ABOUT THE BOOK & HOW IT CAME ABOUT
& THE CAUSE IT'S FOR
Four
different publishing houses have combined their efforts to produce a
speculative fiction anthology of stories for the benefit of COVID-19
relief. The stories and cover art were donated by their creators to the
cause, and 95% of all profits from Surviving Tomorrow will go directly
toward medical relief. The anthology features 29 stories, including
stories from New York Times Bestsellers Neil Gaiman, Seanan McGuire and
Cory Doctorow.
Aeristic Press, 25 & Y, Valeron and Boralis
Books have coordinated on production of this charity anthology to assist
struggling communities; through front line test kits or donations to DirectRelief, GlobalGiving or ModestNeeds.org.
“The
idea was to create a collection of stories about survivors that would
help them escape from the fear and stress of the present crisis and
think about the possibilities for tomorrow,” said Bryan Thomas Schmidt,
Co-Managing Editor for Aerisitic Press and Hugo-nominated editor for 15
different anthologies. “When the pandemic happened, my mind immediately
started thinking about what I might do to help.”
This is an
excellent way for avid or casual readers to contribute to COVID-19
relief. For those who want to contribute more to the effort, a
gold-embossed, faux leather special edition is available, with eBooks
already available in a pre-release edition and print copies shipping in
August and September. As all print copies are bundled with a free eBook,
all readers will have access to the stories at the same time.
**All profits go to providing COVID-19 tests directly to the front lines of this crisis.**
MORE ABOUT HOW THE BOOK CAME ABOUT
Surviving Tomorrow contains twenty-nine stories about
survivors, over half of them original and being published here for the first
time. Struck by a desire to help people as the pandemic unfolded, editor Bryan Thomas Schmidt decided to try and use his skills as an
anthologist to raise funding for COVID-19 support by creating an anthology with
two purposes—fundraising and provide readers with stories that would speak to
them as they manage the stress of our changing social landscape.
Bryan took the idea to a
friend he knew was at that time suffering from the novel coronavirus who also
happened to be a medical publisher—Peter J. Wacks—and asked if he'd be willing to build the
project. Peter spoke to Isabel Penraeth—who was in the process of launching a
new specialty edition publishing house—about the project… and the anthology was
in incubation.
People from four different
publishing enterprises joined forces to bring this book to life. After
conversations with the authors you see below, all of whom are allowing their
work to be published without remuneration, the anthology became a living,
breathing reality.
The stories in Surviving Tomorrow focus on the impacts of extraordinary
circumstances on the people they depict and how they respond, and though a few
are longer, most of the stories are short enough to be read in a few minutes’
time—designed to provide a brief escape from the worries of the moment into
another world and renew your spirit and mind.
All profits from Surviving Tomorrow go to providing COVID-19 tests directly
to the front lines of this crisis, or your portion can be earmarked for one of
the charities you can select on the checkout page. As we
start to achieve distributing to the front lines, we will post a thermometer
here to show how many (and where) the tests are landing. Available in a
limited, numbered, gold-leaf embossed collector’s edition as well as hardcover,
trade paperback, and ebook, Surviving Tomorrow will provide hours of enjoyment even as
it saves lives.
The Editor of this book is Bryan Thomas Schmidt and he is
the Hugo-nominated and national bestselling editor of 15 anthologies and
numerous novels including the worldwide bestseller The Martian by Andy Weir and
books by Frank Herbert, Alan Dean Foster, and Angie Fox, among others. His
books have been published by St. Martin’s Press, Baen Books, Titan Books, IDW,
and many more. A national bestselling author of novels and short fiction, his
novel series include The Saga of Davi Rhii and The John Simon Thrillers. His
debut novel, The Worker Prince, received Honorable Mention on Barnes and
Noble’s Year’s Best Science Fiction of 2011. He lives in Ottawa, KS where he
has been social distancing with his two dogs and two mischievous felines. He
can be found online at www.bryanthomasschmidt.net and as BryanThomasS on
Twitter and Facebook.
