After the End: Recent Apocalypses

by Paula Guran

From the Sumerian epic of Gilgamesh to Norse prophecies of Ragnarok to the Revelations of Saint John to Cormac McCarthy's The Road, and any number of fictional zombie Armageddons and the dystopic world of The Hunger Games, we have always wondered what will happen after the world as we know it ends. No matter what the doomsday scenario - cataclysmic climate change, political chaos, societal collapse, nuclear war, pestilence, or so many other dreaded variations - we inevitably believe that even though the world perishes, some portion of humankind will live on. Such stories involve death and disaster, but they are also tales of rebirth and survival. Grim or triumphant, these outstanding, post-apocalyptic stories selected from the best of those published in the tumultuous last decade allow us to consider what life will be like after the end.

Genres: Short Stories, Science Fiction, Anthologies, Post Apocalyptic, Fantasy, Dystopia, Apocalyptic

Unknown Binding

First published June 5, 2013

About the author

Paula Guran is senior editor for Prime Books. She edited the Juno fantasy imprint from its small press inception through its incarnation as an imprint of Pocket Books. She is also senior editor of Prime's soon-to-launch digital imprint Masque Books. Guran edits the annual Year's Best Dark Fantasy and Horror series as well as a growing number of other anthologies. In an earlier life she produced weekly email newsletter DarkEcho (winning two Stokers, an IHG award, and a World Fantasy Award nomination), edited Horror Garage (earning another IHG and a second World Fantasy nomination), and has contributed reviews, interviews, and articles to numerous professional publications.

Reviews

[Fiona Knight · Rating 3 out of 5]

Another great collection from Paula Guran - she always selects a wide range of stories, and unfortunately this time the downside was that a fair number of them just weren't my thing. However, the ones I liked I LOVED!

Pump Six, from Paolo Bacigalupi, and Amaryllis, a short from Carrie Vaughn's Bannerless series, both appear in this collection. They're both even better than I'd heard; solid six-star stories at least. I'd already run across The Books by Kage Baker and Beat me Daddy (Eight to the Bar) by Cory Doctorow, but they're both great stories and stood up to the re-read.

Overall it really is a solid collection. And not that we don't all adore extra time with our families, but this could be a great one for the holidays, should the collapse of society be extra appealing for some reason :)

[Wayne McCoy · Rating 4 out of 5]

After The End is a collection of 20 short stories about people surviving shortly after a world ending event. There are plagues, bombs, strange medical strains, global warming and much that is unknown or unexplained. These are stories about people hunkering down to wait it out, or travelling to find a haven, or sitting down to watch the world slowly die. All of the world ending scenarios are stories of the possible. I can't recall any story featuring zombies, or other supernatural creatures, which makes this book more thought provoking. We have the means to our destruction, at least the destruction in these stories, already at hand for the most part.

I think dystopian stories have always spoken to me because they deal so much with what makes us human. If all we think we are or own gets stripped away, are we human or animal? There is a little of both in these stories. Whether it's people living in an abandoned amusement park, or travelling in caravans, or alone on a seaside cliff, we see hope and hopelessness. Kindness and savagery in these stories.

There are some amazing writers in this collection and every story is unique and chosen well for this book. My personal favorite is about a group of young survivors who find a library and can't believe the wealth they find on it's shelves.

[Hilary · Rating 4 out of 5]

4.5 stars

This is a great collection of short stories, each of which shows a snatch of life (I'm trying to avoid the word "vignette", which implies scenes rather than full stories) for normal people after The End.

The exact nature of The End varies, from biowarfare to cataclysmic climate change to interference from outside. Sometimes the cause of The End is not discussed, because it just is, and sometimes The End is recent, and sometimes The End was generations ago, and sometimes technology is gone and sometimes it has survived, but always the people portrayed are doing what they think necessary to survive. And survival is sometimes civilized, and sometimes not...

Disclaimer: I received a free copy for honest review through Netgalley.

[Sheehan · Rating 4 out of 5]

I should read more short stories, and frankly if it's going to be apoca-lit, it really should be short-story I think. The form forces writers to forgo the gory details and whys and hows of collapse, and just focus on the interpersonal and immediate aspects of living in scarce times. I think this is where the real marrow of the genre is located.

