Wastelands: The New Apocalypse

Wastelands #3

by John Joseph Adams (Editor), Veronica Roth, Hugh Howey

The brilliant new post-apocalyptic collection by master anthologist John Joseph Adams, for the first time including new stories by the edgiest modern writers.

New short fiction by many of the edgiest modern authors, offering tales of life after the apocalyptic event or events that end society as we know it today. In addition to a selection of newly reprinted works, WASTELANDS 3 will feature original, never-before-published stories by a group of writers hand-picked by master editor John Joseph Adams. Original stories by Veronica Roth, Hugh Howet, Elizabeth Bear, Seanan McGuire, Tananarive Due, Wendy N. Wagner and many more. Reprints will include works by Carmen Maria Machado, Charlie Jane Anders, Paolo Bacigalupi, Ken Liu and Cat Valente amongst others.

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

718 pages, Paperback

First published June 4, 2019

About the author

John Joseph Adams is the series editor of BEST AMERICAN SCIENCE FICTION AND FANTASY. He is also the bestselling editor of many other anthologies, such as ROBOT UPRISINGS, DEAD MAN'S HAND, BRAVE NEW WORLDS,WASTELANDS, and THE LIVING DEAD. Recent and forthcoming books include WHAT THE #@&% IS THAT?, OPERATION ARCANA, PRESS START TO PLAY, LOOSED UPON THE WORLD, and THE APOCALYPSE TRIPTYCH (consisting of THE END IS NIGH, THE END IS NOW, and THE END HAS COME). Called “the reigning king of the anthology world” by Barnes & Noble, John is a two-time winner of the Hugo Award (for which he has been nominated nine times), is a seven-time World Fantasy Award finalist, and served as a judge for the 2015 National Book Award. John is also the editor and publisher of the digital magazines LIGHTSPEED and NIGHTMARE, and is a producer for Wired's THE GEEK'S GUIDE TO THE GALAXY podcast. You can find him online at www.johnjosephadams.com and on Twitter @JohnJosephAdams.

Reviews

[Karl]

Contents:

009 - INTRODUCTION by John Joseph Adams
011 - "BULLET POINT" by Elizabeth Bear
028 - "THE RED THREAD" by Sofia Samatar
038 - "EXPEDITION 83" by Wendy N. Wagner
056 - "THE LAST TO MATTER" by Adam-Troy Castro
078 - "NOT THIS WAR, NOT THIS WORLD" by Jonathan Maberry
094 - "WHERE WOULD YOU BE NOW" by Carrie Vaughn
119 - "THE ELEPHANTS’ CREMATORIUM" by Timothy Mudie
130 - "BONES OF GOSSAMER" by Hugh Howey
140 - "AS GOOD AS NEW" by Charlie Jane Anders
157 - "ONE DAY ONLY" by Tananarive Due
176 - "BLACK, THEIR REGALIA" by Darcie Little Badger
190 - "THE PLAGUE" by Ken Liu
194 - "FOUR KITTENS" by Jeremiah Tolbert
208 - "EYES OF THE FLOOD" by Susan Jane Bigelow
214 - "THE LAST GARDEN" by Jack Skillingstead
227 - "THROUGH SPARKS IN MORNING’S DAWN" by Tobias S. Buckell
244 - "CANNIBAL ACTS" by Maureen F. McHugh
257 - "ECHO" by Veronica Roth
273 - "SHOOTING THE APOCALYPSE" by Paolo Bacigalupi
295 - "THE HUNGRY EARTH" by Carmen Maria Machado
300 - "LAST CHANCE" by Nicole Kornher-Stace
328 - "A SERIES OF IMAGES FROM RUINED CITY AT THE END OF THE WORLD" by Violet Allen
338 - "COME ON DOWN" by Meg Elison
344 - "DON’T PACK HOPE" by Emma Osborne
349 - "POLLY WANNA CRACKER?" by Greg van Eekhout
356 - "OTHERWISE" by Nisi Shawl
379 - "AND THE REST OF US WAIT" by Corinne Duyvis
410 - "THE LAST CHILD" by Scott Sigler
421 - "SO SHARP, SO BRIGHT, SO FINAL" by Seanan McGuire
435 - "BURN 3" by Kami Garcia
455 - "SNOW" by Dale Bailey
470 - "THE AIR IS CHALK" by Richard Kadrey
489 - "THE FUTURE IS BLUE" by Catherynne M. Valente
512 - "FRANCISCA MONTOYA’S ALMANAC OF THINGS THAT CAN KILL YOU" by Shaenon K. Garrity

[Boston · Rating 4 out of 5]

4.5 stars

[Jeff Ranger · Rating 2 out of 5]

This should have been a slam dunk. I usually love post -apocalyptic stories. But there uniformly precious little excitement or adventure here, almost no exploration of setting.

Strangely, most of the stories feature LGBTQ themes or protagonists. If that's your thing, this is a goldmine for you. I'm kind of shocked that there wasn't some mention of it on the dust jacket if they were trying to make some point about excluding cis male protagonists.

