Posts Tagged: John Joseph Adams

Interview

The End Has Come: An Interview with Jonathan Maberry

By Aidan Moher May 6th, 2015
Buy The End Has Come, edited by John Joseph Adams and Hugh Howey

Buy The End Has Come, edited by John Joseph Adams and Hugh Howey

In collaboration with editors John Joseph Adams and Hugh Howey, A Dribble of Ink is proud to introduce a series of interviews with the authors of The End Has Come, the final volume in the The Apocalypse Triptych. Following on The End is Nigh, and The End Is Here, The End Has Come contains 23 stories about life after the apocalypse.

Interview with Jonathan Maberry about “Jingo and the Hammerman”

(Interview by Hannah Huber)

What do you think it is about zombies that make them work as the source of an apocalypse?

Zombies are the perfect storytelling metaphor if you want to spin a tale about an extreme crisis, which makes them perfect for apocalyptic and post-apocalyptic storytelling. They represent a massive shared threat: something so big that it impacts every person, every relationship, every aspect of infrastructure, and every element of culture. Nothing escapes that impact. The zombie’s nature, threat, and potential are all easy to grasp, so once they’ve been introduced, they often fade into the background so the story can concentrate on what is most important: human people in the midst of life-changing events. People facing crises is the basis of all drama, and therefore the writer is able to tell any kind of story he or she wants. No other monster is so generous in enabling this, or in sharing the stage.

In a zombie apocalypse the crisis is so overwhelming that there is no time for us to maintain our affectations of who we pretend to be in day-to-day life. None of us are ever really ourselves – we edit ourselves depending on the situation. We are different people in public, at home alone, at work, in love, when heartbroken, and so on. Often we play roles that are vastly different from our natural selves, such as feeling ‘powerful’ because we have money, good looks, or position. In a zombie apocalypse, none of that matters. A captain of industry or a supermodel expect deference as a matter of course, but they might be the first to fall in an apocalyptic scenario. Whereas the bag-boy at the local supermarket might have tremendous but untapped leadership and survival skills. Steel is forged in the heat of a furnace, not while it is ore in the ground. Read More »

Interview

The End Has Come: An Interview with Carrie Vaughn

By Aidan Moher May 5th, 2015
Buy The End Has Come, edited by John Joseph Adams and Hugh Howey

Buy The End Has Come, edited by John Joseph Adams and Hugh Howey

In collaboration with editors John Joseph Adams and Hugh Howey, A Dribble of Ink is proud to introduce a series of interviews with the authors of The End Has Come, the final volume in the The Apocalypse Triptych. Following on The End is Nigh, and The End Is Here, The End Has Come contains 23 stories about life after the apocalypse.

Interview with Carrie Vaughn about “Bannerless”

(Interview by Jude Griffin)

What was the seed for “Bannerless”?

“Bannerless” is something of a prequel to an earlier story of mine, “Amaryllis,” which was nominated for a Hugo in 2011. In almost the first line of “Amaryllis,” the narrator wonders about her mother and why would have tried to go through with an unauthorized pregnancy. “Bannerless” is the answer to that question. I’ve been wanting to tackle this story for a long time, based on the premise that the answer isn’t what anyone would have expected. Read More »

Interview

The End Has Come: An Interview with Chris Avellone

By Aidan Moher May 4th, 2015
Buy The End Has Come, edited by John Joseph Adams and Hugh Howey

Buy The End Has Come, edited by John Joseph Adams and Hugh Howey

In collaboration with editors John Joseph Adams and Hugh Howey, A Dribble of Ink is proud to introduce a series of interviews with the authors of The End Has Come, the final volume in the The Apocalypse Triptych. Following on The End is Nigh, and The End Is Here, The End Has Come contains 23 stories about life after the apocalypse.

Interview with Chris Avellone about “Acts of Creation”

(Interview by Georgina Kamsika)

Tell us a little about “Acts of Creation.”

Aside from an obsessive drive to gamemaster superhero role-playing games (pen and paper superhero games, like Dungeons and Dragons, except… superheroic), Acts of Creation was my first foray into science-fiction prose – the idea of exploring a universe populated by artists with the potential to crack suns and detonate fleets with the ease of painting with watercolors appealed to me. Not only that, but exploring the idea of how you would attempt to contain and disarm such weapons in the wake of the apocalyptic war they won… in a manner of speaking.

