (by Daniel Kvasznicza) was first revealed, I mentioned how the cover art had been previously used as a backdrop on a rap album or something. It took me a while, but I finally got more of a complete picture (so to speak) as to the history of the image.

First, it was actually first used as the backdrop for an animated film that screened in Austria in 2004. Then Sony licensed the image for use on the album King of Kings by Don Omar (actually Reggaetón, not rap). Here it is:

On the cover, it’s hardly visible at all, though on the second image, which looks to be the back of the CD case, it’s obviously much more visible.

The image has also been posted online in various venues to illustrate posts about post-apocalyptic scenarios, such as at io9.com and elsewhere.

So there you have it. The brief, sordid history behind the Wastelands cover.

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io9 Loves Federations

io9 has a rave review of Federations:

“Federations aims to be an anthology of short stories about interstellar civilizations — think Star Trek, Star Wars, or Isaac Asimov‘s Foundation series. But really, most of the stories in this collection are just classic space opera, with only a little discussion of the challenges and joys of multi-planetary collaboration. There’s quite a lot of space war, a fair bit of first contact, and a dash of deep-space exploration. And that turns out to be a more thrilling experience, in many ways, than a more tightly thematic collection of stories about deep-space alliances might have been. … Federations is definitely one of those anthologies that offers something for everyone. … Whether they’re taking us to deep-space battles, showing us uneasy collaboration between vastly different races, or satirizing the very idea of a benign interplanetary alliance, the stories in Federations mostly keep a very human perspective on the hugeness and strangeness of a galaxy teeming with life. And that’s reason enough to sign on to its galactic charter.”

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