There are some really well-known names that have
contributed to this anthology, some, as an avid reader I had heard of and
others I have discovered through this anthology. Those listed as well known names
or as they are referred to as “headliners” are, Neil Gaiman, Chelsea Quinn
Yarbro, Robert Silverberg, Seanan McGuire, and Jonathan Maberry, Scott
Sigler, Alan Dean Foster, A.C. Crispin, Cory Doctorow, Jody Lynn
Nye, Orson Scott Card, Andrew Mayne, Kristine Kathryn Rusch, and
John Skipp.
There are many other, perhaps not as well known authors
short stories who are listed as Contributors and they are, Claire Ashgrove,
Roshni "Rush" Bhatia, Livia Blackburn, Beth Cato and Brenda Cooper, Raymund
Eich, Tori Eldridge, Julie Frost, C. Stuart Hardwick, J. Kent Holloway, K.D.
McEntire, Kathleen O’Malley, Bryan Thomas Schmidt Ken Scholes, Martin L.
Shoemaker, Peter J. Wacks, Jay Werkheiser, and Mercedes M. Yardley
Then the following names are mentioned giving special
thanks to, Svitlana Stefaniuk, Bond Halbert, Sebastian Penraeth, Isabel
Penraeth, and Kevin Kauffmann.
WHERE/HOW TO PURCHASE LINK
ABOUT THE EDITOR
Bryan Thomas Schmidt is the Hugo-nominated and national bestselling editor of 15 anthologies and numerous novels including the worldwide
bestseller The Martian by Andy Weir and books by Frank Herbert, Alan Dean Foster,
and Angie Fox, among others. His books have been published by St. Martin’s
Press, Baen Books, Titan Books, IDW, and many more. A national bestselling
author of novels and short fiction, his novel series include The Saga of Davi
Rhii and The John Simon Thrillers. His debut novel, The Worker Prince, received
Honorable
Mention on Barnes and Noble’s Year’s Best Science Fiction of 2011. He
lives in Ottawa, KS where he has been social distancing with his two
dogs and one very naughty cat. He can be found online at www.bryanthomasschmidt.
net and as BryanThomasS on Twitter and Facebook.
CONTRIBUTORS
Martin L. Shoemaker is a programmer who writes on the side… or maybe it’s the other way around. Programming pays the bills, but a
second-place
story in the Jim Baen Memorial Writing Contest earned him lunch with
Buzz
Aldrin. Programming never did that! His work has appeared in Analog
Science
Fiction & Fact, Galaxy’s Edge, Digital Science Fiction, Forever
Magazine,
Writers of the Future, and numerous anthologies including Year’s Best
Military
and Adventure SF 4, Man-Kzin Wars XV, The Jim Baen Memorial Award: The
First Decade, Little Green Men—Attack!, More Human Than Human: Stories of
Androids, Robots, and Manufactured Humanity, and Avatar Dreams. His Clarkesworld
story “Today I Am Paul” appeared in four different year’s best anthologies and
eight international editions. His follow-on novel, Today I Am Carey, was
published by Baen Books in March 2019. His novel The Last Dance was published by
47North in November 2019.
Andrew Mayne is a Wall Street Journal bestselling author and an Edgar Award and Thriller Award finalist. He’s the author of The Girl Beneath
the Sea, The Naturalist, Looking Glass, Murder Theory, Dark Pattern, Angel Killer,
and Name of the Devil. He starred in the Discovery Channel Shark Week special
Andrew
Mayne: Ghost Diver and A&E’s Don’t Trust Andrew Mayne. As an illusionist,
he started his first world tour when he was a teenager and went on to work behind
the scenes for Penn & Teller, David Blaine, and David Copperfield. He
was ranked as the fifth best selling independent author of the year by Amazon UK.
For more on him and his work, you can follow him on Twitter @AndrewMayne and
visit www.AndrewMayne.com.