[Neil J Radulski · Rating 2 out of 5]

So so

The stories were average. More than a few of them tried too hard to be “woke” and veered into preachy.

[Jason · Rating 2 out of 5]

I wanted to give this compilation a higher score but a few things held it back. I felt saturated with LGBT+ messaging. It felt to me like this was the core message from many of the authors, instead of stories about the struggle for life in the aftermath. In addition, some of the narrators (audio book version) were suboptimal. Michael Braun and Laura Knight Keating were GREAT though. This won't stop me from trying #4 when it comes out in the future. But, if the next work is as bad as this one, then I certainly won't won't read beyond that. Too many other great post-apocalyptic works out there than to waste time on content that focuses on teaching me social justice. Nothing wrong with that, but that is a completely different genre of literature in my opinion. Perhaps I had set my hopes too high for #3 based on how much I enjoyed the previous two anthologies. Still, a few nice gems buried within this book. So maybe still worth the read.

[Michael · Rating 2 out of 5]

I get that there’s gay people in the apocalypse, I just don’t need an entire book about it. Don’t @ me.

[Amy · Rating 3 out of 5]

“My point being: we’re almost certainly and in all conceivable ways fucked six ways to Sunday”.

SYNOPSIS:
The brilliant new post-apocalyptic collection by master anthologist John Joseph Adams, for the first time including new stories by the edgiest modern writers.

New short fiction by many of the edgiest modern authors, offering tales of life after the apocalyptic event or events that end society as we know it today. In addition to a selection of newly reprinted works, WASTELANDS 3 will feature original, never-before-published stories by a group of writers hand-picked by master editor John Joseph Adams. Original stories by Veronica Roth, Hugh Howet, Elizabeth Bear, Seanan McGuire, Tananarive Due, Wendy N. Wagner and many more. Reprints will include works by Carmen Maria Machado, Charlie Jane Anders, Paolo Bacigalupi, Ken Liu and Cat Valente amongst others.

REVIEW:
Firstly I would like to thank Titan Books and John Joseph Adams for sending me a finished copy of this book. Although the book was sent to me for the purpose of reviewing, all the opinions and views discussed are entirely my own and not influenced by being sent a copy of this book.

I was really intrigued by the premise of this book; I haven’t read many books before that have been contributed to by a range of authors, and I thought the dystopian genre was really intriguing. What this book explores is potential post-apocalyptic disasters; whether it’s via nuclear war, a pandemic, climate change, or cosmological disaster, Adams allows the authors to explore their view on how the survivors move past this and how the world comes back together.

This book is a bit of a mixed bag for me. I really enjoyed some of the short stories, whereas others just dragged on for me. I definitely found towards the end of the book that I was getting a bit bored and just found that one bleak short story after another was a bit too much for me. I do like the really different perspectives and explorations that each author explored in their short story, and I appreciate that no story was the same. Each author took an individual approach to the topic and it did end up with a really wide range of stories.

The majority of these stories are bleak. They are about a hopeless world trying to move on from disaster, and I think this is part of the issue. When you’re reading a 500+ page novel where story after story is depressing, it gets hard to continue to read it. That said, there are some uplifting moments in the story, and it shows that there will always be a light in the darkness.

I was going to breakdown each story but there’s just so many and I’m not sure I really remember enough about each one, so I’m going to talk about the ones that stood out to me the most.

I think one of my favourite stories of this book was actually the first story by Elizabeth Bear titled “Bullet Point“. This short story follows Isabella who believes that she is the last human having not come across anyone else. Throughout this chapter Bear bullet points things that don’t exist anymore, amongst the collection are; fresh baked cookies, taxes, speeding tickets, assholes, dating websites, and the Tour de France. I really really enjoyed this chapter, I thought the character of Isabella managed to be really fleshed out in such a short space of time, and I also liked the challenges that she came up against in this chapter. I actually don’t want to say too much about this chapter so i’m going to leave it there, but it was really good.

Chapter 5 by Adam-Troy Castor, titled “The Last to Matter” was honestly a really bizarre chapter and i’m still not sure what to think about this. This chapter definitely had quite a fantasy feel to it but I wasn’t a massive fan of it. It just didn’t seem to go anywhere for me, and didn’t really hook me in. The reason I felt the need to comment on this chapter was because there is a particular line that has scarred me forever – “he met a woman who decided to spend her years giving birth. She sat naked, her back against a wall, her legs splayed to facilitate the escape of her offspring, a glistening fetal something who while Kayn watched several times squirmed its way free of her birth canal, then climbed up her body to force its way back into her open mouth”. The paragraph goes onto explain how the MC Kayn has conversations with this offspring and at this point I may have checked out of this story, I was just disturbed.

Chapter 6 by Jonathan Maberry and Chapter 7 by Carrie Vaughn, titled “Not this War, Not this World” and “Where would you be now” respectively are also both really good chapters. They are both very different to one another and have really different tones, but both explore how people might act and behave once the world has gone to hell. Chapter 6 is actually a short sequel to Maberry’s story Dead of Night and Fall of Night, both of which I am now intrigued to read.

