After (Nineteen Stories of Apocalypse and Dystopia)

by Ellen Datlow, Terri Windling

Overview

If the melt-down, flood, plague, the third World War, new Ice Age, Rapture, alien invasion, clamp-down, meteor, or something else entirely hit today, what would tomorrow look like? Some of the biggest names in YA and adult literature answer that very question in this short story anthology, each story exploring the lives of teen protagonists raised in catastrophe's wake-whether set in the days after the change, or decades far in the future.

New York Times bestselling authors Gregory Maguire, Garth Nix, Susan Beth Pfeffer, Carrie Ryan, Beth Revis, and Jane Yolen are among the many popular and award-winning storytellers lending their talents to this original and spellbinding anthology.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781423170068
Publisher:	Little, Brown Books for Young Readers
Publication date:	10/09/2012
Series:	Single Title (One-Off)
Sold by:	Hachette Digital, Inc.
Format:	eBook
Sales rank:	296,593
File size:	1 MB
Age Range:	12 - 17 Years

About the Author

Ellen Datlow was editor of Sci Fiction, the multi award- winning fiction area of scifi.com, for almost six years. Previously, she was fiction editor of Omni for over seventeen years. She has won the World Fantasy Award seven times, two Bram Stoker Awards, the International Horror Guild Award, the 2002 and 2005 Hugo Award, and the 2005 Locus Award, for her work as an editor. Sci Fiction won the 2005 Hugo Award for Best Website. Datlow and Windling are the co-editors of over eleven original anthologies and of seventeen volumes of The Year's Best Fantasy and Horror.

Terri Windling is an editor, writer, painter, and passionate advocate of mythic arts. She has won the World Fantasy Award seven times, as well as the Mythopoeic Award for her novel The Wood Wife. During the last two decades she's edited over twenty-five anthologies with Ellen Datlow, as well as several other anthologies, including one called Faery. Her paintings, which are based on folklore and feminist themes, have been exhibited at museums and galleries in the United States, England, and France.

Editorial Reviews

Looking for happily ever after? Look elsewhere. These 19 original tales of technology gone wrong, disease run rampant, and Earth's inhabitants struggling to survive are dark, heavy, and filled with foreboding. They are also well-crafted—each with its own flavor and texture—creating a collection to be savored, pondered, and enjoyed. Frequent collaborators and anthologists Datlow and Windling have assembled a crew of writers that includes Cecil Castellucci, Gregory Maguire, Susan Beth Pfeffer, and Beth Revis. Garth Nix offers an unsettling prelude to Shade's Children with a short story set 10 years prior to the events of that novel. Carrie Ryan's chilling love story takes place in a diseased and dangerous world, while Matthew Kressel presents a comically sad game of baseball in a devastated world where strange, alien creatures lurk. And Steven Gould contributes a haunting portrait of a society overridden by metal-eating bugs. Readers thirsting for more material in the vein of The Hunger Games, Divergent, and The Eleventh Plague will be satisfied with the array of tales offered and marvel at just how bleak Earth's future can look. Ages 12–up. (Nov.)

Publishers Weekly

Gr 9 Up—Eighteen stories and one poem by both popular and lesser-known authors. There are stories ranging from the nightmarish-Steven Gould's "Rust With Wings" about metal-eating bugs that will devour anything, including a pacemaker-to the comical-Matthew Kressel's "The Great Game at the End of the World," about a game of baseball played as Earth is being destroyed by strange alien creatures. Jeffrey Ford's "Blood Drive" strikes an ominous, "too close to home" note given recent events in the news: it is a frank depiction of a world in which everyone over 18, including teachers and students, is armed with guns. Though the subject matter is bleak, many stories end on a note of hope or provide moments of reflection. While not every entry is strong, there is much here to savor, and fans of dystopias won't be disappointed.—Necia Blundy, formerly at Marlborough Public Library, MA

School Library Journal

Both superstar and up-and-coming YA authors tackle the themes of apocalypse and dystopia in 19 short stories and poems. Nearly every story provides a first-person adolescent protagonist, with male and female viewpoints equally represented, some with explicit GLBT orientation. The scenarios they narrate vary widely--from ecological catastrophes to alien invasion, political revolutions to supernatural uprisings, religious tyranny to socioeconomic collapse--but with less emphasis on the mechanics of the disaster than on coping with the aftermath. Graphic violence and destruction are avoided in favor of pointed allusions and carefully selected images; although many are creepy or even nightmarish, most conclude on a note of hope. Yet the relentless succession of bleak circumstances and failure eventually blurs the individual voices into an indistinguishable grimness. Indeed, the concluding bibliographical essay by the editors is in many ways the highlight of the volume, succinctly tracing the history, appeal and best current examples of the genre. A fine selection for new readers looking to sample this type of fiction or for dedicated fans seeking fresh voices. (Science fiction/short stories. 12 & up)

Kirkus Reviews