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"Famine. Death. War. Pestilence. These are the harbingers of the biblical apocalypse, of the End of the World. In science fiction, the end is triggered by less figurative means: nuclear holocaust, biological warfare/pandemic, ecological disaster, or cosmological cataclysm. But before any catastrophe, there are people who see it coming. During, there are heroes who fight against it. And after, there are the survivors who persevere and try to rebuild. The Apocalypse Triptych will tell their show more stories. Edited by acclaimed anthologist John Joseph Adams and bestselling author Hugh Howey, The Apocalypse Triptych is a series of three anthologies of apocalyptic fiction. The End is Nigh focuses on life before the apocalypse. The End is Now turns its attention to life during the apocalypse. And The End has Come focuses on life after the apocalypse"--Page 4 of cover. show lessTags
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If you liked John Joseph Adams' 'Wastelands' anthology; then this one is a must. The stories range from good to excellent.
This is an independently released anthology, but it's got the right names behind it and I'd expect it to succeed, because this is a fully professional, high-quality collection.
**** The Balm and the Wound—Robin Wasserman
A cult leader is adept at providing platitudes and fleecing his flock. But after his young son is dropped off at his place; the leader, along with the rest of the doomsday cult, finds himself swept along in a survivalist current, with the boy at the helm. Very nicely done. I really enjoyed the ironic tone.
**** Heaven is a Place on Planet X—Desirina Boskovich
Aliens have arrived; and informed the show more planet that at the end of the month; everyone will be zapped into oblivion/transported to a distant paradise planet. Everyone, that is, who continues about their business as usual. Enforcers are nominated to shoot anyone who acknowledges that the end is at hand. Eliminating their fellow citizens is hard; but paradise is at stake... or so they believe.
**** Break! Break! Break! —Charlie Jane Anders
Starts off feeling like a high-school-memoir, telling the story of a nerdy stuntman's kid and an aspiring filmmaker to team up to create a viral Internet sensation. And then it becomes a cautionary tale about how art can be co-opted for political gain... and it gets a lot better.
*** The Gods Will Not Be Chained—Ken Liu
Not bad, but I feel like I expect better from Ken Liu. As far as themes, it starts out with cyberbullying, and has some interesting insights into the uniqueness of communicating with emoji - and gets into the nature of human intelligence vs. AI - rolled into a story that I found a bit more sappy than genuinely moving.
*** Wedding Day—Jake Kerr
A super-contemporary feel to this one. A long-term lesbian couple want to get married, but their long-deferred plans go awry when it's announced that an asteroid impact will soon devastate America - and only some of our citizens, determined by lottery, will be able to travel to safety in time. Again, a bit sappy, and I really didn't agree with the conclusion, either.
*** Removal Order—Tananarive Due
What this story made me think about is how very peculiar it is that our society values keeping people alive when they have no hope of recovery from illness, and they are in horrible pain. This story has that situation: a young woman has stayed in an evacuation zone to care for her dying grandmother. The situation is believable, and is dealt with in a sensible manner, but I don't think I had the empathy with the main character that the author intended.
*** System Reset—Tobias S. Buckell
A hacker and his buddy try to stage a citizen's arrest of another hacker - one with terrorist tendencies. But they screw things up, an the situation ends up worse than they imagined.
**** This Unkempt World is Falling to Pieces—Jamie Ford
Halley's Comet is scheduled to sweep by Earth in 1910, and doomsday fever has swept society. Darwin Chinn Qi is a young Chinese man working a menial job at a fancy comet-themed party. Few of the sophisticated partiers seem to really believe the end of the world is at hand... But telling more would be spoiling. Really liked it.
**** BRING HER TO ME—Ben H. Winters
Twenty-odd years ago, pretty much everyone on earth started hearing the voice of God inside their heads, telling them what to do. And what God wants everyone to do now is to commit suicide by poison. However, one girl has been 'deaf' to this voice since birth. One of her parents wants to 'hide' this defect and give her the poison. The other wants to turn her in to the authority... A much more horror-genre feel to this than most of these stories. The ending is a bit ambiguous - but that's OK, 'cause it was good and spooky.
