found drama

A tightly themed, well executed collection: Wastelands: Stories of the Apocalypse
captures our apocalypse fears and fantasies equally well and sometimes even simultaneously.

Adams wisely chooses Stephen King’s “The End of the Whole Mess” as an opener and moves into all manner of exciting territory from there. Wastelands is the expected mix of strong (and some average) short stories; most of them have a high re-read score and there is a good mix of diverse ideas and themes that keep within the central focus.

THAT SAID: if you are considering this one, read the introduction before you make the purchase. This isn’t about zombie plagues or alien invasions or black holes ripping through our space-time continuum. This is about somewhat more plausible apocalypses. Even when they’re totally unexplained.

Most of these stories I enjoyed as much as I expected (e.g., “Speech Sounds”) and some less so (e.g., “When Sysadmins Ruled the Earth”) and some more so (e.g., “Salvage”). I won’t enumerate the themes you expect in an apocalypse-themed collection; they’re all here and they’re all in full force. I will remark on the following, however:

• I was a bit amused by how many of these shorts featured nomads;
  • and more so by how often those nomads were of the carny folk variety.
• The stories seem to be pretty “current” in their bio-engineered plagues and their genetic fall-out and their post-Peak Oil crises and 9/11-kneejerks; the last star in my review would have been earned by but one thorough and explicit treatment of WW3-ish nuclear winter.
• Remember: you brought this on yourself.

Review originally posted on GoodReads.com.

About Rob Friesel

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