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A review by kitsuneheart
Wastelands: Stories of the Apocalypse by John Joseph Adams
4.0
As with most anthologies, there's great, meh, and bad, leading to an overall meh rating.
The best: "Speech Sounds" by Octavia Butler, "Judgement Passed" by Jerry Oltion, and "When Sysadmins Ruled the Earth" by Cory Doctorow
The worst:"Salvage" by Orson Scott Card, "Still Life with Apocalypse" by Richard Kadrey, and "The End of the World as We Know It" by Dale Bailey.
Consider the rest to be the meh.
That said, there's a good variety of end of the world scenarios, here. Most are set so far in the future that we don't know HOW it happened, but a good number have some unique mechanics. "Speech Sounds" is especially interesting, being set in a world where all of humanity lost the power of speech.
So, good for anthology lovers, but obviously not the best for everyone.
The best: "Speech Sounds" by Octavia Butler, "Judgement Passed" by Jerry Oltion, and "When Sysadmins Ruled the Earth" by Cory Doctorow
The worst:"Salvage" by Orson Scott Card, "Still Life with Apocalypse" by Richard Kadrey, and "The End of the World as We Know It" by Dale Bailey.
Consider the rest to be the meh.
That said, there's a good variety of end of the world scenarios, here. Most are set so far in the future that we don't know HOW it happened, but a good number have some unique mechanics. "Speech Sounds" is especially interesting, being set in a world where all of humanity lost the power of speech.
So, good for anthology lovers, but obviously not the best for everyone.