Tag: Wastelands

Appearance at Freebird Books

Tonight, I’m going to be appearing at Freebird Books in Brooklyn to talk with the store’s post-apocalyptic book club. We’ll be focusing the discussion on Wastelands, and these three stories in particular:

The People of Sand and Slag by Paolo Bacigalupi
Speech Sounds by Octavia E. Butler
The End of the World as We Know It by Dale Bailey

The event starts at 7:30 pm.  The film 28 Days Later will be shown afterwards at nearby Sugar Lounge bar and restaurant.

Freebird Books
123 Columbia Street (between Kane and Degraw streets)
Brooklyn, NY 11231
718-643-8484

If you’re in the area, I hope you’ll drop by!

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New Reviews of Wastelands & The Living Dead

The Short Review on Wastelands: “This could have been dreary. … [But] there’s nothing dreary in this book. The stories here are real, juicy, solid stories instead of morality lessons in disguise, and not two of them are alike.”

SF Scope covers the Oct. 7 “Readings of The Living Dead” event presented by the New York Review of Science Fiction reading series: “At a time when the scariest stories are found on the front page of the Wall Street Journal, and on the very evening of a Presidential debate (on top of which, I’d just been to the dentist and told that I need a root canal), zombies have a lot of fierce (dare I say stiff—get it? "Stiff", dead body?) competition to terrify us, but Kirtley and Langan successfully managed to affect us, haunt us, creep us out, disgust us, and even raise the odd hollow chuckle.”

Mania.com also reviews The Living Dead, giving it an “A” grade and calling it “One of the best zombie anthologies published in recent years.”

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LibraryThing users love Wastelands

Over on LibraryThing, a user gave Wastelands a really great review: “Without question this was one the best books of the last 5 years. … [Adams] has put together one of the best anthologies in the genre that I have seen. Although I was initially a bit cautious, once I began reading I found it nearly impossible to put down.”

Someone else started his review "When reading the back cover of this book, it looks terrible, like classic bad sci-fi" but gave the book 5/5 stars and said some very nice things about it. Kind of surprising that someone would thing the back cover makes it sound terrible and would then go on to not only read it but love it. (He seems to have read it because of the contributor list.)

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Wastelands review in Some Fantastic

Another new review of Wastelands just appeared in Some Fantastic. The reviewer, Matthew Appleton says all kinds of nice things about the stories in a very long and detailed review, and sums up: “Wastelands is an excellent anthology that belongs on the shelf of any SF fan, and not just fans of post-apocalyptic fiction. It’s hard to imagine a better way to spend $15.95 on a themed collection of short fiction.” [PDF]

It’s a really nice analysis of the stories he talks about in detail—well-worth a read whether you’ve already read Wastelands or not.

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New Reviews of Wastelands, Seeds of Change, & a new interview

Dorothy Emry reviews Seeds of Change for Static Multimedia, giving it 3.5 out of 4 stars: “Nine short stories equal one great read in Seeds of Change, the latest anthology edited by John Joseph Adams. The authors contributing to this collection serve up works that range from tragedy to comedy–each of them thought provoking.”

Ms. Emry goes on to post some additional thoughts on her MySpace blog, saying “The authors featured in Seeds could well be part of the next generation of big names and Adams is to be commended for gathering them in this anthology.”

Static Multimedia also reviews Wastelands, calling it an “exceptional collection” and giving it four-out-of-four stars.

And last but not least, NVF Magazine (New Voices in Fiction) has an interview with me which doesn’t focus on any one project, but instead pries a lot of background information out of me. The format can be a bit hard on the eyes, so I’d suggest hitting CTRL + A to select all the text on the page to make it a little easier to read.

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Latest Wastelands Reviews

The post.apocalyptic.world(karma) blog has a thoughtful, rave review of Wastelands: “Wastelands is the kind of book which will not allow you to work, sleep, socialize – barely eat – while it’s new and unbroken in your hands. Still, it would be a shame to dilute the stories through one hasty, over-zealous fit of reading. Wastelands is the book you read once straight through, enjoying the imagery, imagination and prose. Another, slower read-through is almost a must. There is a meaning (although, not always a lesson) to unravel in each of these stories, and it is up to the reader to figure it out for themselves.”

Matt Staggs talks about apocalyptic fiction and says some nice things about Wastelands: “This is pretty much the fiction anthology I’ve always looked for and never could find. It’s perfect, lots of great stuff, and I can’t praise Adams and Night Shade Books enough for bringing it to book shelves.”

Bibliophile Stalker reviews Wastelands: “John Joseph Adams assembles a wide variety of apocalypse-related fiction in Wastelands ... What you end up with is a diverse anthology covering topics like religion, war, and exploration while containing elements of horror, comedy, and even sense of wonder.”

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Today’s Reviews and Interviews

Over at Religion Dispatches, Gabriel McKee has a thoughtful review of Wastelands. Here’s a snippet: “Editor John Joseph Adams has chosen stories that show so much variation, not just in setting but in tone. There are several elegiac tales here, to be sure, but there are just as many optimistic ones, and even one or two comedies. It’s far from a tedious series of stories about savage motorcycle gangs—there’s real diversity here, and you’re hard pressed to find two stories that are alike.“

In other Wastelands news, there’s an interview with me up at Strange Horizons, in which I talk about the anthology, as well as other projects and other topics, including a bit about The Living Dead. There’s also a sneak-peek at the preliminary cover design–at least I hope it’s still preliminary…see if you can spot the typo. I’ve tweaked the cover to correct the error.

Also cool: io9 blogged about Seeds of Change, which they call “terrifically interesting.”

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