She Treads Softly: This Way to the End Times

Sunday, October 30, 2016

This Way to the End Times

This Way to the End Times: Classic Tales of the Apocalypse edited by Robert Silverberg
Three Rooms Press: 10/17/16

eBook review copy; 468 pages
ISBN-13: 9781941110485

This Way to the End Times: Classic Tales of the Apocalypse edited by Robert Silverberg is a very highly recommended anthology of 21 wildly diverse apocalyptic stories. Don't miss this collection!

This collection covers the gamut from early, classic writers to recent contemporary authors. The end comes in incredible variety of ways, including the expected fire and ice scenarios, to willful extinction in many forms, to natural disasters, to "visitors" from beyond and more. The stories selected are all well written, most of them are exceptionally well written. Silverberg did a wonderful job in his selection of stories to include in this anthology. He opens the book with an introduction to the collection, where he points out: "Since apocalyptic visions are nearly universal in the religious literature of the world, and probably always have been, it’s not surprising that they should figure largely in the fantasies of imaginative storytellers." Then, before each story, he has an interesting and informative shorter introduction to the specific author and story.

There are many stories in this collection that I loved, but, incredibly, didn't have even one that I disliked. I'm giving credit to the care in which they were chosen as well as the talent of all the writers included. This is a great collection of superb stories!

Contents include:
INTRODUCTION by Robert Silverberg
THE ETERNAL ADAM by Jules Verne
THE LAST GENERATION by James Elroy Flecker
FINIS by Frank Lillie Pollock
THE COMING OF THE ICE by G. Peyton Wertenbaker
N DAY by Philip Latham
GUYAL OF SFERE by Jack Vance
A PAIL OF AIR by Fritz Leiber
WHO CAN REPLACE A MAN by Brian W. Aldiss
HERESIES OF THE HUGE GOD by Brian W. Aldiss
THE NEW ATLANTIS by Ursula K. Le Guin
WHEN WE WENT TO SEE THE END OF THE WORLD by Robert Silverberg
THE WIND AND THE RAIN by Robert Silverberg
THE SCREWFLY SOLUTION by James Tiptree, Jr.
AFTER-IMAGES by Malcolm Edwards
DAISY, IN THE SUN by Connie Willis
THREE DAYS AFTER by Karen Haber
THE RAIN AT THE END OF THE WORLD by Dale Bailey
THE END OF THE WORLD AS WE KNOW IT by Dale Bailey
FINAL EXAM by Megan Artenberg
PRAYERS TO THE SUN by Alvaro Zinos-Amaro
LAST AND FIRST MEN by Olaf Stapledon

Disclosure: My advanced reading copy was courtesy of the publisher/author.

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John Updike's six rules for reviewing:

1. Try to understand what the author wished to do, and do not blame him for not achieving what he did not attempt.

2. Give him enough direct quotation--at least one extended passage--of the book's prose so the review's reader can form his own impression, can get his own taste.

3. Confirm your description of the book with quotation from the book, if only phrase-long, rather than proceeding by fuzzy precis.

4. Go easy on plot summary, and do not give away the ending.

5. If the book is judged deficient, cite a successful example along the same lines, from the author's oeuvre or elsewhere. Try to understand the failure. Sure it's his and not yours?

To these concrete five might be added a vaguer sixth, having to do with maintaining a chemical purity in the reaction between product and appraiser.....Review the book, not the reputation.... Better to praise and share than blame and ban. The communion between reviewer and his public is based upon the presumption of certain possible joys in reading, and all our discriminations should curve toward that end.