Roshni “Rush” Bhatia is a horror writer-director living in Los Angeles,
USA. Growing up in Mumbai, Rush was inspired by filmmakers like James Cameron,
Ridley Scott and writers like Richard Matheson and Rod Serling. By the age of
21, while Rush’s shorts were making the rounds at film festivals, she wrote,
directed and conceptualized six Bollywood music videos which have garnered
millions of views. Her short films garnered appreciation at top tier festivals
such as Leeds International Film Festival, Morbido Film Fest, etc. Her films
have been accepted at more than 50 festivals and have won awards for Best
Director, Best Cinematography and Best Writing. Rush was also nominated for
Best Writer by the Horror Writers Association of America for Plasmid.
Cory Doctorow (craphound.com) is a science fiction author, activist,
journalist and blogger—the co-editor of Boing Boing (boingboing.net) and the
author of many books, most recently In Real Life, a graphic novel; Information
Doesn’t Want To Be Free, a book about earning a living in the Internet age, and
Homeland, the award-winning, best-selling sequel to the 2008 YA novel Little
Brother.
Since 1969 Chelsea Quinn Yarbro has published nearly 100 books and more
than 70 pieces of short fiction. Her most famous creation is the 4,000 year-old
vampire Count Saint-Germain, whose adventures Yarbro have chronicled in a
bestselling series of historical horror novels. She has also composed music for
the orchestra and theater. In 1997 the Transylvanian Society of Dracula bestowed a literary
knighthood on Yarbro, and in 2003 the World Horror Association presented her
with a Grand Master award. In 2006 the International Horror Guild enrolled her
among their Living Legends, the first woman to be so honored. She has received
two Lifetime Achievement Awards — from the Horror Writers Association in 2009,
and from the World Fantasy Association in 2014. Yarbro lives in the San Francisco Bay Area with the Gang of Two (her
cats Butterscotch and Crumpet). When not busy reading or writing, she enjoys
the symphony and opera. For more, see www.chelseaquinnyarbro.net
Seanan McGuire is the New York Times-bestselling author of more than a
dozen books, all published within the last five years, which may explain
why
some people believe that she does not actually sleep. Her work has been
translated into several languages, and resulted in her receiving a record five Hugo
Award nominations on the 2013 ballot. When not writing, Seanan spends
her
time reading, watching terrible horror movies and too much television,
visiting
Disney Parks, and rating haunted corn mazes. You can keep up with her at
www.seananmcguire.com.
Number one New York Times bestselling author Scott Sigler is the creator
of fifteen novels, six novellas, and dozens of short stories. His works are
available from Crown Publishing and Del Rey Books. In 2005, Scott built a large
online following by releasing his audiobooks as serialized podcasts. A decade
later, he still gives his stories away—for free—every Sunday at
www.scottsigler.com. His loyal fans, who named themselves “Junkies,” have downloaded more
than forty million individual episodes. He has been covered in Time,
Entertainment Weekly, Publishers Weekly, The New York Times, The Washington Post, the San Francisco Chronicle, the Chicago Tribune, Io9, Wired, the Huffington
Post, BusinessWeek, and Fangoria. Scott is the co-founder of Empty Set
Entertainment, which publishes his Galactic Football League YA series. He lives in San Diego, California, with his wee little dog, Reesie.
K.D. McEntire is the author of the Lightbringer YA urban fantasy trilogy from PYR Books. She lives in Kansas where between raising her two young
sons, she is working on another novel, and can be found online at
https://www.
facebook.com/KD-McEntire.
Orson Scott Card is the New York Times bestselling and award-winning
author of the novels Ender’s Game, Ender’s Shadow, and Speaker for the Dead,
which are widely read by adults and younger readers, and are increasingly used
in schools. His most recent series, the young adult Pathfinder series
(Pathfinder, Ruins, Visitors) and the fantasy Mithermages series (Lost Gate, Gate
Thief) are taking readers in new directions. Besides these and other science
fiction novels, Card writes contemporary fantasy (Magic Street, Enchantment, Lost Boys),
biblical novels (Stone Tables, Rachel and Leah), the American frontier fantasy
series, The Tales of Alvin Maker (beginning with Seventh Son), poetry (An Open
Book), and many plays and scripts. Card currently lives in Greensboro, North Carolina, with his wife,
Kristine Allen Card, where his primary activities are writing a review column for
the local Rhinoceros Times and feeding birds, squirrels, chipmunks, possums,
and raccoons on the patio.