*** In the Air—Hugh Howey
A government agent was privy to the knowledge that the government planned on blowing up the vast majority of humans via nanomites in the bloodstream. But he remained silent, and said nothing - and opted to try to save his family. Nice exploration of ethical issues, but the story itself could've had a bit more...
*** Goodnight Moon—Annie Bellet
No relation to the Margaret Wise Brown classic kids' story!
A team of seven researchers on an international moon base discover a huge asteroid heading straight for them. Their emergency shuttle can only hold three, at a pinch. The team must decide who has a chance at life; who will die, and face their fate. It's an emotionally wrought situation, but stops just short of sentimentality. Still, I wished there was some sort of new twist to this familiar scenario.
*** Dancing with Death in the Land of Nod—Will McIntosh
A pandemic brings an unlikely couple together. Forty-something Johnny helps his aging dad with his failing drive-in theater. Twenty-something Kelly, who never completed nursing school, bonds with him over their mutual inability to get out of their stifling small town. Together, they try to care for the townspeople who've been struck by a new, incurable illness.
*** Houses Without Air—Megan Arkenberg
Roommates Beth and Fatima deal with the approaching end of the world through their vocations. Volcanic explosions mean that everyone will soon be suffocating. Beth has been working on an immersive virtual reality experience. Fatima is a well-known artist who creates memorials. OK, but I wanted a little more from it...
*** The Fifth Day of Deer Camp—Scott Sigler
Five buddies on a camping trip are snowed in to their hunting cabin - when a UFO lands right near them. The news lets them know that it's a large-scale alien invasion. They prepare to try to defend themselves.
*** Enjoy the Moment—Jack McDevitt
Physicist Maryam Gibson is desperate to get her name on a major discovery and cement her scientific reputation. But does anyone really want their name applied to the phenomenon that will be responsible for the end of life on earth?
**** Pretty Soon the Four Horsemen are Going to Come Riding Through—Nancy Kress
Sophie and Cassie's mom might not be educated herself, but she's gone out of her way to make sure that her two girls go to a good school. It's not surprising that her kids get picked on for their old clothes and obvious lack of wealth. The teachers may think that aggressive, older Sophie is the problem, with her tendency toward fighting. However, mom knows that younger, sweet but passive Cassie might be the real problem - and that it could be a bigger issue than anyone's guessed. The story's a very effective illustration of how revelations don't have to come from the halls of academia, but can come from native intelligence and common sense. Not that that will save the world...
***** Spores—Seanan McGuire
Lab worker Megan is known for being paranoid. Her OCD means that she's always cleaning, and her co-workers and loved ones are on the lookout for her 'episodes.' However, just cause you're paranoid doesn't mean there's nothing to worry about. Megan works in a bioengineering lab... and not all of her colleagues share her focus on safety and caution. Excellent, truly horrific story. (I've really got to get around to reading Seanan McGuire/Mira Grant's other work...)
*** She’s Got a Ticket to Ride—Jonathan Maberry
A hired 'deprogrammer' specializes in getting young people out of cults. But one particular assignment: extracting an heiress from a doomsday cult, might cause him to see things a bit differently.
**** Agent Unknown—David Wellington
Straight up zombie medical-thriller. Really very good - it's a prequel to an upcoming novel, and I just might go out of my way to read it when it comes out.
*** Enlightenment—Matthew Mather
Hey! There's no end-of-the-world here! This is a horror story about a sort of religious group that likes to throw very special dinner parties. It's quite disturbingly horrific, but it also sounds quite a lot like the premise of Graham Masterson's 'Feast' (aka 'Ritual.')
**** Shooting the Apocalypse—Paolo Bacigalupi
One of Bacigalupi's favorite topics - water shortage. A border conflict, a corpse hung up a a fence, left to animals and the elements. A drug war casualty, or superstitious sacrifice? Two journalists are in search of the story, in hope of a scoop. As always with Bacigalupi, this is really, really well done. The different, contrasting motivations here are played against each other really well - from petty personal arguments to decisions that will have far-reaching consequences - and the agonists are, always, all too human. However, I had mixed feelings about the depiction of journalism as utterly predatory and ultimately selfish. It's an argument I've seen a lot of lately, and I'm on the other side of it.