Chapter 13 by Ken Liu titled “The Plague” is only four pages long but is so powerful; no matter how the world ends there will always be someone there to tell you that you are surviving wrong “he sees my happiness as misery, my thoughtfulness as depression, my wishes as delusion. It is funny how a man can see only what he wants to see. He wants to make me the same as him, because he thinks he’s better“.

And finally chapter 28 by Corinne Duyvis titled “And the rest of us wait“. Although this is arguably a bleak story I think it is the most uplifting of all the story; it shows that there is a little light in the darkness, and even though everything is falling about you’ve got to hold tight to what bit of humanity and life that you can.

There are a couple of these stories that I would easily rate five stars and have intrigued me to want to check out the authors, but others I just wasn’t interested in. So overall I would rate the whole collection three stars. I do really like the concept of this and would be intrigued to read more similar anthologies like this.

This book is due to be published on June 4th; if you enjoyed post-apocalyptic dystopian novels I would recommend you giving this a browse.

[Bill Zawrotny · Rating 3 out of 5]

Definitely not as good as the first two Wasteland anthologies. An overabundance of progressive lifestyle stories...even post-apocalyptic stories are going down the politically correct path. Nonetheless, a few gems in here.

[Bonnie McDaniel · Rating 3 out of 5]

John Joseph Adams is one of the foremost editors and anthologists of our times. The list of anthologies he has edited or co-edited is impressive, and I own several of them, including the first two volumes of this series. I don't think this is quite as impressive as some (especially Cosmic Powers) simply because this end-of-the-world concept has been done so many times before that it's really hard to come up with a fresh take on it. At this point in the series, I think the stories have to be more about the people surviving the apocalypse rather than the apocalypse itself. Looking at the stories through this lens, here are the standouts.

"Bullet Point," Elizabeth Bear, the opening story. I've read elsewhere that this is a bit of a refutation to Harlan Ellison's "A Boy and His Dog," with the protagonist's quick and brutal rejection of the standard we're-the-last-two-humans-on-earth-and-we-have-to-reproduce nonsense. (I wonder why none of the men spouting this bullshit stops to think about the inevitable consequences of inbreeding.) Yes, there is a dog, and no, the dog doesn't die. This story is interesting because the only explanation given for the apocalypse--apparently everybody on Earth just up and disappears--is, possibly, the Rapture.

"The Elephants' Crematorium," Timothy Mudie. One of my favorite stories in the book, this is a lovely, lyrical tale about the elephants' despair after the apocalypse, and their immolating themselves because of it, until one pregnant woman shows them there is life and hope.

"Echo," Veronica Roth. The best story in the book, in my opinion, is this tale of Synthetic Intelligent Life Forms versus humans, and a young woman whose life was saved by those same "sylphs" deciding where her true loyalties lie.

"Polly Wanna Cracker?" Greg Van Eekhout. This is a nasty, sly subversion of the apocalyptic-survivor-mutant cliche, told from the point of view of a flock of parrots (probably African grays, I would imagine) generations after the nuclear war. It's also a reminder that large flightless birds are badass mofos.

"So Sharp, So Bright, So Final," Seanan McGuire. McGuire, with her love of medical apocalypses, digs up another one: a mutating rabies virus that becomes airborne.

"The Air is Chalk," Richard Kadrey. This one is downright weird, even for an anthology of this type, full of gore and body horror, and an anti-hero protagonist who most definitely gets what's coming to him.

The rest of the stories are of generally even quality, with only one or two I didn't like. I suppose one could say that, overall, this anthology is pretty depressing, which is only natural given its subject matter. But there are occasional flashes of hope, and this is a reminder of how stubborn and resilient human beings can be. You probably have to be in a certain state of mind to enjoy this, but it's worth the read.

[Angela]

Well, this was a disappointing collection of short stories. I became so bored and frustrated with it that I've given up around chapter 17.
The only stories that really stood out for me were Hugh Howey, Ken Liu and Timothy Mudie.

There is a mix of narrators for each story. Some were really good and and others were absolutely appalling and actually sounded like they were making a mockery of narrating a short story/novella.

Anyone who knows me, knows that I love apocalyptic and dystopian literature, and that I love short stories. This collection should have been perfect for me but instead a lot of the stories I listened to were mediocre and lazy in their world building.

[Josh · Rating 3 out of 5]

Maybe Adams finally reached the limit of great post-apocalyptic fiction with this collection. It sure seems like it. Wastelands 1+2 were equal parts wicked, hopeful, and depressing. So many of the stories in this collection were just flat.
There were a few worthwhile stories here, even a few delightfully inventive ones, but overall I would say this collection could be skipped unless you are absolutely a die-hard reader of post apocalyptic fiction and devour every little bit of it you can find.

[Seregil of Rhiminee · Rating 5 out of 5]

Originally published at Risingshadow.

Wastelands: The New Apocalypse is the new post-apocalyptic anthology by the editor John Joseph Adams (this anthology is the third book in the Wastelands series). The editor has assembled an impressive anthology of short stories focusing on what life would be like after the end of the world as we know it. The stories represent a wide range of perspectives and encompass diverse points of view.