Ken Scholes is the award-winning, critically-acclaimed author of five
novels and over fifty short stories. His work has appeared in print since 2000.
He is also a singer-songwriter who has written nearly a hundred songs over
thirty years of performing.
Ken’s eclectic background includes time spent as a label gun repairman,
a sailor who never sailed, a soldier who commanded a desk, a
fundamentalist
preacher (he got better), a nonprofit executive, and a government
procurement
analyst. He has a degree in History from Western Washington University.
Ken is a native of the Pacific Northwest and makes his home in
Cornelius, Oregon, where he lives with his twin daughters. You can learn
more
about Ken by visiting www.kenscholes.com.
New York Times bestselling author Livia Blackburne wrote her first novel
while researching the neuroscience of reading at the Massachusetts Institute of
Technology. Since then, she’s switched to full time writing, which also
involves getting into people’s heads but without the help of a three tesla MRI
scanner. She is the author of Midnight Thief (An Indies Introduce New Voices
selection) and Rosemarked (A YALSA Teens Top Ten nominee), as well as their
respective sequels.
Alan Dean Foster’s work to date includes excursions into hard science
fiction, fantasy, horror, detective, western, historical, and contemporary
fiction. He has also written numerous nonfiction articles on film, science, and
scuba diving, as well as having produced the novel versions of many films,
including such well-known productions as Star Wars, the first three Alien
films, Alien Nation, and The Chronicles of Riddick. Other works include scripts
for talking records, radio, computer games, and the story for Star Trek: The
Motion Picture. His novel Shadowkeep was the first ever book adaptation of an
original computer game. In addition to publication in English his work has been
translated into more than fifty languages and has won awards in Spain and
Russia. His novel Cyber Way won the Southwest Book Award for Fiction in 1990,
the first work of science fiction ever to do so. Foster’s sometimes humorous, occasionally poignant, but always
entertaining short fiction has appeared in all the major SF magazines as well
as in original anthologies and several “Best of the Year” compendiums. His
published oeuvre includes more than 100 books. Among his most famous original
creations are the characters Pip and Flinx and Amos Malone.
New York Times bestselling author A.C. Crispin (1950–2013) wrote
prolifically in many different tie-in universes, and was a master at filling in the
histories of beloved TV and movie characters. She began publishing in 1983 with
the Star Trek novel Yesterday’s Son, written in her spare time while working
for the US Census Bureau. Shortly thereafter, Tor Books commissioned her to
write
what is perhaps still her most widely read work, the 1984 novelization
of the
television miniseries, V, which sold more than a million copies.
For Star Wars, Crispin wrote the bestselling Han Solo Trilogy: The
Paradise
Snare, The Hutt Gambit, and Rebel Dawn, which tell the story of Han Solo
from
his early years right up to the moment he walks into the cantina in Star
Wars:
A New Hope. She wrote three other bestselling Star Trek novels: Time for
Yesterday, The Eyes of the Beholders, and Sarek. Her final tie-in novel was the
massive Pirates of the Caribbean: The Price of Freedom, which was published in
2011. She was named a Grandmaster by the International Association of Media Tie-In Writers in 2013. Her major original science fiction undertaking was the StarBridge
series. These books, written solo or in collaboration, centered around a school
for young diplomats, translators, and explorers, both alien and human,
located on an asteroid far from Earth. Series titles are: StarBridge, Silent
Dances, Shadow World, Serpent’s Gift, Silent Songs, Voices of Chaos, and Ancestor’s
World. Crispin was a fierce advocate for writers. She and author Victoria
Strauss
created and co-chaired SFWA’s “scam watchdog” committee, Writer Beware,
in 1998.
Kathleen O’Malley has been writing fiction and nonfiction since her
childhood. With her friend, A.C. Crispin, she coauthored two StarBridge books:
StarBridge 2: Silent Dances and StarBridge 5: Silent Songs, the movie
novelization
Alien: Resurrection, and several short stories, including “Pure Silver.”