**** Love Perverts—Sarah Langan
An asteroid is heading for Earth. The chosen few have been issued tickets to get into underground bunkers, where they hope to live and survive for generations. Teenage Tom Crawford's wealthy family had tickets - but they left him behind. He thinks maybe it's because he's gay. His best friend, Jules, never had a chance. A nicely crafted tale of different kinds of love - and how some love is real and true, even when the kinds of love we expect to receive turn out to be false. show less
This is an independently released anthology, but it's got the right names behind it and I'd expect it to succeed, because this is a fully professional, high-quality collection.
**** The Balm and the Wound—Robin Wasserman
A cult leader is adept at providing platitudes and fleecing his flock. But after his young son is dropped off at his place; the leader, along with the rest of the doomsday cult, finds himself swept along in a survivalist current, with the boy at the helm. Very nicely done. I really enjoyed the ironic tone.
**** Heaven is a Place on Planet X—Desirina Boskovich
Aliens have arrived; and informed the show more planet that at the end of the month; everyone will be zapped into oblivion/transported to a distant paradise planet. Everyone, that is, who continues about their business as usual. Enforcers are nominated to shoot anyone who acknowledges that the end is at hand. Eliminating their fellow citizens is hard; but paradise is at stake... or so they believe.
**** Break! Break! Break! —Charlie Jane Anders
Starts off feeling like a high-school-memoir, telling the story of a nerdy stuntman's kid and an aspiring filmmaker to team up to create a viral Internet sensation. And then it becomes a cautionary tale about how art can be co-opted for political gain... and it gets a lot better.
*** The Gods Will Not Be Chained—Ken Liu
Not bad, but I feel like I expect better from Ken Liu. As far as themes, it starts out with cyberbullying, and has some interesting insights into the uniqueness of communicating with emoji - and gets into the nature of human intelligence vs. AI - rolled into a story that I found a bit more sappy than genuinely moving.
*** Wedding Day—Jake Kerr
A super-contemporary feel to this one. A long-term lesbian couple want to get married, but their long-deferred plans go awry when it's announced that an asteroid impact will soon devastate America - and only some of our citizens, determined by lottery, will be able to travel to safety in time. Again, a bit sappy, and I really didn't agree with the conclusion, either.
*** Removal Order—Tananarive Due
What this story made me think about is how very peculiar it is that our society values keeping people alive when they have no hope of recovery from illness, and they are in horrible pain. This story has that situation: a young woman has stayed in an evacuation zone to care for her dying grandmother. The situation is believable, and is dealt with in a sensible manner, but I don't think I had the empathy with the main character that the author intended.
*** System Reset—Tobias S. Buckell
A hacker and his buddy try to stage a citizen's arrest of another hacker - one with terrorist tendencies. But they screw things up, an the situation ends up worse than they imagined.
**** This Unkempt World is Falling to Pieces—Jamie Ford
Halley's Comet is scheduled to sweep by Earth in 1910, and doomsday fever has swept society. Darwin Chinn Qi is a young Chinese man working a menial job at a fancy comet-themed party. Few of the sophisticated partiers seem to really believe the end of the world is at hand... But telling more would be spoiling. Really liked it.
**** BRING HER TO ME—Ben H. Winters
Twenty-odd years ago, pretty much everyone on earth started hearing the voice of God inside their heads, telling them what to do. And what God wants everyone to do now is to commit suicide by poison. However, one girl has been 'deaf' to this voice since birth. One of her parents wants to 'hide' this defect and give her the poison. The other wants to turn her in to the authority... A much more horror-genre feel to this than most of these stories. The ending is a bit ambiguous - but that's OK, 'cause it was good and spooky.
*** In the Air—Hugh Howey
A government agent was privy to the knowledge that the government planned on blowing up the vast majority of humans via nanomites in the bloodstream. But he remained silent, and said nothing - and opted to try to save his family. Nice exploration of ethical issues, but the story itself could've had a bit more...
*** Goodnight Moon—Annie Bellet
No relation to the Margaret Wise Brown classic kids' story!
