Anthologies – Page 5 – John Joseph Adams

Tag: Anthologies

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.

Hardboiled Horror

James Van Pelt tells me he’s editing an anthology for Notorious Press called Hardboiled Horror. Here’s a bit from the guidelines:

Stories submitted for this anthology should include elements from both Horror and Mystery/Crime. How you blend the two camps will be an important factor in story selection. For example, it is probably not enough if the protagonist stumbles into a situation and discovers that it is supernatural. That realization should come as a RESULT of specific detection – not accidental encounter. Stories can also start as Horror, then add the “detection” element. Protagonists can be mortal or not, as long as you are blending the styles. You may even submit tales that initially seem like they are destined to have a supernatural conclusion, but which are resolved in earthbound ways. Stories may certainly lean more heavily on one side or the other, but should include both genres.

Other details of note: submission window is June 15 to Sept. 30, and payment is “about $50 per story, maybe more for a novella and less for a short-short.”

Header Notes

I was just reading Adrienne Martini’s review (in the Baltimore City Paper) of The New Space Opera edited by Jonathan Strahan & Gardner Dozois, which is generally positive, but ends with a negative comment about the anthology’s header notes:

While a large percentage of this collection is full of space opera goodness, Dozois and Strahan’s introductions do them no favors. Instead of interstitial bits of text that help place the writer or the tale in some sort of context, the editors have merely crafted extra long bibliographies. Dozois, who edited Asimov’s magazine for 20 years as well as more than a dozen other anthologies, and Strahan, former book reviewer for Locus magazine and an Australia-based anthology editor, have been in the field long enough to have some opinions. It’s a shame that they only provide details that you could easily find out for yourself, rather than their thoughts on any given tale. It’s also a shame that they used the same line of description–enough ideas packed into this short story “to fuel many another author’s eight-hundred-page novel”–for both Kelly’s and McDonald’s stories. That may be true, of course, but it makes the stories in question feel redundant rather than as vital and “new” as they are.

That got me thinking about what the essential ingredients to good header notes are. As it happens, I haven’t written the header notes to Wastelands yet, so this topic is of great interest to me. Any thoughts?

Wastelands Cover, Copy, TOC & Pub Date!

Jeremy Lassen of Night Shade Books just posted the cover and cover copy for my forthcoming anthology, Wastelands:

Famine, Death, War, and Pestilence: The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse, the harbingers of Armageddon–these are our guides through the Wastelands…

From the Book of Revelations to The Road Warrior; from A Canticle for Leibowitz to The Road, storytellers have long imagined the end of the world, weaving eschatological tales of catastrophe, chaos, and calamity. In doing so, these visionary authors have addressed one of the most challenging and enduring themes of imaginative fiction: the nature of life in the aftermath of total societal collapse.

Gathering together the best post-apocalyptic literature of the last two decades from many of today’s most renowned authors of speculative fiction, including George R.R. Martin, Gene Wolfe, Orson Scott Card, Carol Emshwiller, Jonathan Lethem, Octavia E. Butler, and Stephen King, Wastelands explores the scientific, psychological, and philosophical questions of what it means to remain human in the wake of Armageddon. Whether the end of the world comes through nuclear war, ecological disaster, or cosmological cataclysm, these are tales of survivors, in some cases struggling to rebuild the society that was, in others, merely surviving, scrounging for food in depopulated ruins and defending themselves against monsters, mutants, and marauders.

Complete with introductions and an indispensable appendix of recommendations for further reading, Wastelands delves into this bleak landscape, uncovering the raw human emotion and heart-pounding thrills at the genre’s core.
John Joseph Adams is the assistant editor of The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction. In addition to his work at F&SF, Adams is a reporter for SCI FI Wire and a book reviewer for Publishers Weekly and Intergalactic Medicine Show. His essays, interviews, and reviews have also appeared in Amazing Stories, Kirkus, The Internet Review of Science Fiction, Locus Magazine, Strange Horizons, and Subterranean Magazine.

