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Dying Earths: Sixteen Stories from the Ends of Times
We did it again! The writers and contributors to the little corner of the web called SFFWorld .com have brought together a collection of stories about a dying Earth. No one wants to think about the demise of our planet, but it will happen. Eventually. Maybe even sooner than we think!
In this anthology of short stories, we have both uplifting and incredibly depressing stories, but each one is entertaining and thought provoking. They span just about all the realms of speculative fiction, so you'll sure to find a story that fits your niche. Enjoy!
Contributors include: Daniel Ausema, George Alan Bradley, Sue Burke (award-nominated author), Scott J. Couturier, Andrew Leon Hudson, Matthew Hughes (fan favorite!), James Maxstadt, Jeremy Megargee, Lena Ng, Jez Patterson, Kat Pekin, P.J. Richards, Jude Reid, Shana Scott, Christopher Stanley, & N.E. White
In this anthology of short stories, we have both uplifting and incredibly depressing stories, but each one is entertaining and thought provoking. They span just about all the realms of speculative fiction, so you'll sure to find a story that fits your niche. Enjoy!
Contributors include: Daniel Ausema, George Alan Bradley, Sue Burke (award-nominated author), Scott J. Couturier, Andrew Leon Hudson, Matthew Hughes (fan favorite!), James Maxstadt, Jeremy Megargee, Lena Ng, Jez Patterson, Kat Pekin, P.J. Richards, Jude Reid, Shana Scott, Christopher Stanley, & N.E. White
297 pages, Kindle Edition
First published December 16, 2019
About the author
N.E. White
9 books28 followers
N.E. White was born in California to a Texan native and a Mexican immigrant. Her professional pursuits include environmental management and spatial analysis. She writes fiction in her spare time after walking the dog.
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Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews
March 4, 2020
Full disclosure: I’m a contributor to this anthology. When I got my contributor’s copy, I read the other stories. It’s a theme anthology about living (or not) on a dying Earth, and the stories range from high fantasy to grim science fiction.
The strength of this anthology is the variety. It opens with a tale of science gone wrong, then a story about the making of a movie on Earth, followed by a sort of parable about Gaia herself. In the sixteen stories, sometimes humanity survives, sometimes it doesn’t. Maybe cockroaches are the future. Maybe we just have to survive in the wreckage of a grand failure. Two of the stories seem to start the same and then head in very different directions. My story deals with an ecological disaster, but other disasters are possible. Gods might die, or humans might die — and they might deserve to die.
My favorite story is the last one, “Convertir” by Andrew Leon Hudson. It starts with a lot of tension: a girl is being raised in a cult whose beliefs she doesn’t share -- then it takes a wild, weird turn. Andrew tells me he’s expanding it into a YA novel, and I want to read it.
This kind of anthology, in the end, invites the reader to dive deeply into the theme. How might the Earth end, and will humanity go down with it? Will it involve radiation, robots, or dragons? If speculative fiction predicts the future (or helps us try to avoid bad futures), can we get any hints about what to do, here and now, to keep Earth alive?
The strength of this anthology is the variety. It opens with a tale of science gone wrong, then a story about the making of a movie on Earth, followed by a sort of parable about Gaia herself. In the sixteen stories, sometimes humanity survives, sometimes it doesn’t. Maybe cockroaches are the future. Maybe we just have to survive in the wreckage of a grand failure. Two of the stories seem to start the same and then head in very different directions. My story deals with an ecological disaster, but other disasters are possible. Gods might die, or humans might die — and they might deserve to die.
My favorite story is the last one, “Convertir” by Andrew Leon Hudson. It starts with a lot of tension: a girl is being raised in a cult whose beliefs she doesn’t share -- then it takes a wild, weird turn. Andrew tells me he’s expanding it into a YA novel, and I want to read it.
This kind of anthology, in the end, invites the reader to dive deeply into the theme. How might the Earth end, and will humanity go down with it? Will it involve radiation, robots, or dragons? If speculative fiction predicts the future (or helps us try to avoid bad futures), can we get any hints about what to do, here and now, to keep Earth alive?
