Wastelands, an anthology of apocalyptic fiction -- free previews!

John Joseph Adams sez,

I've just launched the website for my forthcoming anthology Wastelands: Stories of the Apocalypse, which features stories by Stephen King, George R. R. Martin, Boing-Boing's own Cory Doctorow, and many others.

The site has quite a lot of information about the anthology, the stories, and the contributors. You can read the header notes for the stories, the introduction to the anthology, excerpts for most of the stories, and three stories can be read in their entirety.

Link (Thanks, John!)

• [John Joseph Adams]

  Hi, this is John Joseph Adams, editor of Wastelands. Thanks for the comments, everyone.

  Jen –

  I’ve got a list of post-apocalyptic fiction here on the “For Further Reading” page of the site: http://www.tuginternet.com/jja/wastelands/?page_id=36. It appears in the book also, but for the Wastelands site I put together some Amazon listmania lists to make it easier to find all the books.

  Chris –

  As for autographed copies, I’m sure I’ll be able to make autographed copies available–that is, signed by me, anyway. I think it would be fairly impossible to get all of the contributors to sign one (well, definitely impossible to get *all* of them, since one of them is no longer living). Or if you were just wanting Cory’s autograph, he’d have to answer that for you. :)

• [Anonymous]

  There was likewise an solid apocolypse collection out about ten years ago, Armageddons, edited by Jack Dann and Gardner Dozois which had a couple of my favorites in this genre – Niven’s “Inconstant Moon” and Fritz Leiber’s “A Pail of Air.”

• [adminfoo]

  Yay! I’m really looking forward to this. I’ve been totally gaga for the genre for the past 25 years, and I hope that this able pick up some fans that Cormac McCarthy brought in.

  Can’t wait to get it.

• [Anonymous]

  i like the new layout. keep up the good work!

• [Anonymous]

  Nice story Cory, however I have to point out one very small technical issue – towards the end there’s a mail from a luser – an ‘MSCE’ who needs help… it should be MCSE – or I have no idea what an MSCE is if that’s really what you meant.

  BTW, LOVE the ref to the BOFH!!!

  Can’t wait for this to come out, I will definitely be looking for it when it does! Keep up the AWESOME work!!

• [erindipity]

  Wow, I don’t believe I’ve ever looked forward to January before! I am definitely giving this to myself as a late Christmas gift.

• [Joel Falconer]

  Nice site. I’m looking forward to seeing what it looks like after the anthology is released. I think the web is becoming, or really, in many respects, has already become, the packaging of intellectual property. As CD buying becomes a relic of the past, the sleeve booklet is replaced by a site that has doesn’t have any restrictions such as how many pages can be printed. Forget these PDF booklets. The web is not just for marketing, it’s the packaging itself.

• [Anonymous]

  I think I love this kind of fiction so much because my biggest fantasy is to be the last person on Earth with everyone else just disappearing (so there’s no stinky corpses). I think I have some anti-social issues I need to work on. Whatever. I can’t wait for this book!
  I wonder if there is a comprehensive list of post-apocalyptic fiction somewhere…?

  Hooray for the new boingboing! And comments.
  Love, Jen

• [Anonymous]

  I am relieved to see that this collection wisely failed to include Howie McLemore’s controversial “Hall & Oates at World’s End”:

  http://electricstorytime.blogspot.com/2007/06/hall-oates-at-worlds-end.html

• [Chris O’Rourke]

  Fantastic! I’ve always loved anthologies especially since work and family duties never seem to leave me enough time to read full length books anymore.
  It’s great to see Cory have a story in this as well. Especially “When Sysadmins Ruled the Earth” since I’ve been wanting to read it in print for awhile now.

  Great design on the Wastelands site as well although it did cause me a bit of confusion on my iPhone at first (hadn’t ever had to scroll using 2 fingers before).

  Any chance at finding autographed copies here or on craphound when the book goes on sale?

• [randee]

  I’ve now wishlisted the book, and I’m really keen to read it. I’ve always had this sick fascination with end of the world stories, so thanks for feeding the addiction!

  Jen: You need this web site:

  http://www.empty-world.com/

• [jmtd]

  Unfortunately that site is now throwing 403s :(

• [jmtd]

  Ah, found it at http://www.johnjosephadams.com/wastelands/ . Tip: Cool URIs don’t change (or at least they 301 to the new one).