Blog – Page 97 – John Joseph Adams

Wastelands Online

Today, I’m officially launching the online home of Wastelands: Stories of the Apocalypse. Visit the site at johnjosephadams.com/wastelands.

If you browse around the site, you’ll find plenty of information about the anthology, the stories, and the contributors.

The ABOUT page provides an overview of the anthology.

The CONTENTS page showcases the anthology’s table of contents. It also serves as a portal to information about each of the stories. There, on each story’s page, you can read the introductory header note for each story. In some cases, you can read excerpts of the stories; in other cases, you can read the entire story online.

The AUTHORS page provides even more information about the authors…in their own words. I conducted brief interviews with several of the contributors to gather some background information about their stories. While I was at it, I also jotted down their thoughts about the appeal of post-apocalyptic fiction, and asked them to name their favorite stories in the sub-genre.

The PUBLICITY page will point the way to reviews and interviews, and any news about public appearances related to the anthology.

The other two pages are self-explanatory: CONTACT provides contact information should you wish to learn more about the anthology; SHOP, meanwhile, points you toward some of the places you can buy Wastelands.

Wastelands is due to be published by Night Shade Books in January 2008. Until then, take a look around.

SCI FI Wire Roundup

SCI FI Wire print news, week ending August 24, 2007:

Meeting the Easter Bunny*

One of my slush survivors, George Tucker, is in town this weekend, so he and I and Gordon met up with him last night, the first meeting for all of us. We met at an Indian restaurant in Manhattan called Utsav, which was good, but pricey. For some reason they didn’t have murgha tikka, though they had other cubed chicken dishes, and they had tandoori chicken, which uses the same sauce as murgha tikka, which left me wondering why the hell they couldn’t just make it for me.

But anyway, it was a fun evening. We chatted about everything from porn expos to mystery novels to the intricacies of book publishing. Normally, Gordon and I just talk about porn expos, so it was nice to have the excuse to talk about something else for a change.

* If you’re confused about this reference, look here.

Wastelands on Amazon.com

Speaking of Wastelands, you can now pre-order the book via Amazon.com. Using the Amazon Connect feature, I’ve posted the table of contents and the introduction to the book on the book’s ordering page. Go check it out!

Zombie Anthology

Now that Wastelands is all done and put to bed, it’s time to turn my attention to my next project: Zombies. I’ve been hip-deep in zombie fiction for the past few days, and am enjoying it quite a bit.

This is another reprint project, and I’ve got a long reading list already, of course, but I’m open to suggestions. With that in mind, I’ve setup a database in which you can enter your zombie fiction recommendations. Suggestions of short fiction are obviously my primary interest, but feel free to suggest novels as well, as I plan to include a “For Further Reading” appendix in the anthology. If you’re a writer, you’re welcome to recommend your own work as well as that of others.

So drop by the Zombie Fiction Database and throw your two cents in.

Vacation Report

Here, at last, is my long-delayed vacation report. Like most vacations, it was great fun and relaxing, though despite that, I seemed to require some time after I got home to recover from the actual vacation. It’s an odd phenomenon, but one that I’ve frequently experienced.

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Flash (Ah-Aaaah!) Gordon

So everyone who was interested probably saw the new Flash Gordon series on SCI FI by now, and has already realized it really sucks. However, Flash Gordon afforded me the opportunity to work on the most unusual assignment of my freelancing career thus far: I was hired by the SCI FI Channel to research and write a series of quizzes based on the historical iterations of Flash Gordon. The first of these (and I assume future quizzes) can be found here: http://www.scifi.com/flashgordon/quizzes/. As you might guess, mine is the one labeled “Historical: Flash Gordon’s Roots.” I didn’t write the other one, as I hadn’t seen the new show in advance of its premeire. I’m pretty happy with this one, but I wrote five quizzes total and I think some of the others are more entertaining.

I was initially wary of the assignment at first, as I was no great lover of Flash Gordon (in fact, I knew almost nothing about it), but it was fun doing the research and coming up with the questions. One thing I discovered during my research is that by far the most enjoyable version of Flash Gordon I came across was the original comic strips. They’re not *good* or anything, understand, but I found them much more palatable than any other iteration (including the new series, which might be the worst of them all–hey at least the serials have the excuse of being made like 70 years ago!). If you’re interested in Flash Gordon’s history, the original comic strips are available in a series of graphic novels from Checker Book Publishing. They’re nice volumes; my only real complaint with them is that they’re kind of a rip-off–each book is only 90 or so pages and they cost $20 each. At that page count, Checker could have easily put the strips together in a nice large omnibus, but instead they went the price-gouge the fans route. It’s too bad–they’re nice books otherwise.

F&SF August 2007: Favorite Story Poll

What was your favorite story in the August 2007 issue of F&SF? Cast your vote in the favorite story poll!

August 2007: Favorite Story PollVOTING HAS CLOSED


Selection		Votes
Murder in the Flying Vatican – Albert E. Cowdrey	29%	7
At These Prices – Esther M. Friesner	0%	0
A Wizard of the Old School – Chris Willrich	38%	9
The Mole Cure – Nancy Farmer	8%	2
The Tomb Wife – Gwyneth Jones	17%	4
I wasn’t impressed with any of them.	8%	2

24 votes total