Wastelands – Page 3 – John Joseph Adams

Tag: Wastelands

Two Takes on Wastelands

SF Site has an enthusiastic review of Wastelands: "Wastelands is a fine anthology: an educational introduction to the subgenre and a well-chosen jog of the memory for the more experienced connoisseur of calamity. And much as you might not expect Armageddon to have a sequel, I live in hope that there might yet be a Wastelands 2."

Also reviewing Wastelands is Dark Wolf Fantasy Reviews: "A very good book, with different stories that gathers different views of the apocalyptic events and I highly recommend it."

Wastelands at MIT

The other day my Google Alerts alerted me to the fact that Joe Haldeman will be using Wastelands as one of the texts in his "Reading and Writing Genre Fiction" course that he’ll be teaching in the fall at MIT.

The other books are:

A CANTICLE FOR LEIBOWITZ, Walter M. Miller
THE ROAD, Cormac McCarthy
THE MIST, Stephen King
THE LAST DAYS OF POMPEII, Sir Edward George Bulwer-Lytton
THE TIN ROOF BLOWDOWN, James Lee Burke
I AM LEGEND, Richard Matheson

How cool is that? It’s not only being used as a text at MIT, but in a course taught by Joe Haldeman!

SFF World reviews Wastelands

Rob Bedford at SFF World reviews Wastelands: "I can’t help but give this collection the highest recommendation. I think this will be a cornerstone for most reader’s shelves."

His favorite stories in the book seemed to be "Artie’s Angels" by Catherine Wells, "The End of the Whole Mess" by Stephen King, "Dark, Dark Were the Tunnels" by George R. R. Martin, and "Judgment Passed" by Jerry Oltion.

Wastelands Odds and Ends

A few Wastelands things to report:

Blogger daydalus calls Wastelands "an excellent collection envisioning humanity’s darkest days."
Elizabeth Bear’s story from the anthology, "And the Deep Blue Sea," is now available as a podcast from Starship Sofa. (You can also read it for free on the Wastelands website.)
I saw Wastelands in its native environment again yesterday, this time in the Barnes & Noble in Union Square. And unlike last time it was in its true natural environment–the SF section. They had about seven copies and it was faced out looking all nice and pretty.

Wastelands: A Post-Apocalyptic Anthology Done Right

Tech blogger Josh Smith is only part-way through Wastelands, but likes it quite a lot thus far: "One of the strongest parts of the anthology thus far is the decision by Adams to focus on stories which portray life after the apocalypse, forgoing zombies and other provocateurs and focusing on the struggles and stories of individuals in a dramatically different world. This method of selection has led to some wonderful stories which allow me to connect with the individual characters and at some level understand them. So far the stories have evoked a strong response from me due in part to the attempts of characters to “do good” in some manner and either failing or coming to a realistic and forlorn conclusion."

He goes on to praise the "For Further Reading" appendix: "As a reader I cannot begin to express how awesome this is to me. Many times after finishing an anthology or collection I have been left at a loss as to where to find more material to read that is within the same vein as the original writing, something not always accomplished by reading the authors’ other published work. This reference has provided em a list of authors and books to add to my ‘To Read’ notebook in One Note."

Native Environment

I finally found copies of Wastelands in its native environment: bookstores. That I said "finally" shouldn’t imply that it was hard to find; I simply hadn’t been in a bookstore since the book came out, being the sort of person who gets lots of free books and otherwise tends to shop online. I spied it at the Borders near Penn Station in Manhattan. However, it wasn’t in the SF section, where I expected to find it; instead, it was in the horror section. Which makes a sort of sense–I mean what’s more horrific than the end of the world?–though I would’ve never thought to look there (or to even look for a horror section–seems like most bookstores don’t have one and just shelve horror with mainstream fiction). But I ran across one of those look-it-up-your-damn-self terminals and discovered its likely location with its help. And lo and behold, there it was; or there they were, rather–three fine copies of Wastelands.

I’m torn on whether or not this is a good place for the book to be shelved. Do you think it’ll find its audience there, or would it sell better in the SF section? I’m inclined to think it’s not quite ideal and that SF would be a better place for it. And since the computer system said horror, I assume that all Borders stores are putting it there. Complaining probably wouldn’t do any good–from what I hear Borders has got much larger problems at the moment, like being broke.

SF in NJ: SFABC & SFSNNJ events

I was interviewed on The Dragon Page podcast. Go listen!

In other news, on Saturday I spoke at the Face the Fiction event, presented by the Science Fiction Society of Northern New Jersey. Which reminds me that I never posted a report of my speaking engagement at the Science Fiction Association of Bergen County’s monthly meeting.

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Wastelands Conquers All, Says Omnivoracious

Over at the Amazon blog, Omnivoracious, Jeff VanderMeer has a nice piece about Wastelands, which is, incidentally, awesomely titled "Apocalypse Wow: Wastelands Conquers All." In it, Jeff says: "[Wastelands] has been one of the great success stories of the early part of 2008–selling out its initial print run (and going back to reprint), garnering rave reviews, and just generally conquering all in its path. Given the volatile nature of anthologies, which have a high failure rate, that’s quite an accomplishment. But it’s no surprise, given the careful editing and packaging of Wastelands, which has its own website (including free downloads of some of the fiction) and includes reprinted stories from the likes of Orson Scott Card, Jonathan Lethem, George R.R. Martin, Gene Wolfe, and many other luminaries." Jeff then sprinkles in some commentary by me, along with a selection of first lines from the stories, which he leaves un-identified to entice readers and leaving them to guess which stories and authors they come from.

Jeff says that the full interview he did with me will appear on the book’s Amazon page in the next week or two. Meanwhile, on his own blog, Ecstatic Days, Jeff leaked a bit of the interview, displaying my answer to his question: "Any funny stories in the anthology, and how did you deal with the possible problem of similarity of tone throughout the book?" Click through to find out!

Trailer Music: Heaven Bleeds by Jack Kincaid

If you liked the music featured in the trailer for Wastelands, you can listen to the whole song on Jack Kincaid’s website. It’s called "Heaven Bleeds."

Wastelands: Trailer + More Online Stories!

Wastelands sold out its initial print run, so Night Shade went back to press for a second printing, and from what I hear there were so many backorders that the second printing is going to be almost gone as well (though that’s bookstore orders, not actual sales per se, so it should be readily available wherever fine books are sold). To celebrate, I’ve made three more stories from the book available on the anthology’s website. So that’s now a total of six stories you can read online for free; the stories are by Elizabeth Bear, M. Rickert, Cory Doctorow, James Van Pelt, Richard Kadrey, and Tobias S. Buckell.

And speaking of Tobias, he put together a book trailer for the anthology and posted it to YouTube. It’s got some cool apocalyptic imagery, as well as original music by Jack Kincaid. Go check it out, and spread it around!

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