To all genre fiction fans out there: I feel your pain. We’ve all experienced bitter disappointment when it comes to short story anthologies – we pay good money for a science fiction, fantasy or horror compilation only to find that out of dozens of stories, only one or two are noteworthy. As a longtime genre fiction book reviewer, I can’t tell you how many times I’ve reviewed anthologies that not only contain no standout selections but feature stories that should never have been published in the first place – imagine having to read and review an entire collection of forgettable, second-rate stories... oh, the joy of it all!
The Gumpism “life are like a box of chocolates – you never know what you’re gonna get” is appropriate for most genre fiction short story collections as well. There are a few exceptions, however – compilations that I know are going to be superb from front to back before I even read them. The Year’s Best Science Fiction series edited by Gardner Dozois is always a highlight of my year and is unarguably the best annual anthology going – as well as an invaluable resource. I’ve also found that pretty much any anthology edited by Pyr editorial director Lou Anders will be one that I’ll absolutely cherish; Live Without a Net, FutureShocks, Fast Forward 1 and Fast Forward 2, and Sideways in Crime have all been high quality, deeply thought provoking gems. But in my mind the reigning king of the anthology world is John Joseph Adams.
Every anthology this guy is associated with seems to turn to gold: and by gold I mean jaw-droppingly brilliant anthologies with no weak links that I’ll not only read again and again but treasure until the day I die.
Here are a few John Joseph Adams anthologies that I’ve read and reviewed over the past few years…
Wastelands: Stories of the Apocalypse is a collection of some of the best end-of-the-world-as-we-know-it stories ever written and includes classic stories from Stephen King, George R.R. Martin, Orson Scott Card, Octavia E. Butler, Elizabeth Bear, Nancy Kress, and Cory Doctorow. This is arguably my favorite anthology of all time – just packed with speculative masterworks.
Seeds of Change was as much a collection of social fiction as it was science fiction and asked Big questions like: How will political, religious, and technological change affect humankind in the future? Will we eventually create a utopian society and develop into higher beings or will we inevitably destroy ourselves? Adams wrote about the inspiration behind the anthology in the book’s introduction: “The idea is to challenge our current paradigms and speculate on how they might evolve in the future, for better or for worse… It is my hope that reading these stories inspires some to plant their own seeds of change – that when we see something wrong, we’ll do something about it, whether that means writing to your representative in Congress or researching a cure for a disease or simply speaking out against inequality and prejudice.”
The Living Dead was, simply put, the best collection of zombie fiction stories ever collected. With 34 stories from some of the biggest names in genre fiction –Dan Simmons, George R.R. Martin, Stephen King, Neil Gaiman, Harlan Ellison and Robert Silverberg, Laurell K. Hamilton, Clive Barker, etc. – this anthology is, like Wastelands one of my all-time favorite short story collections. Fans of zombie fiction shouldn’t just read this anthology – they should own it.
And most recently, By Blood We Live, a killer collection of simply stellar vampire stories that just floored me from beginning to end. Neil Gaiman’s “Snow, Glass, Apples” revisits the Snow White myth with gruesome ferocity. Harry Turtledove’s brilliant “Under St. Peter’s” takes place in one of Christianity’s holiest sites and has a thematic impact that will stun everyone who reads it. Anne Rice’s “The Master of Rampling Gate” – the only short fiction that Rice has ever published (back in ’84) – is a historical ghost story with a terrifying twist. And that’s just the first three stories! Add to that classic bloodsucking tales from Stephen King, Brian Lumley, Tad Williams, Eric Van Lustbader, Tanith Lee, Jane Yolen, Lilith Saintcrow, Caitlin R. Kiernan, Kevin J. Anderson, Elizabeth Bear, and many more, and you have yourself yet another masterful – dare I say perfect – anthology from John Joseph Adams
So, whether it be vampires, zombies, the end of the world, or the dawn of a new world, genre fiction fans should seek out and read any and all anthologies edited by Mr. Adams. If genre fiction anthologies are like a box of chocolates then Mr. Adams is the next coming of Willy Wonka…
