Tales of Downfall and Rebirth

May 15, 2015
Editor Stirling concedes in this new short story anthology that fictional world building is a tall order, so he's enlisted some help to flesh out his own Emberverse, a postapocalyptic world brought about by a sudden collapse of all modern technology. An army of sci-fi and fantasy writers has come together to write 17 new tales exploring the hidden corners of a slowly rebuilding world. Stirling prompts the stories with his own questions about the inevitable state of government, ideology, and the preservation of our modern mythosquestions answered with humor, gravitas, and creative musings. It's hardly secret that the center of sci-fi and fantasy's appeal is the imaginative stimulation of world building. This anthology is a delightful testament to the fact.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2015, American Library Association.)