This anthology presents readers with various post-apocalyptic scenarios. Each of the authors has imagined his/her own kind of a vision of post-apocalyptic world (the end has come either by climate disaster, infection, a comet impact or by other means). The worldbuilding in their stories is captivating as they describe in what kind of a world the survivors live and how they have coped with the drastic changes. The world has ended, but life goes on and there may be rays of hope amidst the bleakness and desolation.

What makes this anthology compelling is that the authors don't merely concentrate on writing about what life is like after the apocalypse and how bleak things are, but also tell of what kind of new possibilities and opportunities the apocalypse has brought to the survivors. Although the familiar world doesn't exist anymore, things may not be as bad or harrowing as they might be, because the new world is filled with various opportunities for those who don't give up and want to survive. Something new has risen from the ruins of the old world and people must adapt to the changes or perish.

This anthology contains the following 34 stories:

- Bullet Point by Elizabeth Bear
- The Red Thread by Sofia Samatar
- Expedition 83 by Wendy N. Wagner
- The Last to Matter by Adam-Troy Castro
- Not This War, Not This World by Jonathan Maberry
- Where Would You Be Now by Carrie Vaughn
- The Elephants' Crematorium by Timothy Mudie
- Bones of Gossamer by Hugh Howey
- As Good As New by Charlie Jane Anders
- One Day Only by Tananarive Due
- Black, Their Regalia by Darcie Little Badger
- The Plague by Ken Liu
- Four Kittens by Jeremiah Tolbert
- Eyes of the Flood by Susan Jane Bigelow
- The Last Garden by Jack Skillingstead
- Through Sparks in Morning's Dawn by Tobias S. Buckell
- Cannibal Acts by Maureen F. McHugh
- Echo by Veronica Roth
- Shooting the Apocalypse by Paolo Bacigalupi
- The Hungry Earth by Carmen Maria Machado
- Last Chance by Nicole Kornher-Stace
- A Series of Images from Ruined City at the End of the World by Violet Allen
- Come On Down by Meg Elison
- Don't Pack Hope by Emma Osborne
- Polly Wanna Cracker? by Greg van Eekhout
- Otherwise by Nisi Shawl
- And the Rest of Us Wait by Corinne Duyvis
- The Last Child by Scott Sigler
- So Sharp, So Bright, So Final by Seanan McGuire
- Burn 3 by Kami Garcia
- Snow by Dale Bailey
- The Air Is Chalk by Richard Kadrey
- The Future Is Blue by Catherynne M. Valente
- Francisca Montoya's Almanac of Things That Can Kill You by Shaenon K. Garrity

These stories deliver readers powerful images of abandoned houses, ruined cities and deserted places, because they tell of various survivors who live, love, work and struggle in a broken world where civilisation has fallen. The survivor's lives and fates are depicted in a realistic way with a dose of harsh realism and human resilience.

Because these stories are set at different times, the apocalypse has been recent to some of the survivors, but to others, it's only a distant memory. I enjoyed reading about the various settings, because they were captivating and well-portrayed. The world and its current state is revealed to the reader through the characters' eyes in a stunning way.

I think it's good to mention that some of the stories have an emotional impact on the reader. This effect is enhanced by literary prose which creates a connection between the reader and the protagonists.

What I like perhaps most about these stories is that they offer something for everybody. They contain - amongst other things - bleakness, death, love, hope, survival issues and weirdness. Whether you're interested in science fiction, post-apocalyptic fiction, horror fiction or literary fiction, you'll find something to love in this anthology.

Next, I'll write a few words about stories that reveal how diverse and captivating the contents of this anthology are:

The powerful opening story, "Bullet Point" by Elizabeth Bear, invites readers to explore a world where a woman has survived the apocalypse and finds out that somebody else might be alive too. This insightful story is filled with excellent remarks about the world and things that don't exist anymore.

Sofia Samatar's "The Red Thread" continues the high quality established by the first story. This touching and atmospheric tale tells of Sahra who writes messages to Fox. The author reveals captivating glimpses of the world in Sahra's messages and explores Sahra's feelings and inner turmoil in a delicate way.

In Adam Troy-Castro's "The Last to Matter", Kayn is being rejected by the orgynism and finds himself alone. After spending years in sexual bliss, life is now different for him as he acquaints himself with the world again. The world has changed a lot while he spent time with his lovers in the orgynism. This story is one of the most original and compelling post-apocalyptical stories I've read in ages, because it combines the familiar with the weird in a strong and thought-provoking way.

In Charlie Jane Anders' "As Good As New ", Marisol watches TV show in her panic room. Marisol has survived the end of the world by spending time in the panic room. The author writes intriguingly about Marisol's life and tells of how the world has changed because of the quakes. I'm not going to reveal anything about the happenings, but I can mention that this story has a fascinating twist that puts everything into new perspective. I find this story highly entertaining and original, because it's something different.

"The Plague" by Ken Liu is an excellent and memorable short story about a future where mankind has been divided into those who have survived the plague and to those who suffer from its consequences. It tells of a meeting between a girl whose skin has been replaced with the plague and a man from the Dome where healthy people live.