Table of Contents

The End of the Whole Mess — Stephen King
Salvage — Orson Scott Card
The People of Sand and Slag — Paolo Bacigalupi
Bread and Bombs — M. Rickert
How We Got Into Town and Out Again — Jonathan Lethem
Dark, Dark Were the Tunnels — George R. R. Martin
Waiting for the Zephyr — Tobias S. Buckell
Never Despair — Jack McDevitt
When Sysadmins Ruled the Earth — Cory Doctorow
The Last of the O-Forms — James Van Pelt
Still Life with Apocalypse — Richard Kadrey
Artie’s Angels — Catherine Wells
Judgement Passed — Jerry Oltion
Mute — Gene Wolfe
Intertia — Nancy Kress
And the Deep Blue Sea — Elizabeth Bear
Speech Sounds — Octavia E. Butler
Killers — Carol Emshwiller
Ginny Sweethips’ Flying Circus — Neal Barrett, Jr.
The End of the Word as We Know it — Dale Bailey
A Song Before Sunset — David Grigg
Episode Seven: Last Stand Against the Pack in the Kingdom of the Purple Flowers — John Langan

That’s the actual TOC order. The publication date continues to fluctuate, but at the moment we’re saying January 2008.

Wastelands Update

Some of you may have noticed that Galleycat recently ran a little piece about the sale of my post-apocalyptic reprint anthology, Wastelands. Also, a notice recently ran in, I believe, Publisher’s Lunch, which my agent, Jenny Rappaport, replicates here.

While I’m at it, I should also say that the new pub date is Feb. 2008, I’m told. Also, I secured a few more permissions: Stephen King’s “The End of the Whole Mess” and Octavia E. Butler’s “Speech Sounds.”

Wastelands on MySpace

I created a MySpace page for Wastelands, my post-apocalyptic reprint anthology forthcoming from Night Shade Books. Check it out, and friend it!

Wastelands ToC Addendum

I thought I should point out, in case I wasn’t entirely clear, that the ToC I posted for Wastelands is the permissions I’ve secured so far; so those stories will definitely be in the book. But there will also be a few more stories in the book that I didn’t list, because I haven’t secured the permissions yet. And I figured I shouldn’t mention them until I do so.

So, Bear, if you have altitude sickness now, it might get worse…

Anthology: For Sale — SOLD!

I was mistakenly holding off announcing this, because in my glee-induced stupor I misunderstood many of the things my agent told me on the phone the other day. So anyway, here’s the announcement:

Night Shade Books will be publishing my post-apocalyptic reprint anthology Wastelands. Publication details are up in the air at this point, but it will probably be published in Summer 2007, as a trade paperback.
I’m still negotiating some of the permissions, but so far, the table of contents looks like this:

Dark, Dark Were the Tunnels by George R. R. MartinVertex, 1973
The Fringe by Orson Scott CardFantasy & Science Fiction, 1985 (Hugo/Nebula nominee)
How We Got In Town and Out Again by Jonathan LethemAsimov’s Science Fiction, 1996
Episode Seven: Last Stand Against the Pack by John LanganFantasy & Science Fiction (forthcoming)
Never Despair by Jack McDevittAsimov’s Science Fiction, 1997
And the Deep Blue Sea by Elizabeth BearSCI FICTION, 2005
The People of Sand and Slag by Paolo BacigalupiFantasy & Science Fiction, 2004 (Hugo/Nebula nominee)
Killers by Carol EmshwillerFantasy & Science Fiction, 2006
Still Life With Apocalypse by Richard KadreyThe Infinite Matrix, 2002
Bread and Bombs by M. RickertFantasy & Science Fiction, 2003
Artie’s Angels by Catherine WellsRealms of Fantasy, 2001
Mute by Gene WolfeWorld Horror Convention Program Book, 2002
Inertia by Nancy KressAnalog Science Fiction & Fact, 1990
The Last of the O-Forms by James Van PeltAsimov’s Science Fiction, 2002 (Nebula nominee)
When Sysadmins Ruled the Earth by Cory DoctorowJim Baen’s Universe, 2006
The End of the World as We Know It by Dale BaileyFantasy & Science Fiction, 2004 (Nebula nominee)
Ginny Sweethips’ Flying Circus by Neal Barrett, Jr.Asimov’s Science Fiction, 1988 (Hugo & Nebula nominee)

So, there you have it. My first anthology. Yeah baby. Read more on the anthology’s website.

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