Really enjoyed most of the stories in this collection, vary nice, wide variety of problematic futures to be examined, not really a stinker in the whole lot of them, although the one story in verse was not really my taste, but the content still engaging.

[Bogdan · Rating 4 out of 5]

Because I wanted to see the differences between the length of the stories that I enjoyed and the ones that I didn`t, I have also noted the pages that the stories had on my telephone even if It may not be the real thing (I`m sure that it isn`t the same lenght like in the paper book).

So, I begin with the ones that I liked:

Nnedi Okorafor, "Tumaki", 90 pgs

After The End the children are born with strange abilities (they are called now meta-humans). Dikeogu is a sixteen-year-old Nigerean that can control the weather, and now, after escaping slavery, is in a city in Niger.

Good storytelling, interesting characters, good depictions of the life in a Post -End muslim Africa.

I guess, that for me, this one was the best story of the volume. An author to study furthermore.

Chislehurst Messiah 38 pages Lauren Beukes,

The End has come but some over-privileged guys don’t get it yet.

Maureen McHugh, "After the Apocalypse",80 pgs

This is a story where a mother and a girl are heading towards a refugee camp near Toronto, Canada.
Good storytelling, interesting characters.

Simon Morden, "Never, Never, Three Times Never", 51 pgs

Its` the story of a girl in a wheelchair and a blind man that are trying to get in London after the End has come.
The characters and their human afflictions, but highly underrated in this kind of scenery, bring something new entirely to the genre.

Paolo Bacigalupi, "Pump Six", 146 pgs

Here we have a world in which stupidity prevails and the people are becoming more dumber by the day. So it`s not a surprise when a Pump made in old times fails to work, and nobody knows how to fix it.

Blake Butler, "The Disappeared", 32 pgs

What if the End of our world wouldn`t be particulary rational. What if we could not explain all the things that happen.
Good, good story.

Margo Lanagan, "The Fifth Star In the Southern Cross", 48 pgs

A strange satisfying story.

John Mantooth, "The Cecilia Paradox", 58 pgs

Six strangers are caught in a closed building, in a scenery something like Big Brother, not really knowing if The End was real or not.

Brian Evenson, "The Adjudicator", 56 pgs

The End has come but are we still humans anymore? Or we are transformed in something else entirely?

John Shirley, "Isolation Point, California", 69 pgs

The End has come along with a terrible disease that affects the brain. When two people come closer one of another they both become psychotic killers.

With a new great ideea, doubled by a good storytelling, this story is a success.


Boring stories by the ideea, or by writing:

Mary Rosenblum, "The Egg Man", 108 pgs
Paul Park, "Ragnarok", 48 pgs
Cory Doctorow, "Beat Me Daddy (Eight to the Bar)", 113 pgs
Usually I like a lot the stories made by Cory, but this time I didn`t found anything magically in it.
Paul Tremblay, “We Will Never Live in the Castle”86 pgs
Carrie Vaughn, "Amaryllis", 63 pgs
M.J. Locke, "True North"168 pgs
Livia Llewellyn, "Horses", 104 pgs
Steven Gould, "A Story, with Beans", 40 pgs
Bruce Sterling, "Goddess of Mercy", 155 pgs!


I like ten stories, nine I didn’t like.

Mostly, from the ten ones I liked, only one of them was bigger (like three times) from the rest. The others where short unde 70 pgs, on my telephone.

If I looked at the ones that I didn`t liked, I could notice that at least five of them are over one hundred pgs, meaning that are very loooonnngg for the short text category.

This was a good effort and I will give the book four stars because other may enjoy the stories that I didn`t like and because I think that this Anthology deserves to be check out by more and more people.