I played around with a few other ideas and stories in the universe. Strangely enough, the stories often veered into family and romantic relationships, often with a mentor figure seeking to inspire a disciple with far more potential, sometimes older, sometimes younger, a character set-up I’ve often used in digital role-playing prose as well, from Planescape: Torment, to Knights of the Old Republic II, to New Vegas. I guess I haven’t quite gotten a satisfying answer on it yet, but arguably, each game universe comes with its own interesting twist that makes it fresh again in my eyes.

I always carried the hope of being able to share the story one day. And when John Joseph Adams brought up The End Has Come anthology and asked if I wanted to contribute, it seemed a great fit. And it helps that John and Hugh (Howey) are nice folks – Hugh, in fact, writes some of the nicest critiques I’ve ever seen from an editor, he makes sure you know what you’re doing well along with what you need to improve on. Read More »

News

The End Has Come: An Interview with Mira Grant

By Aidan Moher May 1st, 2015
Buy The End Has Come, edited by John Joseph Adams and Hugh Howey

Buy The End Has Come, edited by John Joseph Adams and Hugh Howey

In collaboration with editors John Joseph Adams and Hugh Howey, A Dribble of Ink is proud to introduce a series of interviews with the authors of The End Has Come, the final volume in the The Apocalypse Triptych. Following on The End is Nigh, and The End Is Here, The End Has Come contains 23 stories about life after the apocalypse.

Interview with Mira Grant about “The Happiest Place”

(Interview by Gwen Whiting)

Your story, “The Happiest Place,” is set in a post-apocalyptic Disneyland where survivors of an epidemic have gathered. What inspired you to choose this particular setting?

I really really really really really love Disneyland, and any excuse to spend time there–even during a horrific apocalypse that is inevitably going to kill basically everyone–is cool by me. I literally wrote this story to creep out my best friend. I did a good job. Read More »

News

John Joseph Adams and Hugh Howey announce The Apocalypse Triptych

By Aidan Moher November 19th, 2013
apocalypse-triptych-banner

Via io9, John Joseph Adams and Hugh Howey announced a new anthology series called The Apocalypse Triptych. The three volumes in the trilogy are titled: The End is Nigh, The End is Now and The End Has Come. As the titles of the books suggest, each volume will focus on a particular period before, during and after an apocalyptic event.

Adams, editor of Lightspeed and Nightmare, is one of the most popular (and prolific) anthologies editors working today, and Howey is one of Science Fiction’s most successful stories of self-published-author-takes-over-the-world (before selling the print rights to Simon & Schuster, he sold half-a-million copies of his novella-collection Wool). I have trouble describing the magnitude impact of these two working together without degenerating into a series of weightless superlatives. These books are gonna sell a ton. Period.

The Apocalypse Triptych

Speaking with io9, Adams described the reasoning behind publishing a unique triptych of anthologies, rather than one large anthology covering all types of apocalyptic stories. “[T]here is a distinct vibe that each of these types of stories has,” he said, referring to end-of-the-world, the-world-hand-ended, and post-apocalyptic scenarios. “[A]nd I suspect that there are lots of readers who are interested in one mode of apocalypse fiction or another; some might prefer watching everything burn, while some might be more interested in seeing what happens after everything has burned, etc., and so I think anthologies like these can be valuable for that reason.”

Howey, on the other hand, has his own take on why the progressive nature of the triptych is important. He says, “The beauty of this triptych, for me, is the chance to read short stories with sequels, short stories that take us on a journey, that tie a single world together across time and space.”

The Triptych includes many of today’s most exciting short fiction authors, including Paolo Bacigalupi, Seanan McGuire, Ben H. Winters, Elizabeth Bear, Scott Sigler, Robin Wasserman. Adams made clear, however, that not all authors will appear in every volume. Wool fans are in luck, though, as Howey is confirmed to have a Wool story in each volume. As if these books weren’t going to sell enough copies already.

More information about The Apocalypse Triptych is available through the official website. The first volume, The End is Nigh will be released in June, 2014.