A team of seven researchers on an international moon base discover a huge asteroid heading straight for them. Their emergency shuttle can only hold three, at a pinch. The team must decide who has a chance at life; who will die, and face their fate. It's an emotionally wrought situation, but stops just short of sentimentality. Still, I wished there was some sort of new twist to this familiar scenario.
*** Dancing with Death in the Land of Nod—Will McIntosh
A pandemic brings an unlikely couple together. Forty-something Johnny helps his aging dad with his failing drive-in theater. Twenty-something Kelly, who never completed nursing school, bonds with him over their mutual inability to get out of their stifling small town. Together, they try to care for the townspeople who've been struck by a new, incurable illness.
*** Houses Without Air—Megan Arkenberg
Roommates Beth and Fatima deal with the approaching end of the world through their vocations. Volcanic explosions mean that everyone will soon be suffocating. Beth has been working on an immersive virtual reality experience. Fatima is a well-known artist who creates memorials. OK, but I wanted a little more from it...
*** The Fifth Day of Deer Camp—Scott Sigler
Five buddies on a camping trip are snowed in to their hunting cabin - when a UFO lands right near them. The news lets them know that it's a large-scale alien invasion. They prepare to try to defend themselves.
*** Enjoy the Moment—Jack McDevitt
Physicist Maryam Gibson is desperate to get her name on a major discovery and cement her scientific reputation. But does anyone really want their name applied to the phenomenon that will be responsible for the end of life on earth?
**** Pretty Soon the Four Horsemen are Going to Come Riding Through—Nancy Kress
Sophie and Cassie's mom might not be educated herself, but she's gone out of her way to make sure that her two girls go to a good school. It's not surprising that her kids get picked on for their old clothes and obvious lack of wealth. The teachers may think that aggressive, older Sophie is the problem, with her tendency toward fighting. However, mom knows that younger, sweet but passive Cassie might be the real problem - and that it could be a bigger issue than anyone's guessed. The story's a very effective illustration of how revelations don't have to come from the halls of academia, but can come from native intelligence and common sense. Not that that will save the world...
***** Spores—Seanan McGuire
Lab worker Megan is known for being paranoid. Her OCD means that she's always cleaning, and her co-workers and loved ones are on the lookout for her 'episodes.' However, just cause you're paranoid doesn't mean there's nothing to worry about. Megan works in a bioengineering lab... and not all of her colleagues share her focus on safety and caution. Excellent, truly horrific story. (I've really got to get around to reading Seanan McGuire/Mira Grant's other work...)
*** She’s Got a Ticket to Ride—Jonathan Maberry
A hired 'deprogrammer' specializes in getting young people out of cults. But one particular assignment: extracting an heiress from a doomsday cult, might cause him to see things a bit differently.
**** Agent Unknown—David Wellington
Straight up zombie medical-thriller. Really very good - it's a prequel to an upcoming novel, and I just might go out of my way to read it when it comes out.
*** Enlightenment—Matthew Mather
Hey! There's no end-of-the-world here! This is a horror story about a sort of religious group that likes to throw very special dinner parties. It's quite disturbingly horrific, but it also sounds quite a lot like the premise of Graham Masterson's 'Feast' (aka 'Ritual.')
**** Shooting the Apocalypse—Paolo Bacigalupi
One of Bacigalupi's favorite topics - water shortage. A border conflict, a corpse hung up a a fence, left to animals and the elements. A drug war casualty, or superstitious sacrifice? Two journalists are in search of the story, in hope of a scoop. As always with Bacigalupi, this is really, really well done. The different, contrasting motivations here are played against each other really well - from petty personal arguments to decisions that will have far-reaching consequences - and the agonists are, always, all too human. However, I had mixed feelings about the depiction of journalism as utterly predatory and ultimately selfish. It's an argument I've seen a lot of lately, and I'm on the other side of it.