[Ren Bedasbad · Rating 4 out of 5]

One of the first anthologies I have read that most stories are actually about what the title of the anthology says it is about. Most of the stories are good, well written stories. Many have interesting ways that the world ended, ranging from infections, war, and human stupidity. They range from 8-30 pages in length and published between 2007-2012 (there were no new stories). While I enjoyed many of the stories, I particularly liked:

Pump Six by Paolo Bacigalupi
Amaryllis by Carrie Vaughn
Isolation Point, California by John Shirley

[Christine · Rating 2 out of 5]

I usually quite enjoy anthologies, but I found this one a bit lacking. All anthologies have their hits and misses, but this one had more misses than most. Of the 20 stories, I would only characterize 4 or 5 as good and I don't think any of those were particularly excellent. I outright DNF one of the stories - "We Will Never Live in the Castle" - because the no-dialogue writing style drove me absolutely up the wall.

So I recommend you skip this one, unless you already own it as a result of the Humble Bundle. If you're looking to pick up an anthology, go read Temporally Out of Order instead.

[Sandra · Rating 5 out of 5]

I initially got this collection because it had one of Bacigalupi's short stories. It turned out to be one of the best collections I've ever read. Despite the grim theme, the stories are very imaginative, deep and touching, and each is better than the last. There are absolutely no weak links.

I find it funny that the editor mentioned intentionally leaving out zombie stories. While I'm a big fan of the undead, I think that makes this collection ever so stronger.

[Frances · Rating 5 out of 5]

Again: I reserve five stars for "I know it's not your genre, but you really need to read this" books.

This is a brilliant collection; balanced, varied, thoughtful, and utterly engaging. The only time I stopped reading a story was when I needed to go back to the table of contents to find out who an author was and make a mental note to look them up later. The second I get a little more space, I want a hardcopy.

Lovely work.

[David · Rating 3 out of 5]

I don’t think I’ve ever read a more uneven multi-author compilation: the good are very good, and the bad are very very bad.

I probably should have expected a book of apocalyptic stories to be depressing, but the first couple stories are displays of humanity in the face of doom, which are what I expected (and they’re quite good). And then you get to the stories of inhumanity - and the impression I get is that these characters would behave just as inhumanely regardless of the stressor. Ick.

Kage Baker has the standout story (“The Books”) here.

Mildly recommended, but some of these are fully skippable and extremely depressing about it.

[Kirstin Rogers · Rating 5 out of 5]

Great collection of perspectives on the end of the world. Some terrifying, some heartbreaking, some beautiful. All focus on deeply on peoples' experiences- no zombies, for example, but plenty of human monsters.
The balance is great - out of 20 stories, i loved a solid 16, found 2-3 just fine, and only one was a true miss for me. Worth picking up if you need some dystopian anxiety in your life from a source outside live news channels.

[Donna Heard · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a book of short stories based around an apocalypse. I liked some of the stories especially when the characters were able to make the best of a bad situation. Some of the stories were a little slow for me to get into. As will all books full of short stories, not everyone may like all the stories but there is a great variety of stories in this book.

[Jak · Rating 1 out of 5]

A pretty lame collection of short post apocalyptic stories. The only ones of any note were "After the apocolypse", "True North","The Cecilia Paradox" and "Isolation Point, California". The rest were pretty poor .

[Laura · Rating 3 out of 5]

I enjoy short fiction especially in the sci fi genre. There were some amazing stories in this collection although none of them really stuck with me which for me is the difference between a good and a great story.

[Aimee · Rating 3 out of 5]

I thought that this was a pretty good collection of short stories. As is often the case with anthologies, some were stronger and more engaging than others.

[Jason · Rating 1 out of 5]

libtard conspiracy theory garbage

[Josie Boyce · Rating 4 out of 5]

Decent short stories about the end of the world, mostly good, nothing that stood above the pack for me tho.

[Stefanie Haley-mccanless · Rating 3 out of 5]

3.5 stars

I enjoyed a lot of these stories. There were some duds, but this was a pretty good collection.

[Robin · Rating 1 out of 5]

I usually dystopian fiction but almost all the short stories in this book were awful. Dreary and/or nasty. Did not like this at all.

[Dustin · Rating 2 out of 5]

Pretty weak collection of stories.

[Debbie Hope · Rating 5 out of 5]

Top-notch collection.

[Paul Michael Anderson · Rating 4 out of 5]

[2 DISCLOSURES:
[1 - My original review was lost due to the fun-happy-super-efficient fingerpad of my laptop. And it was good, too, folks.
[2 - I received this book in a Goodreads Giveaway--which doesn't altogether matter much, since I only enter contests for books that pique my interest.]

