"A desolate landscape, wracked with upheaval, the uncanny nature of a place once so familiar. A revelation of what was formerly undisclosed, the harbingers of apocalypse are edging ever closer..." The wasteland of abandoned memories, the end of the world or a chance for a new beginning. Be it a personal apocalypse, or one of great cataclysm, the stories that arise from the rubble are tales of aftermath and tales of survival. Bridging the gap between Science Fiction and Horror, the gothic overtones of the apocalyptic imagination are explored to their full extent in these short stories. "After the Fall: Tales of the Apocalypse" is a collection of twenty short stories from some of the best up-and-coming writers of modern science fiction. All apocalyptic or dystopian in nature, some stories bring laughter, while others bring tears, but each is unique in its interpretation of the theme. "-After the Fall-" features: "Casting off" by Robert Holtom (Competition winner) As I sit in a cafe, waiting for a loved one, so I contemplate the end of the world. "Nightshade" by Damon DiMarco Civilization's death rattle as we succumb to the Nightshade virus in a curious and ironic way. "In Debt" by Javier Moyano Perez A dystopian story about a fictitious America enslaved for eternity by merciless creditors and artificial age preservation. "The Dying and the Desolation" by Paul S. Huggins Drake is alive, man and animal alike have been wiped off the planet by a virilent form of rabies, immune or lucky he must adapt if he wants to survive. "Seen and not Heard" by Ilana Masad A mother's fight to retain her sanity and her illegal, secret, son in the post-nuclear dictatorship she lives in. "They Turn Red Then Black" by Spencer Lawes In a run-down village dependent on a river of garbage, two boys desperately try to find a way to stop their crippled mother being raped by the inhabitants of nearby villages. "Diary of a Zee" by Brian LeCluyse Set in an apocalyptic, dying Austin, Texas and told from the point of view of a vegetarian, pot-smoking, hippie, liberal zombie. "The Ambulancemen" by Heather Parry A world turned on its head; a world where the sirens of an Ambulance are to be feared, not respected. "You Call This an Apocalypse?" by Errick A. Nunnally Two foster kids more different than alike, from one of the poorest neighborhoods in Boston during the first day of the zombie apocalypse. Also in the collection: "Rush Hour" by Thomas Brown "Sale of the Century" by Liam Brown "We Don't Go to the River" by Jeremy Watssman "All Clear in the Anderton House" by Claire Fuller "Over the Vanishing City" by Toby Lloyd "Up the Road" by Andrew Saxsma "The End of Time" by Robert Legg "Stasis by Rebecca" Jane Garner "The Comeback Tour" by Andrea Mullaney "Anaesthetised" by Emma Lyskava "The Remnants of Civilization" by Vince Liberato Foreword by Kelly Gardner Cover art: "Wanderers of a Poor Town" by Edwin Yang All proceeds from this collection go towards running competitions for aspiring writers!

Famine, Death, War, and Pestilence: The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse, the harbingers of Armageddon — these are our guides through the Wastelands... From the Book of Revelations to The Road Warrior; from A Canticle for Leibowitz to The Road, storytellers have long imagined the end of the world, weaving tales of catastrophe, chaos, and calamity. Gathering together the best post-apocalyptic literature of the last two decades from many of today’s most renowned authors of speculative fiction, including George R.R. Martin, Gene Wolfe, Orson Scott Card, Carol Emshwiller, Jonathan Lethem, Octavia E. Butler, and Stephen King, Wastelands explores the scientific, psychological, and philosophical questions of what it means to remain human in the wake of Armageddon.

Publishers Weekly Top 10 Best of the Year In her new collection, Story Prize finalist Maureen F. McHugh delves into the dark heart of contemporary life and life five minutes from now and how easy it is to mix up one with the other. Her stories are post-bird flu, in the middle of medical trials, wondering if our computers are smarter than us, wondering when our jobs are going to be outsourced overseas, wondering if we are who we say we are, and not sure what we'd do to survive the coming zombie plague. Praise for Maureen F. McHugh: "Gorgeously crafted stories."—Nancy Pearl, NPR "Hauntingly beautiful."—Booklist "Unpredictable and poetic work."—The Plain Dealer Maureen F. McHugh has lived in New York; Shijiazhuang, China; Ohio; Austin, Texas; and now lives in Los Angeles, California. She is the author of a Story Prize finalist collection, Mothers & Other Monsters, and four novels, including Tiptree Award-winner China Mountain Zhang and New York Times editor's choice Nekropolis. McHugh has also worked on alternate reality games for Halo 2, The Watchmen, and Nine Inch Nails, among others.

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.

An anthology of short stories, The Fall explores different visions of the apocalypse. Ancient prophecies, technological Armageddon, failures of government, a distracted deity, and yes, zombies all have their moments in this collection, but so do love, yearning, hope, and humor. In the end, the apocalypse offers a path to new beginnings, even if it requires a trek through death, despair, and destruction to find them.

Sid, Axl, and Ivan volunteer to make a late-night fast-food run for the high school theater crew, and when they return, they find themselves. Not in a deep, metaphoric sense: They find copies of themselves onstage. As they look closer, they begin to realize that the world around them isn’t quite right. Turns out, when they went to the taco place across town, they actually crossed into an alien dimension that’s eerily similar to their world. The aliens have made sinister copies of cars, buildings, and people—and they all want to get Sid, Axl, and Ivan. Now the group will have to use their wits, their truck, and even their windshield scraper to escape! But they may be too late. They may now be copies themselves . . .

This sci-fi/horror anthology features fifteen twisted tales of post-Armageddon terror. Written by Frank Forte (Heavy Metal, Lovecraft Country) and illustrated by artists from all over the globe, this collection features tales of doom and gloom that will make your brain mutate. Half the book features stories originally published in Heavy Metal and the other half are original to this volume. "The Transaction" takes us on a dirty deal gone bad in the darkest regions of space with art by Korean sensation Sylvester Song. "Battlefield X" brings us on the front lines of a bio-chemical war. "Mutation" delivers a tale of post-nuke mutations and deviancy which can only have disastrous results. Other tales include Beacon from Scorpius 4", "A Victorian Ghost Story', "Incident on Alpha Proxima", "Short Circuit" and more. Fans of Heavy Metal and Epic Illustrated will love this anthology.

Wastelands 2 - More Stories of the Apocalypse is a new anthology of post-apocalyptic literature from some of the most renowned science fiction and fantasy authors in the field today including George R.R. Martin, Hugh Howey, Junot Diaz, David Brin and many more. It is an eclectic mix of tales that explores famine, death, war, pestilence, and harbingers of the biblical apocalypse.