**** Love Perverts—Sarah Langan
An asteroid is heading for Earth. The chosen few have been issued tickets to get into underground bunkers, where they hope to live and survive for generations. Teenage Tom Crawford's wealthy family had tickets - but they left him behind. He thinks maybe it's because he's gay. His best friend, Jules, never had a chance. A nicely crafted tale of different kinds of love - and how some love is real and true, even when the kinds of love we expect to receive turn out to be false. show less
This is the first volume in a "triptych" of anthologies of apocalypse-themed stories; in this volume, all of the stories take place just before an apocalypse, while in the next two volumes, connected stories by the same authors will take place during and after the apocalypse.
It's a neat premise, and the writing is pretty solid throughout. None of the stories really stunk, but none truly shone either; it's an even, readable collection. There were many fresh takes on the apocalypse incorporating present-day technology, as well as unusual epidemics and alien invasions, that helped this anthology feel fresh and not like it was retreading ideas already done to death, so to speak. My favorite stories were by Tananarive Due and Desirana show more Boskovich. (Will McIntosh, you are one disturbing dude, I have to say.) My quibble is that because of the overarching idea, many of the stories seemed unfinished or like first acts in a play, rather than standing on their own. I wished that I had waited until all three volumes came out and read the connected stories together. Since this is not what I did, I'm debating whether to continue with the series. show less
It's a neat premise, and the writing is pretty solid throughout. None of the stories really stunk, but none truly shone either; it's an even, readable collection. There were many fresh takes on the apocalypse incorporating present-day technology, as well as unusual epidemics and alien invasions, that helped this anthology feel fresh and not like it was retreading ideas already done to death, so to speak. My favorite stories were by Tananarive Due and Desirana show more Boskovich. (Will McIntosh, you are one disturbing dude, I have to say.) My quibble is that because of the overarching idea, many of the stories seemed unfinished or like first acts in a play, rather than standing on their own. I wished that I had waited until all three volumes came out and read the connected stories together. Since this is not what I did, I'm debating whether to continue with the series. show less
Overall it was good. The story about the self-cannibals I could have done without, but most of them were solid and a few stories were outstanding.
Paolo B. was the only one who, to my mind, tackled the kind of apocalypse we're actually likely to face (climate change/permadrought). Most of the others were takes on old standards like asteroids, aliens, artificial intelligence and germs; one or two were more original (the mould one--eww). But this detracted from the stories for me: the world is already ending. In slow motion, granted, but it's pretty well here. You don't need to strain yourself coming up with some plausible way of killing everything off. Just look at Syria and go from there.
Paolo B. was the only one who, to my mind, tackled the kind of apocalypse we're actually likely to face (climate change/permadrought). Most of the others were takes on old standards like asteroids, aliens, artificial intelligence and germs; one or two were more original (the mould one--eww). But this detracted from the stories for me: the world is already ending. In slow motion, granted, but it's pretty well here. You don't need to strain yourself coming up with some plausible way of killing everything off. Just look at Syria and go from there.
This is one of those volumes that just [I]nails[/i] the premise and point of the collection. The short of it? It is a compilation of tales from immediately before the apocalypse in whatever form the authors imagine. This book is full of that excellent creeping dread of inescapable doom.
I discovered quite a few new authors whose work I will seek out and read more of—excited to read the rest of the series as well!
I discovered quite a few new authors whose work I will seek out and read more of—excited to read the rest of the series as well!
Find this review (and others) at https://clsiewert.wordpress.com/2015/08/22/the-end-is-nigh-edited-by-adams-and-h...
Oh apocalypse, how you fascinate us. There’s probably been doomsayers since the beginning of time, but it seems like you’ve really come into your own in the era of climate change, burgeoning population and widespread weaponry. The End is Nigh is the first book in a three-part series edited by John Joseph Adams and Hugh Howey (of Wool fame) is centered around the events leading up to apocalypse scenarios. I came at this series backwards, beginning with the end book and moving on to The End is Nigh. These stories mostly felt like teasers, world-builders with ambiguous endings which will lead up to the events in The End show more Has Come.
See Althea Ann’s excellent summary for a brief description of each piece.
