Matt Sinclair (Ed) - The Fall: Tales from the Apocalypse (2012)
Matt Sinclair (Ed) - The Fall: Tales from the Apocalypse (2012)
1/17/2014
My one liner: An easy, if sometimes disturbing, often hilarious read
“May you live in interesting times” is a well-known Chinese curse.
Well, the apocalypse stories take that to the logical extreme, as there would be very little that would be uninteresting about a post-apocalyptic world. This is a lovely little collection of (very) short stories that take human
beings out of their comfort zone into situations which they cannot have experienced before.
Some explore human existence in the context of a broken society. In “Trust”, R.C. Lewis explores the instinct for survival that leads to herd behaviour, which can have disastrous (yet morally justified consequences).
On the other hand, “The Last Day of Fall” by Matt Sinclair is a mini Lord of the Flies. A community that initially comes together in the face of apocalyptic disaster. But there are some rotten apples in the basket…
Then hilariously, a short play / TB script “Disconnect” by Mindy McGinnis, which joins God and the staff in heaven two seconds post-apocalypse. God has inadvertently triggered Judgment Day by setting up his iPhone calendar
wrongly. With queues of millions forming at the gates of heaven, God gives up, flops on the couch and starts playing with his old Gameboy, leaving his son, and a host of well-known angels to sort out the mess.
And the memorable grand finale by Judy Croome, “The Last Sacrifice”. Apocalypse in an ancient era. A (Mayan??) king and demi-god performs increasingly desperate sacrifices to appease the gods.
But to no avail.
The Slideshow Review for this book is here.
There is no Wikipedia link for this book. The Google Books link is here.