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lnatl's review against another edition
4.0
Stephen King - O fim da confusão toda: 3.0
Orson Scott Card - Sucata: 2.5 hm
Paolo Bacigalupi - O povo da areia e da escória: 5.0
Mary Rickert - Pão e bombas: n lembro de nada k
Jonathan Lethem - Como entramos na cidade e depois saímos: 2.0 hmm
George R. R. Martins - Escuros, muito escuros eram os túneis: 5.0
Tobias S. Buckell - Esperando o Zéfiro: 3.0
Jack McDevitt - Jamais se desespere: 3.0 bleh
Cory Doctorow - Quando os sysadmins dominaram a terra: 3.0
James Van Pelt - A última forma-O: 4.5
Richard Kadrey - Natureza morta com apocalipse
Os anjos de artie - Catherine Wells: 3.5
Jerry Oltion - Depois do juízo final: 5.0
Gene Wolfe - Mudo: 2.75-3.0
Nancy Kress - Inércia: 4.0
Elizabeth Bear - Entre o diabo e o profundo mar azul: 3.5
Octavia E. Butler - Sons da fala: 4.0
Carol Emshwiller - Assassinos: 2.5
Neal Barrett Jr. - 0 circo voador da Ginny bumbum firme: 2.5
Dale Bailey - O fim do mundo como nós o conhecemos: 2.0
David Grigg - Uma canção antes de o sol se pôr: 4.0
John Langan - Episódio sete: 2,75-3.0
Orson Scott Card - Sucata: 2.5 hm
Paolo Bacigalupi - O povo da areia e da escória: 5.0
Mary Rickert - Pão e bombas: n lembro de nada k
Jonathan Lethem - Como entramos na cidade e depois saímos: 2.0 hmm
George R. R. Martins - Escuros, muito escuros eram os túneis: 5.0
Tobias S. Buckell - Esperando o Zéfiro: 3.0
Jack McDevitt - Jamais se desespere: 3.0 bleh
Cory Doctorow - Quando os sysadmins dominaram a terra: 3.0
James Van Pelt - A última forma-O: 4.5
Richard Kadrey - Natureza morta com apocalipse
Os anjos de artie - Catherine Wells: 3.5
Jerry Oltion - Depois do juízo final: 5.0
Gene Wolfe - Mudo: 2.75-3.0
Nancy Kress - Inércia: 4.0
Elizabeth Bear - Entre o diabo e o profundo mar azul: 3.5
Octavia E. Butler - Sons da fala: 4.0
Carol Emshwiller - Assassinos: 2.5
Neal Barrett Jr. - 0 circo voador da Ginny bumbum firme: 2.5
Dale Bailey - O fim do mundo como nós o conhecemos: 2.0
David Grigg - Uma canção antes de o sol se pôr: 4.0
John Langan - Episódio sete: 2,75-3.0
aspygirlsmom_1995's review against another edition
adventurous
dark
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
3.0
stanwj's review against another edition
3.0
A second volume in a themed horror collection might seem like a good candidate for more experimental work that may not be entirely successful and such is the case with Wastelands 2, although I enjoyed the majority of the stories.
Post-apocalypse tales are one of the enduring favorites in horror fiction. Some of the classic boogeymen like nuclear war have faded as threats to all humanity while others like global warming have risen--Wastelands 2 delivers on both of these, along with biological terrors, Lovecraftian beasts from the sea, really mean flowers and, of course, Kevin Costner. Sort of.
While the stories are bound by the theme of apocalypse, style and tone is all over the place. There is little in the way of humor (as one might expect), though Keffy R. M. Kehrli's "Advertising at the End of the World" with its androids-as-literal-walking-advertisements still searching for buyers after a super-virus decimates humanity, is quietly absurd. Most are dark or darker and the majority betray little hope regarding humankind's ability to come back from the brink of extinction. You'll also put down the book thinking most people are jerks.
This is not exactly feel-good material is what I'm saying.
A few standouts for me include Jack McDevitt's "Ellie," which presents a nice twist on a story about caretakers keeping things running at a massive particle collider in the hope of staving off further disaster. The aforementioned "Advertising at the End of the World" is a relatively original take on post-apocalypse, with the sensible protagonist Marie trying to deal with an army of annoying androids as humanely as possible. George R. R. Martin's hippie-fest "...For a Single Yesterday" reminded me a bit of the novel Station Eleven, with entertainers providing a focal point in surviving communities, with a bit of time-travelly drugs tossed in.
"Monstro" is a deliciously weird story about a virus inducing strange and dangerous groupthink among the infected quarantined in Haiti. Author Junot Díaz steeps the story in local culture while slowly unwinding an ever-widening apocalypse that may or may not be contained on the island state.