January 1, 2023
THE TYRANNY OF BEAUTY by P.J. Richards ★★★☆☆ Fantasy
“When the Ways first appeared they felt like our salvation, an escape from the desolation we had created. They were the dream that had tempted humans for generations.“
The Ways to Fairyland or the Otherworld open and release the Host. The view into the Ways might be paradisal, but is a really scary place. Not what I expected in an anthology of a dying Earth, but interesting.
Interview with the author about another short story with a similar theme: https://mtmisery.com/2019/01/04/neon-...
THE CULT OF MOTHER-SUN by James Maxstadt ★★★☆☆ SF
A movie director from the future travels back to Earth to make a documentary about the birthplace of humanity. A little light and silly.
IN THE WEEDS by Sue Burke ★★★★☆ Climate fic / SF
Climate change has destroyed Earth as we know it. Weeds grow well, plants adapt. Great extrapolation of potential evolutionary steps of our plantlife. I wish this one had been longer.
Recommended reading by Sue Burke: Semiosis
Interview with the author about Semiosis: https://www.blackgate.com/2018/02/21/...
GOOD MOTHER by Lena Ng ★★½☆☆
Gaia, the Mother of Earth, gives and gives and we take and take and in our entitlement give nothing back. The author wacks us over the head with what we are doing to Earth. A bit pointless.
TWILIGHT AT THE BASEBALL GROUND by George Alan Bradley ★★★★½
The US after a nuclear attack. Set after Star Wars (1977) and before the collapse of the Soviet Union. One boy and his parents in a bunker. Depressing, but well written.
WAITING FOR THE RAIN by Shana Scott ★★½☆☆ Dystopia? Hard to tell. There was no magic or any SF elements.
“The summer was beating them down: plants burned before they grew, scavengers poisoned by the rotted carrion, water scarce—coveted.“
Possibly set in Africa somewhere, hard to tell. Drought, suffering, a sacrifice is needed to appease the Sun. I didn‘t like the writing much.
PURPLE NASTIES by Jez Patterson ★★¾☆☆ Dystopia / SF
“The Sun isn’t really purple either. It’s just a big ball of white light. Only, now it’s got this cloud of purple gas around it.“
Very short, very odd. Some cosmic event led to a chemical reaction that led to purple gas around the sun and purple light on Earth, with disastrous results.
TO CLIMB BY THE LIGHT OF THE SPUTTERING SUN by Daniel Ausema ★★★★★ Dystopia / SF
A team of scavengers for hire venture outside of the city to find valuables. The city is under a dome in the shape of a skull, made from bone? The sun is old and dyeing, the seas are acidic. Our crew has a steep and dangerous climb to make.
The writing of this one hit my sweet spot, I really liked it. I never figured out the skulls. Robots or machines, partially made of bone?
LEGACY 2.0 by N. E. White ★★★★¾ SF
Maria and Juan circle a dead Earth, millenia after humanity has abandoned it. They have a cockroach situation aboard their spaceship. Good one!
DRIED SMOKE by Kat Pekin ★★★★★ Post-Apocalypse
“First to get hit were the capitals, so Brisbane was much fucked from day one.
Australia after a nuclear attack. Siblings are driving away from the cities, trying to stay alive… Well written, good action scenes, I liked the characters.
TELLTALE by Matthew Hughes ★★★☆☆ Fantasy
“Raffalon’s world had become monochrome: the thief stood on a shingle beach of gray stones, lapped by a gray sea beneath a gray sky.“
The author likes to use plenty of adjectives. Add to that a stilted prose, presumably to give a „fantasy“ feel. Ugh. The writing became more fluent after the first paragraphs. The story had the feel of a fairytale and had absolutely nothing to do with a dyeing Earth. It was ok.
THE MEAT PLAINS by Jeremy Megargee ★★½☆☆ SF
“Humans are a mass now, a great hideous stretch of fleshy plains spanning from one end of the globe to the other.“
Ugh, this was absurd and really disgusting.