She lives
in Maryland with her wife and 6 accidental dogs and three deliberate
cats.
Jody Lynn Nye lists her main career activity as “spoiling cats.” She
lives
northwest of Atlanta with three feline overlords, Athena, Minx, and
Marmalade,
and her husband, author and packager Bill Fawcett. She has written over
fifty books, most of them with a humorous bent, and over 170 short
stories.
Jody has been fortunate enough to have collaborated with some of the
greats
in the field of science fiction and fantasy. She wrote several books
with Anne
McCaffrey or set in Anne’s many worlds, including The Death of Sleep,
The Ship
Who Won, Crisis on Doona(a New York Times and USA Today bestseller), and
The Dragonlover’s Guide to Pern. She wrote eight books with Robert Asprin
and has since his death continued two of his series, the Myth-Adventures and
Dragons. She edited a humorous anthology about mothers, Don’t Forget Your
Spacesuit, Dear!, Her latest books are Rhythm of the Imperium (Baen Books),
Moon Tracks (with Travis S. Taylor, Baen Books), Myth-Fits (Ace), and Once
More, with Feeling, a book on revising your manuscripts (WordFire Press). She
is one of the judges for the Writers of the Future fiction contest, the largest
speculative fiction contest in the world. Jody also teaches the intensive
two-day writers’ workshop at DragonCon. You can find her online on Facebook,
Twitter, and her website, jodynye.net.
Jonathan Maberry is a New York Times bestselling author and 5-time Bram
Stoker Award-winner. He writes in multiple genres including suspense, thriller,
horror, science fiction, fantasy, action, and steampunk, for adults, teens and
middle grade. His works include the Joe Ledger thrillers, Rot & Ruin, Mars
One, and Captain America, which is in development for a feature film. He writes
comics for Marvel, Dark Horse and IDW and is the editor of such high-profile
anthologies as The X-Files, V-Wars, Out of Tune, Baker Street Irregular, Nights
of the Living Dead, and Scary Out There. He lives in Del Mar, California.
Bryan Thomas Schmidt is a Hugo-nominated editor and the national
bestselling author of numerous novels and short stories including The Saga of
Davi Rhii space opera trilogy and The John Simon Thrillers. His latest Novel,
Common Source (John Simon Thrillers 3) released in early June 2020, and his
next novel, the near future hard science fiction thriller Shortcut will be out
this Fall. Shortcut has been optioned for film by Roserock Films. His debut
novel, The Worker Prince received Honorable Mention on Barnes and Noble’s
Year’s Best Science Fiction of 2011. He is also a screenwriter, songwriter, and
musician and lives in Ottawa, KS with his beloved dogs and cat. He can be found
online at www.bryanthomasschmidt.net.
Neil Gaiman is the bestselling author of books, short stories, films and
graphic novels for adults and children.Some of his most notable titles include
the novels The Graveyard Book (the first book to ever win both the Newbery and
Carnegie medals), American Gods, and the UK’s National Book Award 2013 Book of
the Year, The Ocean at the End of the Lane. His latest collection of short
stories, Trigger Warning, was an immediate New York Times bestseller and was
named a NYT Editors’ Choice. Born in the UK, he now lives in the US with his
wife, the musician and writer, Amanda Palmer.
John Skipp is a Saturn Award-winning filmmaker (Tales of Halloween),
Stoker Award-winning anthologist (Demons, Mondo Zombie), and New York Times
bestselling author (The Light at the End, The Scream) whose books have sold
millions of copies in a dozen languages worldwide. His first anthology, Book of
the Dead, laid the foundation in 1989 for modern zombie literature. He’s also
editorin-chief
of Fungasm Press, championing genre-melting authors like Laura Lee
Bahr, Autumn Christian, Danger Slater, Cody Goodfellow, Jennifer Robin,
S.G. Murphy and John Boden From splatterpunk founding father to bizarro elder
statesman, Skipp has influenced a generation of horror and
counterculture
artists around the world. His latest screenplay (with Dori Miller) is
“Times is
Tough in Musky Holler”, for Shudder’s Creepshow series. His most recent
book
(with Heather Drain) is The Bizarro Encyclopedia of Film (VOL. I).