Jake Kerr's "Biological Fragments of the Life of Julian Prince" is an epistemological accounting of how an author survives, writes about and in a way is consumed by a meteor impact that devastates North America in the first half of the 21st century. I feel this format--excerpts from Wikipedia, interviews, news reports and so on--is trickier to pull off than it looks but Kerr handles it expertly, lending an authentic feel to these glimpses of Prince's life and the apocalyptic event that sits at its core.
On the negative side, I found David Brin's "The Postman" (a novella version of the novel) was fine but oddly undercuts the whole enterprise on the very last page with the protagonist turning weirdly flippant and derisive. I have no idea if the book (or the Costner movie) are the same, but I found it jarring.
But while "The Postman" was still a pleasant enough read overall, I only managed a few pages of Maria Dahvana Headley's "The Traditional." The story features an unlikable and uninteresting protagonist and is written in the second person: "You’ve always been the kind of liar who leans back and lets boys fall into you while you see if you can make them fall all the way out the other side. You want them to feel like they’ve hit Narnia. You traffic in interdimensional fucking, during which they transcend space and time, and you go nowhere." I've always been the kind of person who finds the second person point of view a very tough sell. I was not sold. I didn't even rent.
There are more than enough stories in Wastelands 2, however, to recommend it to anyone looking for some post-apocalyptic fun.
Post-apocalypse tales are one of the enduring favorites in horror fiction. Some of the classic boogeymen like nuclear war have faded as threats to all humanity while others like global warming have risen--Wastelands 2 delivers on both of these, along with biological terrors, Lovecraftian beasts from the sea, really mean flowers and, of course, Kevin Costner. Sort of.
While the stories are bound by the theme of apocalypse, style and tone is all over the place. There is little in the way of humor (as one might expect), though Keffy R. M. Kehrli's "Advertising at the End of the World" with its androids-as-literal-walking-advertisements still searching for buyers after a super-virus decimates humanity, is quietly absurd. Most are dark or darker and the majority betray little hope regarding humankind's ability to come back from the brink of extinction. You'll also put down the book thinking most people are jerks.
This is not exactly feel-good material is what I'm saying.
A few standouts for me include Jack McDevitt's "Ellie," which presents a nice twist on a story about caretakers keeping things running at a massive particle collider in the hope of staving off further disaster. The aforementioned "Advertising at the End of the World" is a relatively original take on post-apocalypse, with the sensible protagonist Marie trying to deal with an army of annoying androids as humanely as possible. George R. R. Martin's hippie-fest "...For a Single Yesterday" reminded me a bit of the novel Station Eleven, with entertainers providing a focal point in surviving communities, with a bit of time-travelly drugs tossed in.
"Monstro" is a deliciously weird story about a virus inducing strange and dangerous groupthink among the infected quarantined in Haiti. Author Junot Díaz steeps the story in local culture while slowly unwinding an ever-widening apocalypse that may or may not be contained on the island state.
Jake Kerr's "Biological Fragments of the Life of Julian Prince" is an epistemological accounting of how an author survives, writes about and in a way is consumed by a meteor impact that devastates North America in the first half of the 21st century. I feel this format--excerpts from Wikipedia, interviews, news reports and so on--is trickier to pull off than it looks but Kerr handles it expertly, lending an authentic feel to these glimpses of Prince's life and the apocalyptic event that sits at its core.
On the negative side, I found David Brin's "The Postman" (a novella version of the novel) was fine but oddly undercuts the whole enterprise on the very last page with the protagonist turning weirdly flippant and derisive. I have no idea if the book (or the Costner movie) are the same, but I found it jarring.
But while "The Postman" was still a pleasant enough read overall, I only managed a few pages of Maria Dahvana Headley's "The Traditional." The story features an unlikable and uninteresting protagonist and is written in the second person: "You’ve always been the kind of liar who leans back and lets boys fall into you while you see if you can make them fall all the way out the other side. You want them to feel like they’ve hit Narnia. You traffic in interdimensional fucking, during which they transcend space and time, and you go nowhere." I've always been the kind of person who finds the second person point of view a very tough sell. I was not sold. I didn't even rent.