THE MIDWIVES by Jude Reid ★★★½☆ SF
Earth dies, some chose ones leave. This is the story of the descendants of those left behind.
THE SNOWS OF ADALON by Scott J. Couturier ★★★☆☆ Fantasy/SF
“Clouded over by perpetual white-gray miasma, wroth with terminal frost and cold, the planet is muffled in a cloak of blizzards.“
A blend of Fantasy and SF, with a sorcerer and his daughter stuck on a planet that was plunged into eternal winter. Salvation might be an escape capsule and the planet‘s moon.
ALONE IN IMALONE by Christopher Stanley ★★★★☆ Apocalyptic
Amusing little story about a guy trying to get onto one of the shuttles leaving Earth, before it blows up.
CONVERTIR Andrew by Leon Hudson ★★★★★ Fantasy?
“When even something so evident as the changing of the climate becomes a matter of faith, to be accepted or rejected at the whim of the individual… in what sense is there a settled material reality at all?”
We start at the compound of a religious cult, but end up debating the perception of reality, fake news and the willful ignorance of facts that seems to be so abundant right now. Pretty wacky, but good.
This last story led me to an online SF magazine: https://mythaxis.co.uk
What I liked about this anthology:
It reminded me that I like Sue Burke. She is probably the main reason why I got this a while back. I met some new authors.
What I did not like about this anthology:
Considering the name of this anthology, I expected stories of the apocalypse. Dyeing Earth. Right? In quite a few of these stories the presence of Earth was incidental and we could have been anywhere. And even the apocalyptic or post-apocalyptic setting seemed to be more of an afterthought or something in the sidelines. It was not a focal point. The title also incorporated „Ends of Time“, but it still feels a little like the book topic was missed. Still, mostly enjoyable.
“When the Ways first appeared they felt like our salvation, an escape from the desolation we had created. They were the dream that had tempted humans for generations.“
The Ways to Fairyland or the Otherworld open and release the Host. The view into the Ways might be paradisal, but is a really scary place. Not what I expected in an anthology of a dying Earth, but interesting.
Interview with the author about another short story with a similar theme: https://mtmisery.com/2019/01/04/neon-...
THE CULT OF MOTHER-SUN by James Maxstadt ★★★☆☆ SF
A movie director from the future travels back to Earth to make a documentary about the birthplace of humanity. A little light and silly.
IN THE WEEDS by Sue Burke ★★★★☆ Climate fic / SF
Climate change has destroyed Earth as we know it. Weeds grow well, plants adapt. Great extrapolation of potential evolutionary steps of our plantlife. I wish this one had been longer.
Recommended reading by Sue Burke: Semiosis
Interview with the author about Semiosis: https://www.blackgate.com/2018/02/21/...
GOOD MOTHER by Lena Ng ★★½☆☆
Gaia, the Mother of Earth, gives and gives and we take and take and in our entitlement give nothing back. The author wacks us over the head with what we are doing to Earth. A bit pointless.
TWILIGHT AT THE BASEBALL GROUND by George Alan Bradley ★★★★½
The US after a nuclear attack. Set after Star Wars (1977) and before the collapse of the Soviet Union. One boy and his parents in a bunker. Depressing, but well written.
WAITING FOR THE RAIN by Shana Scott ★★½☆☆ Dystopia? Hard to tell. There was no magic or any SF elements.
“The summer was beating them down: plants burned before they grew, scavengers poisoned by the rotted carrion, water scarce—coveted.“
Possibly set in Africa somewhere, hard to tell. Drought, suffering, a sacrifice is needed to appease the Sun. I didn‘t like the writing much.
PURPLE NASTIES by Jez Patterson ★★¾☆☆ Dystopia / SF
“The Sun isn’t really purple either. It’s just a big ball of white light. Only, now it’s got this cloud of purple gas around it.“
Very short, very odd. Some cosmic event led to a chemical reaction that led to purple gas around the sun and purple light on Earth, with disastrous results.