Raymund Eich is a science fiction and fantasy writer whose middle
American upbringing is a launchpad for journeys to the ends of the universe. His
most popular works are military science fiction series The Confederated
Worlds
(Take the Shilling, Operation Iago, and A Bodyguard of Lies) and the
Stone Chalmers series of science fiction espionage adventures (The Progress of Mankind,
The Greater Glory of God, To All High Emprise Consecrated, and In Public
Convocation Assembled). His latest novel of deep space suspense, The Reincarnation
Run, was published in October 2019 by CV-2 Books (http://cv2books.com). His
website is http://raymundeich.com.
Julie Frost grew up an Army brat, traveling the globe. She thought she
might settle down after she finished school, but then married a pilot and
moved six times in seven years. She’s finally put down roots in Utah with her
family--a
herd of guinea pigs, another humans, and a “kitten” who thinks she’s a
warrior
princess--and a collection of anteaters and Oaxacan carvings, some of
which
intersect. She enjoys birding and nature photography, which also
intersect.
Utilizing her degree in biology, she writes werewolf fiction while
completely
ignoring the physics of a protagonist who triples in mass. Her short
fiction
has appeared in too many venues to count, including Writers of the
Future 32,
Straight Outta Dodge City, and Monster Hunter Files. Her werewolf private
eye novel series, “Pack Dynamics,” is published by WordFire Press; her
novel
“Dark Day, Bright Hour” was published by Ring of Fire Press. She whines
about
writing, a lot, at http://agilebrit.livejournal.com/
Mercedes M. Yardley is a whimsical dark fantasist who wears poisonous flowers in her hair. She is the author of Beautiful Sorrows, the
Stabby-Awardwinning
Apocalyptic Montessa and Nuclear Lulu: A Tale of Atomic Love, Pretty
Little Dead Girls, and Nameless. She won the prestigious Bram Stoker
Award for her story ”Little Dead Red” and was a Bram Stoker Award nominee for
her short story “Loving You Darkly.” Mercedes is editor of the dark
fiction anthology Arterial Bloom. You can find her online at
mercedesmyardley.com.
C. Stuart Hardwick is a regular in Analog Science Fiction & Fact
magazine, a winner of the prestigious Writers of the Future contest, and a
six-time Jim Baen Memorial award honoree. In addition to scifi, he writes about
science for numerous publications, and his work has been translated into a
dozen languages. An Air Force brat from South Dakota, he grew up on Black Hills treasure
hunts and family lore like pages from a Steinbeck novel. After a childhood of
homemade ”radio shows” and stop animation scifi shorts, he worked with the
creators of the video game Doom and married an aquanaut.
When he isn’t visiting science facilities or climbing inside an air
lock, he’s been known to wear a cape. For a free signed e-sampler and
information about his ”Open Source Space” series, visit www.cStuartHardwick.com.
Nebula Award-nominated Beth Cato is the author of the Clockwork Dagger
duology and the Blood of Earth trilogy from Harper Voyager. She’s a Hanford,
California native transplanted to the Arizona desert, where she lives with her
husband, son, and requisite cats. Follow her at BethCato.com and on Twitter at
@BethCato.
Bestselling author Kent Holloway lives on death. Literally. With more
than twenty-five years’ experience in forensic death investigations, he’s seen
it all. Experienced the worst that life has to give and never let it dim his
sense of wonder or humor. Now, he brings all this experience, along with a zeal
for uncovering the folklore and superstitions of death, to the written page as
author of mysteries, forensic crime fiction, paranormal thrillers, and
Christian fiction and nonfiction!
He is the author of the highly acclaimed Ezekiel Crane paranormal
mystery series, as well as some of his more traditional mysteries, Killypso
Island and the forensic thriller, Clean Exit. He’s even started a series
wherein Death himself takes on the role of sleuth in the witty and twisty Death
Warmed Over. Kent Holloway also has a Master’s degree in Biblical Studies from
Southeastern Baptist Theological Seminary. He has served as singles minister,
evangelism pastor, and director of discipleship and education. Kent has just
released his very first Christian nonfiction book entitled I Died Swallowing a
Goldfish and Other Life Lessons from the Morgue.
