What do you think?
Rate this book
Surviving the End
I am a Story Keeper. It is my duty to traverse the land in search of small pockets of survivors, those who fled the major cities and towns after the events that forever altered Earth, and record their experiences.
Within this volume, I have collected tales that reflect the very core of humanity – the desperate struggle for survival. Time will freeze existence, birds will signal an impending doom, refugees will be shown an awful reception, memories will be harvested, monsters hunted, and nightmares created. And, in a lost story, the wind from hell will make the dead moan.
Such tales are brought to you by the finest in the dark fiction genre, including Australian favourites Jason Nahrung and Martin Livings, UK eco-horror leader Joseph D’Lacey, and multiple Bram Stoker award-winning US author, Jonathan Maberry.
Take care whilst reading. When the apocalypse arrives, you may find you do not wish to survive.
Within this volume, I have collected tales that reflect the very core of humanity – the desperate struggle for survival. Time will freeze existence, birds will signal an impending doom, refugees will be shown an awful reception, memories will be harvested, monsters hunted, and nightmares created. And, in a lost story, the wind from hell will make the dead moan.
Such tales are brought to you by the finest in the dark fiction genre, including Australian favourites Jason Nahrung and Martin Livings, UK eco-horror leader Joseph D’Lacey, and multiple Bram Stoker award-winning US author, Jonathan Maberry.
Take care whilst reading. When the apocalypse arrives, you may find you do not wish to survive.
272 pages, Paperback
First published May 8, 2012
43 people want to read
About the author
Craig Bezant
11 books5 followersCrime writer Craig Bezant hails from Perth, Western Australia. He is the author of the Henry Herbert crime series, and the children’s adventure novel, The Flats. His short fiction has also appeared in numerous magazines and online publications.
Craig created and edited the award-nominated Eclecticism E-zine before co-founding Dark Prints Press (2010-14). Since then, he has edited and published the work of over 100 of the world's best crime and horror authors, including Lawrence Block, Chris Simms, Jonathan Maberry, Joseph D'Lacey, Angela Slatter, Gary A. Braunbeck, Alan Baxter, and Stephen M Irwin.
Craig won the 2012 Australian Shadows Award for Best Edited Publication (Surviving the End), was guest editor for Midnight Echo #10 (AHWA), was an Associate Editor for HorrorScope and a judge for the 2009, 2010 and 2023 Australian Shadows Awards.
Craig loves reading (when he's not writing), Lego, basketball, video games, typewriters and tattoos. Of course, his family is everything (they didn't make him say that, honest).
Craig created and edited the award-nominated Eclecticism E-zine before co-founding Dark Prints Press (2010-14). Since then, he has edited and published the work of over 100 of the world's best crime and horror authors, including Lawrence Block, Chris Simms, Jonathan Maberry, Joseph D'Lacey, Angela Slatter, Gary A. Braunbeck, Alan Baxter, and Stephen M Irwin.
Craig won the 2012 Australian Shadows Award for Best Edited Publication (Surviving the End), was guest editor for Midnight Echo #10 (AHWA), was an Associate Editor for HorrorScope and a judge for the 2009, 2010 and 2023 Australian Shadows Awards.
Craig loves reading (when he's not writing), Lego, basketball, video games, typewriters and tattoos. Of course, his family is everything (they didn't make him say that, honest).
Ratings & Reviews
Friends & Following
Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!
Community Reviews
Displaying 1 - 5 of 5 reviews
March 23, 2017
For lovers of the post-apocalyptic, you could do a lot worse than this collection of short stories. And I don't know that you could do a lot better. I enjoyed this.
The darkness is definitely there. The editor has chosen authors who target language purposefully. And for the most part, the stories are worth telling. There was only one of the 8 stories I got bored with and didn't finish...which is something for me. Authors like Nahrung, D'Lacey and Maberry keep up a cracking pace and horrify nicely.
The editor's links between stories bothered me at first but by the end of the collection, I was enjoying them.
There is a distinct theme in this collection: what human beings are capable, both good and bad. I loved this most of all...
Oh, and if you don't like coarse language and lots of it, this is not the collection for you. If it doesn't bother you, buy it. A great read.
The darkness is definitely there. The editor has chosen authors who target language purposefully. And for the most part, the stories are worth telling. There was only one of the 8 stories I got bored with and didn't finish...which is something for me. Authors like Nahrung, D'Lacey and Maberry keep up a cracking pace and horrify nicely.
The editor's links between stories bothered me at first but by the end of the collection, I was enjoying them.
There is a distinct theme in this collection: what human beings are capable, both good and bad. I loved this most of all...
Oh, and if you don't like coarse language and lots of it, this is not the collection for you. If it doesn't bother you, buy it. A great read.
September 4, 2012
I really enjoyed this story collection. Each of the stories are unique and interesting. I think there was only one story where I could see the ending coming from the second page (unfortunately the first story). The others are all very different from one another. I found I read through this book in just a few days. It was easy to pick up and fall into.
The only downside is the way each of the stories are forcibly tied together. It was a unique idea to try to string a story around the different shorter ones with the idea of a person going from village to village gathering these stories, but it didn't work well as a way of introducing stories. It forced me to assume that every story presented was being told from a first person narrative (since I tend to share stories using "I" and "me" when I'm talking about myself), and that was not the case. We're told no one knows how the world ended and that's why the stories are so disparate. But then we get stories in third person, and in the most ridiculous case, one story where the teller says that they are going to tell the story in the voice of a person who he didn't know which is the exact way his mother told him the story. At times, it forced me to pause and think, "Who is telling this story now?"
But I still loved that idea as a way of tying together stories, and it did have an interesting premise and a conclusion. Overall, this was a great collection.
The only downside is the way each of the stories are forcibly tied together. It was a unique idea to try to string a story around the different shorter ones with the idea of a person going from village to village gathering these stories, but it didn't work well as a way of introducing stories. It forced me to assume that every story presented was being told from a first person narrative (since I tend to share stories using "I" and "me" when I'm talking about myself), and that was not the case. We're told no one knows how the world ended and that's why the stories are so disparate. But then we get stories in third person, and in the most ridiculous case, one story where the teller says that they are going to tell the story in the voice of a person who he didn't know which is the exact way his mother told him the story. At times, it forced me to pause and think, "Who is telling this story now?"
But I still loved that idea as a way of tying together stories, and it did have an interesting premise and a conclusion. Overall, this was a great collection.
June 11, 2013
Very much enjoyed this collection of dystopian tales. Bezant does well to enter himself into the narrative as an editorial devise to link the stories together with his interludes, that was a nice touch.
All of the stories are quality. Loved Michael Bailey's 'Hiatus'. It works well when a writer takes a familiar trope and gives it a little tweak - a hiatus, not the apocalypse. This works very well. Jason Nahrung does a great line in Aussie bogan characters. I've seen him do this before. I like the bogans' response to horrific situations. Martin Livings' work is always quality, and 'Unwanted' is another very nasty piece - in a good way. Jonathan Maberry's 'The Wind Through the Fence' is great, and very very bleak, like a good apocalpyptic tale should be.
Amanda J Spedding and Kathryn Hore offer bleak tales with a hint of hope. I gather that is the female take on the apocalypse, a sense of the possibility of re-birth. Just slightly less dystopian.
If I have one minor criticism it would be that I would have liked another 2-3 short sotries in place of the novella - not that Joseph D'Lacey's tale wasn't also excellent.
I read this in two sittings on the train coming home from work.
All of the stories are quality. Loved Michael Bailey's 'Hiatus'. It works well when a writer takes a familiar trope and gives it a little tweak - a hiatus, not the apocalypse. This works very well. Jason Nahrung does a great line in Aussie bogan characters. I've seen him do this before. I like the bogans' response to horrific situations. Martin Livings' work is always quality, and 'Unwanted' is another very nasty piece - in a good way. Jonathan Maberry's 'The Wind Through the Fence' is great, and very very bleak, like a good apocalpyptic tale should be.
Amanda J Spedding and Kathryn Hore offer bleak tales with a hint of hope. I gather that is the female take on the apocalypse, a sense of the possibility of re-birth. Just slightly less dystopian.
If I have one minor criticism it would be that I would have liked another 2-3 short sotries in place of the novella - not that Joseph D'Lacey's tale wasn't also excellent.
I read this in two sittings on the train coming home from work.
December 23, 2012
DISCLAIMER - I have a story in this collection. I shan't be mentioning it. :)
This was an excellent collection, definitely some fascinating ideas and stories in it. It didn't QUITE work as a single history of the apocalypse, as the plots of the stories and the mechanisms of the various apocalypses (apocalpsi?) were so varied and incompatible with one another, but that really doesn't matter when they're such bloody good stories!
It'd be hard to pick a favourite, there were no weak stories in this collection, but probably Joseph D'Lacey's "The Failing Flesh" stands out, mainly because of its size and scope, it takes up nearly a third of the book on its own, and has echoes of Harry Adam Knight's underrated novel The Fungus as well some nice Cthulhian resonances as well. But as I said, all of the stories were excellent and unique; even the requisite zombie story at the end by Jonathan Maberry had a new spin on the tale.
Definitely one for those looking for something new in post-apocalyptic fiction. Get out there and buy it. Now.
This was an excellent collection, definitely some fascinating ideas and stories in it. It didn't QUITE work as a single history of the apocalypse, as the plots of the stories and the mechanisms of the various apocalypses (apocalpsi?) were so varied and incompatible with one another, but that really doesn't matter when they're such bloody good stories!
It'd be hard to pick a favourite, there were no weak stories in this collection, but probably Joseph D'Lacey's "The Failing Flesh" stands out, mainly because of its size and scope, it takes up nearly a third of the book on its own, and has echoes of Harry Adam Knight's underrated novel The Fungus as well some nice Cthulhian resonances as well. But as I said, all of the stories were excellent and unique; even the requisite zombie story at the end by Jonathan Maberry had a new spin on the tale.
Definitely one for those looking for something new in post-apocalyptic fiction. Get out there and buy it. Now.
February 24, 2013
Loved how they all tied in with each other.
Katharine is a judge for the Aurealis Awards. This review is the personal opinion of Katharine herself, and does not necessarily reflect the opinion of any judging panel, the judging coordinator or the Aurealis Awards management team.
To be safe, I won't be recording my review here until after the AA are over.
To be safe, I won't be recording my review here until after the AA are over.
Displaying 1 - 5 of 5 reviews