TO CLIMB BY THE LIGHT OF THE SPUTTERING SUN by Daniel Ausema ★★★★★ Dystopia / SF
A team of scavengers for hire venture outside of the city to find valuables. The city is under a dome in the shape of a skull, made from bone? The sun is old and dyeing, the seas are acidic. Our crew has a steep and dangerous climb to make.
The writing of this one hit my sweet spot, I really liked it. I never figured out the skulls. Robots or machines, partially made of bone?
LEGACY 2.0 by N. E. White ★★★★¾ SF
Maria and Juan circle a dead Earth, millenia after humanity has abandoned it. They have a cockroach situation aboard their spaceship. Good one!
DRIED SMOKE by Kat Pekin ★★★★★ Post-Apocalypse
“First to get hit were the capitals, so Brisbane was much fucked from day one.
Australia after a nuclear attack. Siblings are driving away from the cities, trying to stay alive… Well written, good action scenes, I liked the characters.
TELLTALE by Matthew Hughes ★★★☆☆ Fantasy
“Raffalon’s world had become monochrome: the thief stood on a shingle beach of gray stones, lapped by a gray sea beneath a gray sky.“
The author likes to use plenty of adjectives. Add to that a stilted prose, presumably to give a „fantasy“ feel. Ugh. The writing became more fluent after the first paragraphs. The story had the feel of a fairytale and had absolutely nothing to do with a dyeing Earth. It was ok.
THE MEAT PLAINS by Jeremy Megargee ★★½☆☆ SF
“Humans are a mass now, a great hideous stretch of fleshy plains spanning from one end of the globe to the other.“
Ugh, this was absurd and really disgusting.
THE MIDWIVES by Jude Reid ★★★½☆ SF
Earth dies, some chose ones leave. This is the story of the descendants of those left behind.
THE SNOWS OF ADALON by Scott J. Couturier ★★★☆☆ Fantasy/SF
“Clouded over by perpetual white-gray miasma, wroth with terminal frost and cold, the planet is muffled in a cloak of blizzards.“
A blend of Fantasy and SF, with a sorcerer and his daughter stuck on a planet that was plunged into eternal winter. Salvation might be an escape capsule and the planet‘s moon.
ALONE IN IMALONE by Christopher Stanley ★★★★☆ Apocalyptic
Amusing little story about a guy trying to get onto one of the shuttles leaving Earth, before it blows up.
CONVERTIR Andrew by Leon Hudson ★★★★★ Fantasy?
“When even something so evident as the changing of the climate becomes a matter of faith, to be accepted or rejected at the whim of the individual… in what sense is there a settled material reality at all?”
We start at the compound of a religious cult, but end up debating the perception of reality, fake news and the willful ignorance of facts that seems to be so abundant right now. Pretty wacky, but good.
This last story led me to an online SF magazine: https://mythaxis.co.uk
What I liked about this anthology:
It reminded me that I like Sue Burke. She is probably the main reason why I got this a while back. I met some new authors.
What I did not like about this anthology:
Considering the name of this anthology, I expected stories of the apocalypse. Dyeing Earth. Right? In quite a few of these stories the presence of Earth was incidental and we could have been anywhere. And even the apocalyptic or post-apocalyptic setting seemed to be more of an afterthought or something in the sidelines. It was not a focal point. The title also incorporated „Ends of Time“, but it still feels a little like the book topic was missed. Still, mostly enjoyable.
October 11, 2022
3.5/5
As normal for collections, a real mixed bag. A couple I didn’t care much for at all but three particularly stood out:
Good mother
The meat plains
Telltale
I thought the breadth of ideas around the premise of a dying earth were pretty diverse and interesting.
As normal for collections, a real mixed bag. A couple I didn’t care much for at all but three particularly stood out:
Good mother
The meat plains
Telltale
I thought the breadth of ideas around the premise of a dying earth were pretty diverse and interesting.
Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews