Rating: 4.0
Wastelands is a book containing 22 short stories of life after an apocalypse. The editor did a really good job at picking stories detailing a variety of different world ending scenarios and the struggles of those left to rebuild society and start over.
Some of these stories are just so-so....nothing special or memorable. Others, though, were really great. There are some that take place in the near future and some that take place so far away in time that people aren't even recognizable as people anymore. Some of these stories are very sad and don't show much hope for humanity, while others end on a very optimistic and happy note...a fresh start. "All of them explore one question: What would life be like after the end of the world as we know it?" If you are into the Post-Apocalyptic sub-genre, then this is definitely a book you should check out.
I like what Publisher's Weekly had to say about these stories: "Keynoted by Stephen King's "The End of the Whole Mess," the volume's common denominator is hubris: that tragic human proclivity for placing oneself at the center of the universe, and each story uniquely traces the results. Some highlight human hope, even optimism, like Orson Scott Card's "Salvage" and Tobias Buckell's "Waiting for the Zephyr." Others, like James Van Pelt's "The Last of the O-Forms" and Nancy Kress's "Inertia," treat identity by exploring mutation. Several, like Elizabeth Bear's "And the Deep Blue Sea" and Jack McDevitt's "Never Despair," gauge the height of human striving, while others, like George R.R. Martin's "Dark, Dark Were the Tunnels," Carol Emshwiller's "Killers" and M. Rickert's "Bread and Bombs," plumb the depths of human prejudice, jealousy and fear. Beware of Paolo Bacigalupi's far-future "The People of Sand and Slag," though; that one will break your heart."
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