In Jack Skillingstead's "The Last Garden", humanity has been wiped out by a plague. One of the survivors, Casey, makes her way towards the Doomsday Vault and the embryo clones, and interacts with a top-secret military-grade AI called the Surrogate. I liked this story, because the author's vision of the happenings is captivating.

Maureen F. McHugh's "Cannibal Acts" is an excellent story that takes place in Alaska. It tells of a biologist who has become a butcher and dissects human bodies so that they can be cooked and eaten. This story presents readers with a captivating end of the world scenario that is told from a point of view of a woman who has done her best to survive under harsh conditions and has had to eat human flesh. Cannibalism brings an intriguing touch of freshness and morbidity to this story, because eating human flesh is not an easy decision.

In Violet Allen's "A Series of Images from Ruined City at the End of the World", readers get to read about how the protagonist reminisces about meeting a man called Flynn in the ruins of the city. This short story is surprisingly insightful and touching. I liked it, because it combines harsh realism and sentimentalism in a fluent way.

Nisi Shawl's "Otherwise" is a fascinating and well written story. It depicts a world where adults have become 'Otherwise', which is a condition caused by drugs. It features a bit different kind of a teen romance with LGBT and polyamorous elements.

"And the Rest of Us Wait" by Corinne Duyvis is a fascinating story with a bit different kind of a protagonist. This story tells about surviving an impact caused by a comet and an all-girl band.

One of the strongest stories in this anthology is "The Future Is Blue" by Catherynne M. Valente. It's a story about an outcast girl, Tetley, who lives on a floating island called Garbagetown. This story offers readers an image of the world where the icecaps have melted and the continents have disappeared beneath the water, and people live aboard a floating island and dream of dry land. I enjoyed this story and found it refreshingly different and thought-provoking.

Shaenon K. Garrity's "Francisca Montoya's Almanac of Things That Can Kill You" is an excellent final story. In this story, the protagonist tells of many things that can kill a person and tells of what has happened to people who have been injured etc. I enjoyed reading this story, because it's something different and has a bit of black humour.

I was surprised to find depth in many of the stories, because normally this kind of fiction is more entertaining than deep and lacks insightfulness and creativity. Certain stories are surprisingly complex and deep, because the authors examine the characters and their place in the new world in an insightful way.

I've noticed that characterisation is often the weakest point in post-apocalyptic fiction, but not this time. I was impressed by the characterisation in these stories, because the authors have created believable and realistic characters who live their lives as well as they can despite having problems and fears.

Some of the stories contain sexuality and LGBT elements, which are handled excellently by the authors. I was taken by how effortlessly the authors wrote about these things. I was also impressed by how well the characters' feelings and emotions concerning their family and loved ones were explored.

I was pleased to find that many of these stories feature impressive and strong prose. As a lover of literary and nuanced prose, I found these stories satisfying in terms of literary values. It's nice to see authors write excellent prose, because good prose makes a difference and renders the stories captivating.

The diversity of the protagonists was a pleasant surprise to me, because some of the stories featured physically disabled protagonists and LGBT protagonists. Normally, in this kind of stories, there are only typical cookie-cutter heroes and heroines, but now we have more diversity. This is great, because diversity brings freshness and realism to the stories.

I can recommend Wastelands: The New Apocalypse to everybody who yearns to read something entertaining and gripping. If you enjoy well written speculative fiction, please, take a look at this anthology and delve boldly into its post-apocalyptic stories, because the journey you're about to take will astound and reward you. These stories will captivate, shock and entertain you in equal measure.

Highly recommended!

[Papaphilly · Rating 5 out of 5]

What a great read! Not a miss among the selections and there is something for everyone that enjoys this type of story. Wastelands 3: The New Apocalypse contains 34 gems of the genre. It is not all gloom and doom, there are plenty of stories with hope at the end and even better, plenty of contemplative stories. Do not worry, enough action for all of the adrenaline junkies. John Joseph Adams has assembled another masterpiece and I personally think it is the best of the three.

[Jeff Swystun · Rating 2 out of 5]

The previous two anthologies were entertaining, sometimes uncomfortable, reads. On Amazon, I gave the first 4 stars and, the second, five stars. This recent collection, read during the time of Covid (which must have influence), resonated less.

The first edition of Wastelands was a collection of 22 tales premised thinly on hope. The second instalment is arguably about new beginnings because let's face it, the apocalypse changes everything. It held 30 tales exploring every manner of plague, natural disaster, military mess, terrorist threat and more.

This collection shoots for literary glory and leaves behind comic gory. I have a bias towards zombie tales. In the early years of this century, I read everything I could find. For the shortest of times, I felt like I knew a secret many did not. That I was an insider or the only guy who knew to read J.L. Bourne novels.

Then the world was let in and got The Walking Dead in print and television. The latter so utterly frustrating, it was a turnoff. The angst of the characters was exhausting and terribly acted by the entire cast (sorry, I said it). The rediscovery of Atwood and the success of Whitehead suggested that apocalyptic fiction should only be tony literature.