There are more than enough stories in Wastelands 2, however, to recommend it to anyone looking for some post-apocalyptic fun.
oleksandr's review against another edition
4.0
This is the second anthology that follows quite famous in some circles [b:Wastelands: Stories of the Apocalypse|1705697|Wastelands Stories of the Apocalypse|John Joseph Adams|https://images.gr-assets.com/books/1391343189s/1705697.jpg|2661660]. Just like the previous book, it contains stories about the end of the world and what comes next :)
There are several strong stories, but I personally liked the first book better – some of the stories, like The Amarisk Hunter by Paolo Bacigalupi and When We Went To See the End of the World by Robert Silverberg are quite good, but I’ve read them before. The same goes for the first part of Brin’s [b:The Postman|889284|The Postman|David Brin|https://images.gr-assets.com/books/1348914032s/889284.jpg|924908] novel – it is great but I’ve already read it
There are two work of quite unusual form, which I personally liked for they are unusual:
Final Exam by Megan Arkenberg, which is written as a multiple choice test and you should guess the underlining story by the supplied answers
Fragments of the Life of Julian Prince by Jake Kerr, which is written as a Wikipedia article, including stuff like ‘citation needed’
All in all a good, but not great anthology
There are several strong stories, but I personally liked the first book better – some of the stories, like The Amarisk Hunter by Paolo Bacigalupi and When We Went To See the End of the World by Robert Silverberg are quite good, but I’ve read them before. The same goes for the first part of Brin’s [b:The Postman|889284|The Postman|David Brin|https://images.gr-assets.com/books/1348914032s/889284.jpg|924908] novel – it is great but I’ve already read it
There are two work of quite unusual form, which I personally liked for they are unusual:
Final Exam by Megan Arkenberg, which is written as a multiple choice test and you should guess the underlining story by the supplied answers
Fragments of the Life of Julian Prince by Jake Kerr, which is written as a Wikipedia article, including stuff like ‘citation needed’
All in all a good, but not great anthology
judetheunbeliever's review against another edition
adventurous
challenging
dark
funny
hopeful
reflective
sad
tense
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? N/A
- Strong character development? N/A
- Loveable characters? N/A
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? N/A
4.5
tastycakes's review
4.0
I was actually more surprised with lesser known authors work. There more than few stories in here that I would love to see expanded and fleshed out.
haramis's review against another edition
4.0
Like any anthology, there are high and low points, and as usual for a JJA anthology, a big high point is Seanan McGuire. "Animal Husbandry" is brilliantly creepy, and I really wanted to share the story with my friend, so she could also be awed/horrified. I also enjoyed George R.R. Martin's “... for a single yesterday,” Rachel Swirsky's "How the World Became Quiet," Paolo Bacigalupi's "The Tamarisk Hunter," Cory Doctorow's "Beat Me Daddy," Nancy Kress's "By Fools Like Me," and Ramsey Shehadeh's "Jimmy’s Roadside Cafe,"
Jake Kerr's "Biographical Fragments of the Life of Julian Prince" actually shares an apocalypse with his The Apocalypse Triptych stories, so that was fun. James Van Pelt's "A Flock of Birds" was a bit of an odd bird in its approach to the end of the world, but I liked it very much. Toiya Kristen Finley's "Outer Rims" was one of those that was tough to read as a parent, but I thought it was a great story.
While I didn't love every story in this collection, I think that John Joseph Adams did a spectacular job bringing this anthology together. I recommend it, and I will continue to pick up his anthologies in the future.
_____________________
Whoa, what is this? Yesterday I reviewed a couple of story anthologies that I'd recently completed. I directly referenced this book, so today I came to look at my review of it, and realized that I never even added it. Take that GR Book Challenge, I'm one up! It's weird that I didn't remember to add it, because I liked it enough to want to add a paper copy to my physical book collection. Though again, this is why I'm trying to be more careful about reviewing books as soon as I finish them instead of letting unwritten reviews pile up.
Jake Kerr's "Biographical Fragments of the Life of Julian Prince" actually shares an apocalypse with his The Apocalypse Triptych stories, so that was fun. James Van Pelt's "A Flock of Birds" was a bit of an odd bird in its approach to the end of the world, but I liked it very much. Toiya Kristen Finley's "Outer Rims" was one of those that was tough to read as a parent, but I thought it was a great story.
While I didn't love every story in this collection, I think that John Joseph Adams did a spectacular job bringing this anthology together. I recommend it, and I will continue to pick up his anthologies in the future.
_____________________
Whoa, what is this? Yesterday I reviewed a couple of story anthologies that I'd recently completed. I directly referenced this book, so today I came to look at my review of it, and realized that I never even added it. Take that GR Book Challenge, I'm one up! It's weird that I didn't remember to add it, because I liked it enough to want to add a paper copy to my physical book collection. Though again, this is why I'm trying to be more careful about reviewing books as soon as I finish them instead of letting unwritten reviews pile up.
librarianlk's review against another edition
I liked this almost as much as the first in this series, but I didn't appreciate the inclusion of Brin's The Postman. I don't know why that story rubbed me the wrong way the first time I read it. I still don't like it. Otherwise a pretty good selection.