Five-star: Tananarive Due’s story, “Removal Order” is about a young woman taking care of a cancer-ridden grandmother as her community is evacuated. Haunting atmosphere, interesting angle on the approaching devastation, it was one of the small, quiet, haunting stories of the apocalypse. David Wellington contributed a straight-up infectious-zombie story as it was beginning to break, a classic take that was well done. “Goodnight Moon” by Annie Ballet is about seven astronauts and was an absolutely perfect bottle story of impending disaster and loss. Will McIntosh’s “Dancing with Death…” has a fascinating premise of an infection that causes a locked-in syndrome. Perfect. I should look up more McIntosh. “Love Perverts” by Sarah Langan dealt with teenagers coping with changes as the end of the world approaches, and how one teen’s sexuality might have lead his parents to abandon him. Emotionally real. Another author worth checking out.
Four-star: Robin Wasserman examines the irony of an experience con artist leading an end-of-the world cult, reunited with a believing teenage son. Jake Kerr’s “Wedding Day” wonders what would happen if we knew about an eventual asteroid impact from the perspective of an unmarried lesbian couple. It’s a modern twist on what it means to be connected. Tobias S. Buckell contributed a buddy-movie scenario where two friends are trying to make money catching a hacker. Unbeknownst to them, the hacker has specific future plans. It had a snappy pace. Seanan McGuires “Spores” was a nice character piece about a scientist with OCD. Heavy on the message, it excelled in atmosphere and character. Howey’s contribution, “In the Air” was notable for centering on a government worker who has foreknowledge of the upcoming disaster but doesn’t share his knowledge, and how it plays out in his personal life. Ford’s period piece on a Chinese man working in San Francisco during Haley’s Comet was atmospheric, just seemed to suffer from choppy writing.
Three-star: Desirina Boskovich experiments with aliens who want to transport Earthlings to a heavenly paradise. Heavy-handed in its religious and social themes, I did enjoy the budding relationship between two main characters. Charlie Jane Anders has an interesting beginning to her apocalypse; a couple of outcast kids and a camera becoming Youtube sensations in “Break!Break!Break!” Examines viral media and society but again, thematically heavy-handed. The voice of the teenage daredevil felt very real with interesting sentence structure–the author has a gift for characters. I was a bit underwhelmed by Ken Liu’s “The Gods Will Not Be Chained,” considering his reputation. While it definitely provided the needed foundation for his story in the last installment, it was equally heavy-handed in building artificial intelligence and bullying. On the up side, it gave me some fun ideas for emoji communication.
I liked Kress’ story about a single mom struggling with raising two kids on a shoestring budget. The conclusion was a little… hmmm, and I didn’t quite see where it fit in with the apocalypse, but it was well-told and felt real. While I loved Ben Winter’s The Last Policeman series, he tries an interesting approach with his piece, about a world who suddenly starts hearing the ‘voice of God,’ except a young girl. The parents, worried that she will not be saved, struggle with what to do. It creates a nice horror feeling but feels heavy-handed as well. Jonathan Maberry’s story about a man who specializes in extracting people from cults was competently done but felt slightly didactic.
A few completely missed me. Megan Arkenberg tries to incorporate concepts with virtual reality and art in the face of disaster. I found it mostly confusing and had little connection with the characters. Scott Sigler’s story about an annual dudes’ hunting trip was a miss, which was partially my fault. I knew where it would end from reading book three, so I wasn’t interested in the “first contact” exploration in book one. Matthew Mather’s “Enlightenment” on a literal interpretation of eating the body was just Concept Yuck, but I have little horror tolerance. It didn’t really fit with the collection. Paolo Bacigalupi’s piece on water shortages and journalism was a ‘meh.’ McDevitt gave a terribly ironic twist to his professional astronomer who wants so desperately to be named after an astronomical feature.
Really, the collection excelled as character pieces, apocalypse or no apocalypse. The authors often used impending events as a backdrop to exploring emotional and philosophical issues. On to the middle book of the series, where we see if this book acted more as foundation pieces for action in the next.
Three and a half stars. show less
Oh apocalypse, how you fascinate us. There’s probably been doomsayers since the beginning of time, but it seems like you’ve really come into your own in the era of climate change, burgeoning population and widespread weaponry. The End is Nigh is the first book in a three-part series edited by John Joseph Adams and Hugh Howey (of Wool fame) is centered around the events leading up to apocalypse scenarios. I came at this series backwards, beginning with the end book and moving on to The End is Nigh. These stories mostly felt like teasers, world-builders with ambiguous endings which will lead up to the events in The End show more Has Come.