That is how we ended up with this third analogy. From hope to new beginnings, now we have tortured guilt. Thirty-six dark stories to be exact. Over wrought dark, not the blackness of circumstances or of fallible human decisions. Just good old Rick and Laura Grimes contemplative hands-on-hips, heads held low; boring, overly constructive analysis and conversation.

Beyond this prolonged angst, we are presented with genre bending efforts that stray to fantasy like S.M. Stirling medieval times outings. Gone are The Stands, The Roads, and the Swan Songs. Where is The Last Ship, Blindness, or The War of the Worlds? These were all appropriately blunt and surprisingly clever.

Two popular authors made contributions. Mayberry’s was a refreshing old school entry. A sniper. Taut, fast tale. Yet, still immersive in atmosphere. Sigler provides a marketing tease for a series of novels. A move bound to lose advocates.

The Elephant’s Crematorium and Through Sparks in Morning’s Dawn are demonstrations of my thesis. Bones of Gossamer, Cannibal Acts, Snow, and The Eyes of the Flood are decent. The Plague, One Day Only, and Black, Their Regalia will give you viruses, if you get me drift.

More miss than hit in these pages. Stick to the classics or the first two anthologies.

[Justin Pickett · Rating 2 out of 5]

Meh. I zoned out for most of the book/short stories. Mostly, it feels like a collection of unrelated, semi-interesting events. There are very few real stories (e.g., that have arcs). By my count, the hit rate is 7/34 (or 21%). Here are the seven short stories I liked, starting with the best:

“Last Chance” (Nicole Kornher-Stace)
“Expedition 83” (Wendy Wagner)
“Cannibal Acts” (Maureen F. McHugh)
“And the Rest of Us Wait” (Corrine Duyvis)
“Burn 3” (Kami Garcia)
“Bones of Gossamer” (Hugh Howey)
“The Last to Matter” (Adam-Troy Castro)

[RedRedtheycallmeRed · Rating 3 out of 5]

Like with any anthology, there's good, bad and really good. Fortunately, there were only a handful I really didn't like.

Standouts for me were: Bullet Point, The Plague, Last Chance, Come on Down, So Sharp So Bright So Final, and Snow.

I don't really understand all the angry reviews about some of the stories featuring LGBTQ characters. I'm pretty sure queer people aren't up in arms about heterosexual relationships constantly being represented.

[Doreen · Rating 4 out of 5]

I genuinely cannot remember the last time I read a short story collection so consistently stunning. Honestly, there's not a weak one in the bunch, and that's saying a lot considering there are 34 tales of post-apocalyptic life in this hefty volume. Whether the end of the world comes about due to war or infection or alien invasion or climate disaster (or other reason I'm presently forgetting,) these stories chronicle the ways life goes on. It is a surprisingly joyous anthology. Hope is one throughline: survivors use the trappings of fallen civilizations to bring their fellows a reminder of a shared humanity, as in Tananarive Due's One Day Only or Meg Elison's Come On Down. Change is another, as in Susan Jane Bigelow's The Eyes of The Flood or Ken Liu's The Plague, which latter also offers biting commentary on cultural imperialism. The most interesting and worthwhile stories have to do with survivors who aren't the average protagonist of dystopian fiction, such as the transgender hero in Emma Osborne's Don't Pack Hope or the physically disabled heroine of Corinne Duyvis' And The Rest Of Us Wait.

As you might be able to tell, this is an unapologetically progressive anthology. John Joseph Adams has curated an impressive selection of science fiction that is truly forward-thinking, from some of the most famous names in the business. Even the stories that eschew hope for either a jaded acceptance of the end (Adam-Troy Castro's inventive The Last To Matter) or to preserve the status quo (Catherynne M. Valente's The Future Is Blue) do so out of a belief in the power and worth of humanity. In all honesty, I wasn't sure how much of a downer 500+ pages of the end of the world would be but Mr Adams has put together the perfect blend of pathos, humor and courage with which to see through the horrors of the apocalypse.

It's kind of shocking to me how unfamiliar I was with Mr Adams' work prior to this considering how much speculative fiction I consume. I mean, Gardner Dozois and Ellen Datlow and Terri Windling are names embedded in my reader's brain as editorial greats; after this collection, I have a new star to add to that pantheon. Reading this volume brought to mind the days when a tome like this was the most coveted book of the year for me: that interest has waned in recent times, but Wasteland 3: The New Apocalypse has re-sparked my love for sf&f anthologies.

[Joel Alex · Rating 4 out of 5]

So many great stories in this collection, special shout outs to; Expedition 83 by Wendy Wagner, One Day Only by Tananarive Due, The Plague by Ken Liu, Cannibal Acts by Maureen F. McHugh, The Air is Chalk by Richard Kadrey. Really solid book and it is a perfect read for right now.

[Runalong · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is an amazingly well built anthology with a seriously high level of storytelling. It also tends to have a moment of hope in dark times plus reflect people who aren’t all lantern jawed Male heroes. Fantastic

Full review https://www.runalongtheshelves.net/bl...

