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lesserjoke's review against another edition
3.0
This 2008 anthology collects 22 short stories about life after various apocalyptic scenarios, all but one of which had been previously published elsewhere (although Stephen King's plague journal "The End of the Whole Mess" was the only entry I'd read before). The sole new contribution turns out to be one of my favorites: "Judgment Passed" by Jerry Oltion, in which a group of astronauts return to earth only to discover that biblical Armageddon has come and gone in the time they've been away, and all other humans are now presumably in either heaven or hell. Another highlight for me -- and a reminder that I still need to track down the original collection it's drawn from -- is "Speech Sounds" by Octavia E. Butler, about an unraveling society where most people have lost the ability to either form or comprehend language.
As those selections demonstrate, the exact doomsday premises vary quite a bit from author to author, which is a good approach for a work like this. There's also a range of tones here; although it's easy to see this genre as exclusively a subset of horror, I tend to prefer the exercises that find some dawning hope amid the bleakness, rather than just humanity's futile last gasps.
Overall, though, like many other anthologies, it's a mixed lot quality-wise. I rated every individual title as I read through them, and the mean and mode ratings both came out to 3-out-of-5 stars for me. That's a score that indicates I like a particular piece more than I dislike it but have not really been blown away, which is true of this book as a whole as well. I'd still recommend it for fans of this sort of fiction, but it's not uniformly strong across its contents.
[Content warning for gun violence, body horror, incest, rape, and gore.]
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As those selections demonstrate, the exact doomsday premises vary quite a bit from author to author, which is a good approach for a work like this. There's also a range of tones here; although it's easy to see this genre as exclusively a subset of horror, I tend to prefer the exercises that find some dawning hope amid the bleakness, rather than just humanity's futile last gasps.
Overall, though, like many other anthologies, it's a mixed lot quality-wise. I rated every individual title as I read through them, and the mean and mode ratings both came out to 3-out-of-5 stars for me. That's a score that indicates I like a particular piece more than I dislike it but have not really been blown away, which is true of this book as a whole as well. I'd still recommend it for fans of this sort of fiction, but it's not uniformly strong across its contents.
[Content warning for gun violence, body horror, incest, rape, and gore.]
Like this review?
--Throw me a quick one-time donation here!
https://ko-fi.com/lesserjoke
--Subscribe here to support my writing and weigh in on what I read next!
https://patreon.com/lesserjoke
--Follow along on Goodreads here!
https://www.goodreads.com/user/show/6288479-joe-kessler
--Or click here to browse through all my previous reviews!
https://lesserjoke.home.blog
silenttardis's review against another edition
3.0
uhmmm i started john joseph adams collections by another collection , and i felt a bit disapointed by this collection, there were a couple of stories that i really enjoyed but most of them they were ok, not great, and thats fine i guess, i will listen to another collection next and hopefully i will enjoy way more ^__^ , but maybe this book will be your favorite, just it wasnt mine.
mbcovarrubias's review against another edition
3.0
There were some stories that were very interesting, there were some that were not so much. It was overall a decent collection, though I felt like they could have been curated better.
searobin's review against another edition
adventurous
challenging
dark
hopeful
reflective
tense
medium-paced
3.5
I really enjoyed:
- The End of the Whole Mess - Stephen King
- Dark, Dark Were the Tunnels - George R.R. Martin
- When Sysadmins Ruled the Earth - Cory Doctorow
- Inertia - Nancy Kress
- And the Deep Blue Sea - Elizabeth Bear
- Speech Sounds - Octavia E. Butler
errski's review against another edition
dnf will return to read more short stories
calbowen's review against another edition
4.0
This is a fun collection - some hits and some misses, but I think that my hits are someone else's misses, and my misses are someone else's hits - and that is really the point of these collections, isn't it? to give you something that you will like and something you may not like - it is also a good way to be introduced to new authors and new writing style
tregina's review against another edition
4.0
READ THIS BOOK. It says it gathers together the best post-apocalyptic literature of the past two decades and it so totally does.
trin's review against another edition
3.0
Above-average collection of short stories, which benefits from a wonderful focus and tightness of theme: it’s the apocalypse, baby! This assortment of post-apocalyptic worlds gets a boost from some truly stellar contributions from [a:Paolo Bacigalupi|12052|Gardner R. Dozois|http://www.goodreads.com/images/nophoto/nophoto-U-50x66.jpg], [a:Cory Doctorow|12581|Cory Doctorow|http://photo.goodreads.com/authors/1212526024p2/12581.jpg], and [a:Octavia Butler|29535|Octavia E. Butler|http://photo.goodreads.com/authors/1204233678p2/29535.jpg]. Other entries are less joy- and more WTF-inducing (WTF, [a:Orson Scott Card|589|Orson Scott Card|http://photo.goodreads.com/authors/1237932066p2/589.jpg]?), and rather too many focus on post-apocalyptic traveling carnivals (um, obviously, right?). But in general, this is one of the rare anthologies I’d eagerly recommend.
stepriot's review against another edition
3.0
I don't think John Joseph Adams and I have similar taste at all. I admire all the work he's done for the writing community. I just don't think I like his editorial senses. There were a few classics in this one though. But a lot of it was just alright.
lsparrow's review against another edition
4.0
I loved this collection of apocalypse - the range of different characters and end of the world scenarios.
I feel I lived in many of the worlds - I kept thinking about the questions raised.
I feel I lived in many of the worlds - I kept thinking about the questions raised.