See Althea Ann’s excellent summary for a brief description of each piece.
Five-star: Tananarive Due’s story, “Removal Order” is about a young woman taking care of a cancer-ridden grandmother as her community is evacuated. Haunting atmosphere, interesting angle on the approaching devastation, it was one of the small, quiet, haunting stories of the apocalypse. David Wellington contributed a straight-up infectious-zombie story as it was beginning to break, a classic take that was well done. “Goodnight Moon” by Annie Ballet is about seven astronauts and was an absolutely perfect bottle story of impending disaster and loss. Will McIntosh’s “Dancing with Death…” has a fascinating premise of an infection that causes a locked-in syndrome. Perfect. I should look up more McIntosh. “Love Perverts” by Sarah Langan dealt with teenagers coping with changes as the end of the world approaches, and how one teen’s sexuality might have lead his parents to abandon him. Emotionally real. Another author worth checking out.
Four-star: Robin Wasserman examines the irony of an experience con artist leading an end-of-the world cult, reunited with a believing teenage son. Jake Kerr’s “Wedding Day” wonders what would happen if we knew about an eventual asteroid impact from the perspective of an unmarried lesbian couple. It’s a modern twist on what it means to be connected. Tobias S. Buckell contributed a buddy-movie scenario where two friends are trying to make money catching a hacker. Unbeknownst to them, the hacker has specific future plans. It had a snappy pace. Seanan McGuires “Spores” was a nice character piece about a scientist with OCD. Heavy on the message, it excelled in atmosphere and character. Howey’s contribution, “In the Air” was notable for centering on a government worker who has foreknowledge of the upcoming disaster but doesn’t share his knowledge, and how it plays out in his personal life. Ford’s period piece on a Chinese man working in San Francisco during Haley’s Comet was atmospheric, just seemed to suffer from choppy writing.
Three-star: Desirina Boskovich experiments with aliens who want to transport Earthlings to a heavenly paradise. Heavy-handed in its religious and social themes, I did enjoy the budding relationship between two main characters. Charlie Jane Anders has an interesting beginning to her apocalypse; a couple of outcast kids and a camera becoming Youtube sensations in “Break!Break!Break!” Examines viral media and society but again, thematically heavy-handed. The voice of the teenage daredevil felt very real with interesting sentence structure–the author has a gift for characters. I was a bit underwhelmed by Ken Liu’s “The Gods Will Not Be Chained,” considering his reputation. While it definitely provided the needed foundation for his story in the last installment, it was equally heavy-handed in building artificial intelligence and bullying. On the up side, it gave me some fun ideas for emoji communication.
I liked Kress’ story about a single mom struggling with raising two kids on a shoestring budget. The conclusion was a little… hmmm, and I didn’t quite see where it fit in with the apocalypse, but it was well-told and felt real. While I loved Ben Winter’s The Last Policeman series, he tries an interesting approach with his piece, about a world who suddenly starts hearing the ‘voice of God,’ except a young girl. The parents, worried that she will not be saved, struggle with what to do. It creates a nice horror feeling but feels heavy-handed as well. Jonathan Maberry’s story about a man who specializes in extracting people from cults was competently done but felt slightly didactic.
A few completely missed me. Megan Arkenberg tries to incorporate concepts with virtual reality and art in the face of disaster. I found it mostly confusing and had little connection with the characters. Scott Sigler’s story about an annual dudes’ hunting trip was a miss, which was partially my fault. I knew where it would end from reading book three, so I wasn’t interested in the “first contact” exploration in book one. Matthew Mather’s “Enlightenment” on a literal interpretation of eating the body was just Concept Yuck, but I have little horror tolerance. It didn’t really fit with the collection. Paolo Bacigalupi’s piece on water shortages and journalism was a ‘meh.’ McDevitt gave a terribly ironic twist to his professional astronomer who wants so desperately to be named after an astronomical feature.
