Joe Sherry, over at Adventures in Reading, has posted his review of Wastelands. Here’s a snippet:
The bottom line is that collectively the stories John Joseph Adams has put together here in Wastelands shows off the range of the post-apocalyptic sub-genre of fiction. Wastelands is an excellent anthology of short fiction and one that would easily fit on any collector’s shelves. [whole review]
Over at the Asimov’s forum, Rich Horton just posted the table of contents to his two year’s best volumes for 2008. I’ve bolded stories from F&SF:
Science Fiction: The Best of the Year, 2008 edition
Fantasy: The Best of the Year, 2008 edition
He notes that "each volume is waiting on author approval for one story."
My pal David Barr Kirtley just posted two of his stories online, "Save me Plz" and "Blood of Virgins." Both originally appeared in Realms of Fantasy. Go read:
In the mail today, I received the latest issue of Pegasus, the alumni magazine of the University of Central Florida, and in the "Alumni Authors" section, there’s a little blurb about Wastelands:
It’s featured alongside A Guide to Historic Orlando by Steve Rajtar (’73), Anoles: Those Florida Yard Lizards by Steve Isham (’76), and What Lies Beneath the Bed: Tommy’s Tales by Gerald Sharpe (’91).
Sarah Jackson of The Fix did an interview with me recently which is now available for your reading pleasure. Here’s a snippet:
How do you imagine you would deal with being a survivor in a post-apocalyptic wasteland?
I took one of those online tests once that gauged how well you’d do in such a situation, and I fared rather poorly, which I think was a pretty accurate assessment of my chances. I object to its analysis that I had zero nature skills, however. I mean, I’m a total city boy, and much prefer to stay inside most of the time, but I’m not a moron. That said, there is an entirely good chance I’d get mauled by a wild animal if I were stuck on my own after an apocalypse.
The good news is that I know some people who probably would do rather well, and might be inclined to help me out. And I have read a lot of post-apocalyptic fiction, after all, so surely I’ll think of something when the mutants come looking for me.
F&SF author Chris Willrich emailed me the other day to let me know that he enjoyed The Pirate Issue:
I read the Shimmer Pirate Issue over the holidays and really enjoyed it. My favorite story was Cambias’ "Barbary Shore," but I liked them all. It was especially fun to read all the "classic" pirate stories as a set. Though it left me wanting to stay away from the water!
Also, he pointed out that the Santa Clara County library system has six copies of Wastelands in inventory, which he knows, because he works as a librarian there.
In a comment on my LJ feed, someone was asking what my grandfather’s specialty was. He was a Technician 5th Class, with a specialty listed as "Truck Driver (Heavy) (245)." He did that for 55 months of his service; prior to that, he’s listed as having 2 months as a Private doing "Basic Tng Ord. (521)." I’m not clear if that’s just standard basic training or what; I assume the "Ord." refers to Ordnance.
Here’s the description of his "Truck Driver, Heavy" work listed on his discharge paper:
Was a truck driver for the 359th Ordnance Company overseas. Hauled ammunition, supplies, equipment, and military personnel. Drove in all kinds of weather over all kinds of terrain. Drove at night and in blackout areas. Made minor repairs on the truck to keep it in good condition at all times.
He was discharged on Dec. 14, 1945
On the back of the form, he has a civilian occupation listed: "Plumbers Helper (7-32.812)":
Worked on steam and water pipes. Reamed, cut, bent, and threaded pipe. Cut and drilled holes in walls and floors for pipes to be fitted in. Heater lead to make the connections in the plumbing tight. Used hand and machine tools. Worked for Robert Burwick, Trenton, New Jersey for 18 months.
I wonder if there’s any way to research what sort of specific activities my grandfather was involved in during the war–places he was deployed to, actions he was engaged in, etc. He told me once he was at Guadalcanal, but I don’t know any more than that, other than he said the Army sent him "all over."
John DeNardo from SF Signal very kindly took the photo of my grandfather I posted last night and photoshopped it to clean up the image. The results:
This is astonishing to me. Photoshop truly is a wizard’s tool. Wait, actually, he used Paint Shop Pro ("a poor man’s Photoshop," he says)–so even more astonishing!
James D. Macdonald, whose story written in collaboration with his wife Debra Doyle, "Philologos; or, A Murder in Bistrita," appears in the February 2008 issue of F&SF, said in an interview that the story is about a scholar in search of a rare book. "With overtones of paranoia and undertones of unresolved sexual tension," he said. "It’s also an origin story for one of the non-protagonists but major supporting characters in [our novel] Land of Mist and Snow."
The origin of the story, Macdonald said, comes from a line in Land of Mist and Snow, in which one of the characters, Captain William R. Sharps, USN, says, in a letter to Commodore Vanderbilt: "I found the lost ur-text of the Grey Book (in the wine cellar of a fortress in Carpatho-Ruthenia — an amusing story, worth telling over brandy and cigars, but not germane to my present communication), and bent my energies toward transcribing and translating those portions which had been purged from the younger MSS."
But the reader never does hear that "amusing story" in the course of the novel, Macdonald said. "In fact, I had no idea when writing the novel what the story was that he had to tell. But that line sat in the back of my mind and the story asked to be told."