Jay Werkheiser teaches chemistry and physics. Pretty much all the time.
His stories are sneaky devices to allow him to talk about science in a (sort
of) socially acceptable way. Much to his surprise, the editors of Analog and
various
other magazines, e-zines, and anthologies have found a few of his
stories worth
publishing. Many of those story ideas came from nerdy discussions with
his
daughter or his students. He really should keep an updated blog and
author
page, but he mostly wastes his online time on Facebook, MeWe, or
Twitter.
Claire Ashgrove is the author of the award-winning series, The Curse of the Templars. Although primarily known for her romance works, she’s
written
across a variety of genres and loves delving into new fiction
adventures. She’s
a lifelong native of Missouri, where she teaches high school English in
a small
rural district. In her free time, she can be found on her conservation
poultry
farm with her teenage sons, working with critically endangered birds and
riding
horses. Follow her at claireashgrove.net and on Facebook.
Brenda Cooper is a writer, a futurist, and a technology professional.
She often writes about technology and the environment. Her recent novels
include
Keepers (Pyr, 2018), Wilders (Pyr, 2017), POST (Espec Books, 2016), and
Spear of
Light (Pyr, 2016).
Brenda is the winner of the 2007 and 2016 Endeavour Awards for “a
distinguished science fiction or fantasy book written by a Pacific
Northwest
author or authors.” Her work has also been nominated for the Philip K.
Dick
and Canopus awards. Brenda lives in Woodinville, Washington with her family and four dogs.
Tori Eldridge is the Lefty-nominated author of The Ninja Daughter, which was named one of the “Best Mystery Books of the Year” by The South
Florida Sun Sentinel and awarded 2019 Thriller Book of the Year by Authors on
the Air Global Radio Network. Her short stories appear in several
anthologies, and her screenplay The Gift earned a semifinalist spot in the prestigious
Academy
Nicholl Fellowship. Before writing, Tori performed as an actress,
singer, dancer
on Broadway, television, and film. She is of Hawaiian, Chinese,
Norwegian descent and was born and raised in Honolulu where she graduated from Punahou
School with classmate Barack Obama. Tori holds a fifth-degree black belt
in
To-Shin Do ninjutsu and has traveled the USA teaching seminars on the
ninja
arts, weapons, and women’s self-protection. Her second book in the Lily
Wong
series, The Ninja’s Blade, releases September 1, 2020.
https://torieldridge.com
Kristine Kathryn Rusch has won awards in every genre for her work. She has several pen names, including Kris Nelscott for mystery and Kristine
Grayson for romance. She’s currently writing two different science fiction
series,
The Retrieval Artist and the space opera Diving series. She’s also
editing the anthology series Fiction River. For more on her work, go to
kristinewrites.com.
Robert Silverberg is rightly considered by many as one of the greatest
living science fiction writers. His career stretches back to the pulps and his
output is amazing by any standard. He’s authored numerous novels, short
stories, and nonfiction books in various genres and categories. He’s also a
frequent guest at Cons and a regular columnist for Asimov’s. His major works
include Dying Inside, The Book of Skulls, The Alien Years, The World Inside,
Nightfall with Isaac Asimov, Son of Man, A Time of Changes, and the seven Majipoor
Cycle books. His first Majipoor trilogy, Lord Valentine’s Castle, Majipoor
Chronicles, and Valentine Pontifex, were reissued by ROC Books in May 2012,
September 2012, and January 2013. Tales of Majipoor, a new collection bringing
together all the short Majipoor tales, followed in May 2013.
MY REVIEW
I was contacted via email and asked if I could/would
publicise this book on my blog and maybe read and review it. After having just
read and thoroughly enjoyed another collection of post-apocalyptic type short
stories, I did feel like reading more. I also think as this is actually a
charity anthology gave me an extra incentive to feature it on my blog and to
review it. My review as always, will be completely honest and unbiased as all
my reviews are, despite this being a charity anthology.