Really, the collection excelled as character pieces, apocalypse or no apocalypse. The authors often used impending events as a backdrop to exploring emotional and philosophical issues. On to the middle book of the series, where we see if this book acted more as foundation pieces for action in the next.
Three and a half stars. show less
This is an excellent anthology with an interesting premise: it's the first of three planned anthologies, but with a twist. All the stories in this one (the first) are set in the time just before an apocalyptic event. The second anthology will be continuations of the first set of stories and will be set DURING the above-mentioned apocalyptic events, while the third anthology will be the end of the stories, set AFTER the events. So in effect, this is the first book in a trilogy of trilogies. Kudos to John Joseph Adams in coming up with concept!
The stories in this volume a mostly very good, with a couple of outstanding entries and a couple of not-so-good entries.
The ones that stood out to me, really capturing the mood/feel of pending doom show more were, "In the Air" by Hugh Howey, "Spores" by Seanan McGuire, "Removal Order" by Tananarive Due, and "Houses without Air" by Megan Arkenberg.
The ones that didn't work for me were, "Love Perverts" by Sarah Langan and "Enlightenment" by Matthew Mather. Didn't care for these two at all.
Overall, a good set of stories, and I'm looking forward to the next in The Apocalypse Triptych, "The End is Now". show less
The stories in this volume a mostly very good, with a couple of outstanding entries and a couple of not-so-good entries.
The ones that stood out to me, really capturing the mood/feel of pending doom show more were, "In the Air" by Hugh Howey, "Spores" by Seanan McGuire, "Removal Order" by Tananarive Due, and "Houses without Air" by Megan Arkenberg.
The ones that didn't work for me were, "Love Perverts" by Sarah Langan and "Enlightenment" by Matthew Mather. Didn't care for these two at all.
Overall, a good set of stories, and I'm looking forward to the next in The Apocalypse Triptych, "The End is Now". show less
This book is the first in a "triptych" of stories centered around apocalypses - each book will deal with a different phase, from pre-, to during, to post-. Each story in this book deals with the prelude to the end of the world, which comes about in a variety of ways. Like any anthology, there were some stories that I disliked, but overall this was a really good collection with more great stories than not. I'll definitely be picking up the subsequent volumes, as many of the contributors will be writing about the same universes in those installments.
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Author Information
Hugh Howey is an American author who was born in 1975 and raised in North Carolina. Howey is known for his popular series Wool, which he independently published through Amazon.com's Kindle Direct Publishing system. The Wool series first began in 2011 with Wool as a stand-alone story. In 2012, Howey signed a deal with Simon and Schuster to show more distribute Wool to retailers in the USA and Canada. The book became a trilogy with Shift (Book 2) and Dust (Book 3) following it. The author has renamed this to the Silo Series. (Bowker Author Biography) show less
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Common Knowledge
- Canonical title
- The End Is Nigh
- Original publication date
- 2014-03-01
- People/Characters
- Abraham Walsh; Mandy Herman; Alison Gentry; Clark Jeffries; Sara Grace; Paul Crenshaw (show all 9); Sally Hamster; Ricky Artesian; Raine
- Important places
- Xyrxiconia; Red Hook, Brooklyn, New York, New York, USA; Alvington, North Carolina, USA
- Important events
- End of the World
- Epigraph
- It was a pleasure to burn. It was a special pleasure to see things eaten, to see things blackened and changed. With the brass nozzle in his fists, with this great python spitting its venomous kerosene upon the world, the bloo... (show all)d pounded in his head, and his hands were the hands of some amazing conductor playing all the symphonies of blazing and burning to bring down the tatters and charcoal ruins of history. -- Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury
- First words
- I met Hugh Howey at the World Science Fiction Convention in 2012. -- From the Introduction by John Joseph Adams
Here's how it works in my business: First, you pick a date--your show-offs will go for something flashy, October 31 or New Year's Eve, but you ask me, pin the tail on the calendar works just as well and a random Tuesday in Au... (show all)gust carries that extra whiff of authenticity. - Last words
- (Click to show. Warning: May contain spoilers.)In ten thousand years, your dirt-blind, rodent species of monsters will study this document, and wonder what all the fuss was about love.
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- English
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- ISBNs
- 1
- ASINs
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