Out of the Ruins edited by Preston Grassman
I would like to thank Titan for an advance copy of this collection in exchange for fair and honest review
Publisher – Titan
Published – Out Now
Price – £8.99 paperback £6.64 Kindle eBook
A fresh take on post-apocalyptic fiction, combining voices across science fiction, horror and weird fiction for the end of the world seen through the salvage and the ruins. Featuring China Mieville, Emily St John Mandel, Charlie Jane Anders, Ramsey Campbell and more.
This anthology of post-apocalyptic fiction asks, what would you save from the fire? In the moments when it all comes crashing down, what will we value the most, and how will we save it?
Featuring stories from China Miéville, Emily St John Mandel, Clive Barker, Carmen Maria Machado, Charlie Jane Anders, Samuel R. Delaney, Ramsey Campbell, Lavie Tidhar, Kaaron Warrern, Anna Tambour, Nina Allan, Jeffrey Thomas, Paul Di Filippo, Ron Drummond, Nikhil Singh, John Skipp, Autumn Christian, Chris Kelso, Rumi Kaneko, Nick Mamatas and D.R.G. Sugawara.
Imaging the world after a disaster has been around for a long time from HG Well’s Time Traveller to various zombies, disasters and alien invasions various authors have examined our futures and in return are trying to understand our present. But in 2021 we are reading these stories right in the middle of a global disaster. Does this change how we read these stories? I suspect it will and reading Out of the Ruins edited by Preston Grassman provided a varied mix of tales to give us food for thought.
Particular stories and poems that grabbed me in this collection were
The Green Caravanserai by Lavie Tidhar – a captivating yet unusual tale taking place in a forever changed african coastline filled with strange ideas such as terrorartists and bombs that destroy in extreme slow motion. I really liked the visually strange world offered and the sense that however things get bad then we find a way out of it.
As Good as New by Charlie Jane Anders – a delightfully funny yet thoughtful tale on why art matters. A playwright who also cleans toilets finds herself after the end of the world stuck in their employer’s panic room. After a long time watching endless tv shows on the recorder she finds a genie in a bottle who could offer three wishes. A wonderful story about how we get through dark times and creating art out of it. My favourite in the collection.
Reminded by Ramsey Campbell – an imaginative tale that uses something many of us fear the UK driving test and turns it into something much stranger and increasingly making the reader uneasy. An elderly couple of hoping they can finally pass but we start to realise we are in a world where memories are now quite precious and easily lost. A good puzzle for a reader to deconstruct what actualy is going on and the fear of meeting the Examiner will be shared by many.
Inventory by Carmen Maria Machado – a tale of lust, love and loss as characters recall their sexual partners and sexual encounters in the time of a pandemic. A powerful tale of human seeking connections even when all falls apart. Very powerfully delivered and charged with emotion.
On top of this we have a poem from Clive Barker and tales from the likes of Nina Allen, Emily St Mandel and Samuel L Delaney. For me the collection didn’t really quite spark into life in many other stories, but I do wonder if this is because my own experiences have coloured my view of what comes next or given me expectations of what humans will really do. An interesting collection worth a look.