On
the whole I really did enjoy reading this anthology. It has a great
mixture of short stories, and some I loved, some were okay, and the
occasional odd one or two left me with a “what on earth did I just read”
attitude. I will be totally honest I enjoyed some of the stories from
those authors listed as “Contributors” more than some of the
“Headliners.”
This Anthology is for a great cause, and I
encourage everyone to buy a copy, be it a beautiful hardback, the trade
paperback or the ebook version. Every little bit will help. Not only are
you helping fund three different charities that have a necessary need
for help right now but from a purely “selfish” reader point of view you
will be discovering some great authors, possibly some that you won’t
have read before or maybe haven’t even heard of prior to this
anthology.
With
Anthologies I tend to read each short story and give it an out of 5
rating then take an average of those scores at the end to “rate” the
whole anthology. I cam to the conclusion that this anthology is well
worth reading, really you do not want to miss out on this book. It’s
surprising how reading about characters in awkward situations and
settings makes you forget the horror and emotion of what is going on in
the world round you.
I
do want to tell you about the stories but I don’t want to give much
away as with it being a collection of short stories it would be so easy
to reveal too much and spoil the reading experience for other potential
readers.
Having said all that, I feel the need to mention some of the short stories.
My favourite short story was Face Your Fears by Seanan McGuire,
who is listed as one of the Headliners. Face Your Furs was quite
quirky, futuristic/dystopian and I really felt rapidly pulled deeply
into it. I quickly became attached to the characters, wanting to know
what was going to happen next. This short story was “un-putdownable” and
I looked up other books by this Author straight away. It was an easy
5/5 for this story.
Once On The Blue Moon by Kristine Kathryn Rusch
was also a favourite, which really surprised me as I would have
described this one as being about a space ship which would have
immediately put me off it. However, as it was in an anthology, I read it
and really enjoyed. I adored the feisty, kick butt character of
Collette and how the bad guys underestimate her, thinking she is someone
to be ignored and not a person that could spoil their carefully laid
plans. This time the author is listed as a contributor, and again I
intend to take a look at other titles by her. Another easy 5/5
Another really short story was by a Headliner, Dale & Mabel by Scott Sigler.
I will be totally truthful this one had my eyes filling up. How Dale
& Mabel lie to their son to relieve his guilt at not attempting to
come rescue them. Dale & Mabel are two characters I truly adored who
put others first before themselves in a dangerously bad situation. It
was both short & sweet and another easy 5/5
Another short & sweet story was Empty Nest by Tori Eldridge
also listed as a contributor. This one is another story set around a
family whose children have grown up and moved out, but the mother/future
grandmother, Shannon insists of staying in their current home and
keeping all her boys’s toys to show her grandchildren when they visit,
despite her husband Joel encouraging her to discard these items. Joel
also continually suggests they downsize to a better area, into a home
that’s easier to live in and keep in condition. Shannon however
disagrees wanting to stay put and for her grandchildren to be able to
sleep in her son’s beds and rooms and see and play with their toys. I
think Shannon enjoys reminiscing and reliving memories of things she has
done with her sons all over again with her grandchildren. I gave this
story a 4.5/5.
The Sweetness Of Bitter by Beth Cato, is
as the title suggests an emotive bitter-sweet short story. It deals with
a current disease and the possibilities of future treatments. I gave
this story 4/5.
Other titles I loved and want to mention as I gave them at least a 3/5 were, In
Their Garden by Brenda Cooper, Last Bus To North Red Lake by Martin L.
Shoemaker, Impact Mitigation by Jay Werkheiser, and Shotgun Wedding by
Peter J Wacks.
As I said some of the short stories were a
bit out of my usual genre zone and were too “Star Trek/Star Wars” for
me, yet other short stories that had a hint of those genres I really
enjoyed. Some of the stories have very poetic detailed descriptions,
some were more simplistic other would perhaps have been better as either
part of a book series prequel, or as a much longer novel.
To sum up, I enjoyed the anthology and would recommend purchasing and reading, and it is for charity too!
**All profits go to providing COVID-19 tests directly to the front lines of this crisis.**