AFTER THE END collects recent post-Apocalyptic stories (the oldest is from 2003). Almost all the stories are character-driven, possibly pinging to editor Paula Guran's own tastes, with a stronger interest in the arc of dynamic characters--even if they are only superficially dynamic, like the protags of Lauren Beukes' "The Chislehurst Messiah" or Paul Tremblay's "We Will Never Live In the Castle"), then wham-bam MAD MAX plots.

Standouts, to me, include Paolo Bacigalupi's "Deep Six" and John Mantooth's "The Cecilia Paradox." Here, the plots are even less action-driven (though no less gripping), with Paolo presupposing a future of idiots in a less bombastic (and less, well, stupid) way than the Mike Judge film IDIOCRACY that leaves the reader decimated afterwards. I finished the story and went straight to "friending" Paolo on Facebook (in the hopes that, whenever he has a new short story to shop around, he'll go "Oh, wait, I know Paul Anderson edits a pro-rated journal"), and Mantooth giving us a motley crew of characters, trapped for four months underground, under the rule of a possible lunatic who insists he's God. Not as violent as you'd suppose, and not smacking of Big Brother ringing, the story is more about love and sex and loyalty, all hilariously self-deprecating.

There were only two stories, once I started, I ended up skipping over: Paul Park's "Ragnarok" and Livia Llewelyn's "Horses"--nothing particular, honestly, that turned me off, but they just failed to grip me in way that Kage Baker's "The Books", for example, did.

All in all, you're not bad off picking this antho up. The stories, for the most part, are above par, and even those that are "average" are average according to the yardstick created by the other stories.

Go get some, folks.

[Jaffa Kintigh · Rating 4 out of 5]

I am not normally an anthology reader, but I really liked this collection. The range of the scenarios and the perspectives represented was truly remarkable considering that the collection was compiled in America and comprised mostly of American authors. Stories took place in Iceland, England, Japan, Niger, gritty urban environs and barren wooded, coastal or desert landscapes. Some of the stories were true science fiction; others were urban fantasies. For some, the promised land was south in Mexico or South America, for others it was in Canada or an ocean away in Australia. I also appreciated the inclusion of a queer element into a couple of the tales ["Pump Six" by Paolo Bacigalupi and "The Fifth Star in the Southern Cross" by Margo Lanagan].

I took the time to review and rate each story in the anthology on my blog Jaffalogue,here , so I will not try to do so here. My ratings across the 20 stories averaged 3.25. But, fully nine were 4 to 5 stars. My favorites were:
"Pump Six" by Paolo Bacigalupi [5 stars]
"Amaryllis" by Carrie Vaughn [5 stars]
"Isolation Point, California" by John Shirley [5 stars]
"Books" by Kage Baker [4 stars]
"The Egg Man" by Mary Rosenblum [4 stars]
"Beat Me Daddy [Eight to the Bar]" by Cory Doctorow [4 stars]
"After the Apocalypse" by Maureen F. McHugh [4 stars]
"Never, Never, Three Times Never" by Simon Morden [4 stars]
"The Cecilia Paradox" by John Mantooth [4 stars]

I was previously unfamiliar with all of the included authors, so this anthology rates a 4 in my book for such a range of talent and style.

[Rena Sherwood · Rating 3 out of 5]

I'm doing research for an eBook I'm trying to write on horse racing in a post-apocalyptic America. So that means I have to do a lot of research, like seeing what writers much better than me have written in the post-apocalyptic arena. This anthology has some nice hints at what is to come (maybe) but it does have some slow points at times.



The good things include:

* A very short introduction from the editor. There's nothing that drags an anthology down faster than a long introduction (A-HEM, Gardener Dozois)
* A really bitchin' short story from Kage Baker, "The Books". Granted, this story appears in other anthologies, but it's still bitchin'. A little silly, but a flowing read.
* "Chiselhurst Messiah": If you just read one story from this book, choose this one.
* The Cory Doctorow story's title, "Beat Me Daddy (Eight Beats to the Bar)"
* No zombies

Bad things include:

* A short story called "Horses" that has nothing to do with horses. What a tease!
* Many stories are so bland that you forget them about ten minutes after reading them.
* Some worlds the stories are set in are vague and hard to figure out. It's as if the characters are moving through a fuzzy landscape.
* No zombies.

