Today, Titan Books publish Wastelands 2, a new anthology of post-apocalyptic fiction edited by award-winning editor John Joseph Adams. Featuring such mega-sellers as George R.R. Martin, David Brin and Hugh Howey, not to mention Pulitzer-prize winner Junot Diaz, the stories contained within offer “an eclectic mix of tales that explores famine, death, war, pestilence, and harbingers of the biblical apocalypse.”
Today, I can share with you an extract, the introduction to Christie Yant‘s story “The Revelation of Morgan Stern”…
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It is July 31, your birthday, and I can’t reach you. I’ve been trying all day, but the cell networks are down, the internet is down. I even tried a pay phone–there are two left in town that I know of, and I collected all of my change and walked to the 76 in the village. It was on fire. I watched it for a while from a distance as it painted a brown, toxic streak across the sky. It was a long walk back to the house, or what’s left of it. My feet hurt, and it was too quiet.
The back of the house fell in, but I managed to climb into the kitchen and recover a few things. Tonight we would have celebrated your birthday over video chat, the best we could do so far apart. I have no way to tell you that I salvaged a donut and lit a candle and sang to you. I don’t know if you’re alive or dead. Continue reading
Civilian Reader 