[Corban Ford · Rating 5 out of 5]

This anthology was a solid assemblage of post-apocalypse fiction by some very talented writers. Regardless of how each writer surmised the world would meet its end, the stories were moving and surprisingly human.
For a book as gloomy as this one, I was pleasantly surprised that I obtained a lot more enjoyment from it than I was expecting.

[Talisa Rafferty · Rating 5 out of 5]

Really really good. So many top notch stories.

[Amy Walker - Trans-Scribe Reviews · Rating 3 out of 5]

'Wastelands: The New Apocalypse' is the latest anthology from Titan Books, and the third book in the Wastelands series. Edited by John Joseph Adams, it collects together an impressive thirty-four short stories that take readers through a host of post-apocalyptic fiction.

One of the most impressive things about this collection is the sheer variety in the stories that it provides. The apocalypse is a wide and fertile environment, a place where writers can tell almost any kind of story, in as different or as recognisable a world as they like. Wastelands: The New Apocalypse cashes in on this.

Some of the stories have a very recognisable world to our own, one where the apocalypse is only recent, or wasn’t catastrophic enough to change things too much. In others, the end was years, sometimes even decades ago, and the environments are much more what you would expect to find in universes like Fallout or Metro. Some stories are set in such distant times that they become almost magical. Wherever the location, whatever the reasons for the apocalypse that created these worlds, the stories all have a very human story at their hearts.

‘Bullet Point’ by Elizabeth Bear tells the story of a young woman left in Las Vegas, the only person left in the city. Everyone else disappeared through some unexplained reason. When she finds one other person, a man, she must figure out if being alone is safer than being with someone else, and we get to see the effects this has on her psyche.

‘Not This War, Not This World’ by Jonathan Maberry, is set within the same universe as Night of the Living Dead and connects the author’s previous books with that world. It follows a military sniper as he tries to survive against the dead. Instead of focusing on fighting against the dead, as many zombie stories do, it shows the deep psychological damage that such an experience would have on someone, and how deeply it can break a spirit.

As well as examining the mental effects of the apocalypse, the book also tells stories about human love and companionship, and how important these connections are, even if the world around you is not the one that you remember.

‘Cannibal Acts’ by Maureen F. McHugh examines the relationship between two people stuck out in the end of the world, struggling to stay alive in Alaska, and how their love keeps them together, even when they are faced with one of the hardest choices in order to stay alive, and fall on opposite sides. ‘Otherwise’ by Nisis Shawl is about two young women in love, their journey to find another that means a great deal to one of them, and how that changes their love and their connection.

Some of the stories in 'Wastelands: The New Apocalypse' aren’t as deep, or even particularly long, yet manage to be just as enthralling and entertaining, such as the world where rabies has turned the majority of the population into raging maniacs, or the world where giant parrots have learnt to prey upon humans for survival, or the game show host who is still putting on his show for the survivors, to try and keep morale up.

'Wastelands: The New Apocalypse' can frighten, inspire, and shock. The stories within tell tales of survival, love, and the strength to overcome the impossible. The apocalypse can be grim and dangerous, yet also contain beauty and wonder, and this book provides all of those and more. With interesting and unique worlds, characters that pull you in, and stories that can be surprisingly complex, there’s something for everyone inside this new entry in the series.

[Blogul · Rating 1 out of 5]

I've actually read all the stories, but only 3 (of about 30 I think) were good: Richard Kadrey's (but also not at all believable), Seanan Mcguire's (but the totally predictable end spoiled it all) and Dale Bailey's.
As for the rest: I did not have a problem with the fact that it's actually a (90%) Lgbt and (partly) YA anthology (and partly over-woke - if i were an American I would be a Democrat, but man this sjw crap is tiring) and not truly a postapocalyptic one as supposed, but I did have a problem with the fact that most stories were simply not good at all as, well, stories.
Because most failed to tell a story (which actually is a must for post-apo much more than other scifi genres) and chose to go only for character "development" (in truth not even that, just character description).
Also, a terrible lack of originality and many of the writers were simply not good enough writers (for an anthology). Also, obviously, most authors here were not post-apo fans themselves, so chose to use it only as a badly done disguise.
I loved Wastelands 1, I am going to read W2 right away, but this one (W3) is really a "must avoid" for the real post-apo crowd and badly done literature in general (I would not recommend it even to the queer crowd it mostly targets).

[Scott Martin · Rating 3 out of 5]

(Audiobook) (3.5 stars) Another in a series of post-apocalyptic anthologies of short stories, this looks at various ideas/scenarios about what such a world could be like. It covers everything from a follow-up to Romero’s Night of the Living Dead to more modern concerns on climate change, etc. This came out in 2019, so more modern interpretations are in order. Good to see a number of women writers, but probably a little overboard on all the lesbian relationships. There are advantages for that, but sometimes, it seemed a little much. Not a lot of comparable gay men relationships, but you can’t account for everyone.

Overall, a solid collection of tales. Probably better to breakup into chunks of stories to read, vs reading all of them in one fell swoop. If you like dystopian tales, this is one to consider.