[Susan]

Steven Gould and Laura J. Mixon (husband/wife) in same anth? Never :P like Tanya Huff and Fiona Patton

♥ The Books by Kage Baker 6/26/2015 RE-READ 1/8/2015
Tumaki • (2010) • novelette by Nnedi Okorafor
The Egg Man • (2008) • novelette by Mary Rosenblum
Chislehurst Messiah • (2011) • shortstory by Lauren Beukes
Ragnarok • (2011) • poem by Paul Park
Beat Me Daddy (Eight to the Bar) • (2002) • shortstory by Cory Doctorow
After the Apocalypse • (2011) • shortstory by Maureen F. McHugh
We Will Never Live in the Castle • (2010) • shortstory by Paul G. Tremblay [as by Paul Tremblay ]
Never, Never, Three Times Never • (2002) • shortstory by Simon Morden
Pump Six • (2008) • novelette by Paolo Bacigalupi
The Disappeared • (2008) • shortstory by Blake Butler
♦ Amaryllis by Carrie Vaughn
The Fifth Star in the Southern Cross • (2008) • shortstory by Margo Lanagan
♦True North • (2011) • novelette by Laura J. Mixon [as by M. J. Locke ]
Horses • (2009) • novelette by Livia Llewellyn
The Cecilia Paradox • (2012) • shortstory by John Mantooth
The Adjudicator • (2009) • shortstory by Brian Evenson
♦A Story, with Beans shortstory by Steven Gould
Goddess of Mercy • (2012) • novelette by Bruce Sterling
Isolation Point, California • (2007) • shortstory by John Shirley

[Christie Skipper Ritchotte · Rating 4 out of 5]

A very good apocalyptic gathering of stories, huddling together for warmth. There are a LOT of stories here, and most of them are quite good. Some are holy shit(!) good. After finishing the last page, I looked up and saw a bird chirping away on a branch. I watched a bunch of people laughing together on the way to their cars, and I felt pretty damn great about the world. It's not the end yet, people!

Not recommended for people in the midst of a depressive episode, unless you happen to be the type who likes mixing the unhappy and terrifying with your depression. (I do happen to be that type.)

[Matthew · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is a really excellent collection. Most of the stories left me wanting to look up the author's other work, and even the "less good" stories were still quite good. There's quite a breadth of ideas going on. And there's not a single zombie apocalypse in the book, so bonus points for that.*

Frankly, the two weakest parts for me were the book blurb and the introductory sentences for each story, which weren't weak so much as unnecessary (although they're nice for going back to find specific stories later). That's a good place to be.



*Not that there's anything wrong with zombies. But there are so many ways the world *could* "end", and it's nice to see more of them on display.

[Xatolos · Rating 3 out of 5]

A collection of stories all based after "the end". Some stories are good, some are bad, one is really horrible....
The biggest issue I found with the book was how they are based after "the end", but "the end" is different for each story making it hard to grasp what's going on at times. Sometimes it's war, or plague, one is pretty much based on Shadowrun where people have suddenly woken up magic and such in the future with tech.... Due to the changing end, the stories should have had a bit more back story to help understand what's going on but many lack that causing more confusion then anything.

[Heather · Rating 4 out of 5]

I really enjoyed this collection of short stories. I thought I might get bored reading a bunch of short stories about the same topic (after the apocalypses) but the author takes were varied enough to keep it interesting. I am also glad that they were not all noble and heroic you do not constantly want to read about people always stepping up and doing the right thing.

[Allison · Rating 4 out of 5]

Really solid collection, with only one or two that didn't grab me. Favourites: Never, Never, Three Times Never by Simon Morden, Amaryllis by Carrie Vaughn and A Story, With Beans, by Steven Gould. The Brian Evenson story was predictably bleak and creepy (in a positive sense, as odd as that sounds).