After Death...

After Death starts off with a cool premise, what happens after a person dies. Sometimes the stories occur immediately after death, sometimes it’s during a much longer time line. There is a mix of big name horror authors and lesser known ones, and overall a really good flow to the anthology. One of the things that I really enjoyed about the anthology was the short introductions that precede each of the stories. They were little nuggets of insight that added to the stories and were a nice touch. There were a variety of topics from the ferryman transporting the dead, to reincarnation, to purgatory, hell, heaven, and many places in between.
Like most anthologies, not all of the stories worked, but most of them were quite good. If I had to show more single out a few that I especially enjoyed, they would have to be “Someone to Remember” by Andrew S. Williams, which starts off the book on the right track; “The Resurrection Policy” by Lisa Morton, which I found to be crafty and creative; and “The Devil’s Backbone” by Larry Hodges, which I found to be well-conceived, well-executed, and well-written, my favorite in the anthology. There is a lot of good short fiction in this anthology, and it was impeccably edited. This is an anthology that I highly recommend.

Carl Alves - author of Blood Street show less

Wow, this book is a profound collection of stories covering so many chilling and smart possibilities of what could happen after death. There's lots of ghost and devil stories, but there's also things I never thought up, like the afterworld for bacteria, what happens to animals after death, coming back after death from technology, stories of different gods from other cultures and bizarre interpretations of otherworldly rooms and worlds. I really liked The Reckless Alternative which was Joe Strummer (from the Clash) in his own afterlife; and Beyond the Veil in which we never die, but live our same life over and over; The Unfinished Lunch, where a man dies and his soul absorbs into a salad bowl (sounds weird, but really touching!); and show more Circling The Stones At Fulcrum's Low, about a witch who is cursed to remain in a superstitious town that hunts her down every time she is reborn. show less

****Review by Publishers Weekly*****

This anthology addresses one of the most basic questions of human existence: what happens when we die? The answers come in the form of 34 stories that explore diverse notions of ghosts (Edward M. Erdelac’s “Sea of Trees”) and demons (William Meikle’s “Be Quiet at the Back”), trapped souls (Steve Cameron’s “I Was the Walrus”), mishaps in resurrection (Lisa Morton’s “The Resurrection Policy”), and unbearable eternities (David Tallerman’s “Prisoner of Peace”). The newly deceased protagonists may be confused, angry, resigned, or unaware that they are dead, so even those vignettes with more exposition than plot convey a sense of personal discovery (if perhaps of the hopeless show more kind). Though the majority of the pieces come from the darker side of the genre, a solid minority are playful, clever, or full of wonder. This makes for good variety but a bit of emotional whiplash, somewhat mitigated by Guignard’s clever introductions and Audra Phillips’s portraitlike illustrations. This strong and well-themed anthology is sure to make readers contemplative even while it creates nightmares.

— Publishers Weekly, http://www.publishersweekly.com/978-0-9885569-2-8 show less