[A.M. Geever · Rating 5 out of 5]

This anthology is excellent. No two apocalypses are the same, showcasing the creativity of the authors. There was only one story I could not get into, the rest sucked me in almost from the first sentence. I recommend this book to anyone who enjoys post-apocalyptic fiction.

[Nerdycellist D · Rating 4 out of 5]

Really well-done anthology, with some unexpected humor. Only skipped two stories of all the short stories which is a good ratio.

[Linnja (Lynn) · Rating 4 out of 5]

Pop sugar challenge: Anthology

I sometimes felt I was reading a non-fiction book!

[David Alday · Rating 1 out of 5]

Series quality has gone way down hill. The first one was excellent. This one is bland and preachy.

[Beth M · Rating 4 out of 5]

Please read my full review here.

Received free of charge in exchange for an honest review from the publisher.

When reading stories about the apocalypse, one theme is almost always prevalent: hope. Even in the wake of absolute destruction, mankind will always strive for survival, no matter what the circumstances. What that hope looks like may differ from person to person, but the overarching desire to know we continue on is always at the forefront. Each of these stories is an example of how we survive.

Wastelands The New Apocalypse is the third entry in the Wastelands series from Titan Books and edited by John Joseph Adams. Previous novels have featured stories from literary giants like Steven King, George R. R. Martin, and Octavia E. Butler. That trend continues with New Apocalypse, where readers can experience stories from Veronica Roth (Divergent), Seanan McGuire (The Wayward Children series, Middlegame), Carmen Maria Machado (Her Body and Other Parties), and Tananarive Due (African Immortals series, The Good House), among numerous others. Boasting thirty-four in all, Wastelands The New Apocalypse has stories that will interest every variety of reader for all five hundred and twenty four pages.

The best thing about stories like this is that they’re wholly and unapologetically human. They have to be, because like zombie tv shows, video games about spore infested sub humans, and movies about alien invaders, underneath all of it is an allegory of man’s character and the true monstrosity hidden inside all of us. Humanity is evil. It is wicked, vile, and selfish, but it is also good. Because we are all these things, stories about our survival must also be these things, so it only serves that the ever so commonplace setting of the post-apocalypse be served to us in tasty morsels of all these flavors, and this compendium provides a banquet for the unsuspecting reader.

If you’re worried that all of these stories are drowning in doom and gloom, I understand, but fear not! You have your fair share of romance within the pages of Wastelands, a fact that surprised me greatly. What surprised me more — pleasantly, I might add — was the number of LGBT stories that made their way into this novel, as well as stories featuring positive disabled representation.

In other words, some stories are frightening. Some are awe inspiring. But some will genuinely have you reflecting on what matters most, and were you in the narrator’s shoes, how would you respond?

With possibly only two exceptions, I loved every story within this book. Titan and Adams have masterfully crafted a compendium of truly amazing tales that will shock you, thrill you, chill you, and leave you feeling surprisingly good about, of all things, the end of the world.

[Rachel Bridgeman · Rating 4 out of 5]

My thanks to Titan Books for my gifted paperback review copy, I say thanks but it really should be the opposite for all the sleepless nights I had after reading this book...it's very close to where we are as a society right now and they sometimes feel like cautionary tales rather than speculative fiction!

When you read sentences such as this one in the introduction, you have thoughts...

''...hey, maybe we'll try to do something good with viruses, like releasing some kind of engineered microbe into the atmosphere-perhaps designed to combat climate change.Then everything goes awry,and actively, literally, tries to kill us.''

Yikes. Little bit awkward and now we are pretty much living as close to the doomsday clock's stroke of midnight, as we have ever done since it was invented, I guess now is the perfect time for thinking about the ways, and the means, of the end of how the world could end.

Here is a third, mighty thick, volume of apocalyptic tales which cover fantasy, horror and science fiction in the midst of a dystopian setting.

There will be, as always with a themed anthology, ones that you will like more than others, new writers to discover and those stories that just don't take you there. This is a big book with 34 tales of the world as we know it, coming to a halt. That is a lot of stuff to deal with so my advice would be, to take your time and read a story here and there, rather than beginning to end.

It can get heavy but I think the overwhelming message is not the means by which humanity takes itself to the point of apocalypse, it is how we move forward and learn the lessons so that we don't repeat it. And sad to say, I think we have a few more world ending events on our horizon if the way we dealt with Covid is anything to go by...

I found that I really enjoyed Elizabeth Bear's style of writing and , her book opener , Bullet Point, was deeply poignant and definitely has me wanting to read more. It reminded me of that Twilight Zone end of the world episode where everyone in the world appears to have gone, leaving you with all the time to think your thoughts. And count your blessings. Not as fun or as easy as it might seem , but this really drove home the human aspect of the end of the world coming down to one little person in a place that is, ironically, known for never sleeping.

I would definitely look into picking up the other two books edited by John Joseph Adams, but I think taking a break right now into the more relatively calm and serene worlds of outer space is on the cards for me at the moment. What's going on on the earth is not really bringing much comfort or serenity right now.