The New York Review of Science Fiction

After the Apocalypse by Maureen F. McHugh, reviewed by Joan Gordon

Easthampton, Massachusetts: Small Beer Press, 2011; $16.00 tpb; 200 pages




This is a collection of stories—nine in all, 6 reprinted and 3 original—that share a common theme, the effects of the apocalypse from the small end of the telescope. Or they demonstrate how large causes can have small, if very important, effects. Or they are comedies (and tragedies) of manners for the end of the world, as if Jane Austen really had written about zombies or pandemics or dirty bombs or economic collapse. And just like a Jane Austen heroine (or like Gloria Gaynor), people will survive. I read one of the stories in the volume, “Useless Things,” three years ago, and it has stayed with me. Many of the rest of these stories will stay with me, too. Strong characterization, vivid description, emphasis on the mundane courage of ordinary people in extraordinary circumstances: these things make all the stories in the volume ring true.

NYRSF Issue 296 (March 2013): Table of Contents

ISSUE #295 March 2013 Volume 25, No. 7 ISSN #1052-9438

ESSAYS

• Michael Andre-Driussi: Fallout 3 versus The Omega Man
• Graham Andrews: Have Blaster—Will Travel: Richard S. Prather and Science Fiction
• Robert Guffey: Still Pulling This Train: Harlan Ellison’s Pulling a Train and Getting in the Wind

REVIEWS

• Inflatable Frankenstein, created & performed by Radiohole, reviewed by Aaron Grunfeld
• After the Apocalypse, reviewed by Joan Gordon
• The Cambridge Companion to Fantasy Literature, edited by Edward James & Farah Mendelsohn, reviewed by Darrell Schweitzer
• Gregory Benford and Larry Niven’s Bowl of Heaven, reviewed by David Mead
• Hosuke Nojiri’s Rocket Girls and Rocket Girls: The Last Planet, reviewed by Patrick L. McGuire
• Paul Tobin’s Prepare to Die!, reviewed by Joe Sanders
• Sayonara and I, Worker, written and directed by Oriza Hirata, reviewed by Jen Gunnels
• Sci-Fi Womanthology, edited by Forrest J. Ackerman and Pam Keesey and Rainbow Fantasia. edited by Forrest J. Ackerman and Ann Hardin, reviewed by Don Webb
• The Apes of Wrath, edited by Richard Klaw, reviewed by Peter Rawlik
• David Brin’s Existence, reviewed by David Mead

PLUS

• Barsoom and box-offices, photos, screed, and an editorial.

Samuel R. Delany, Contributing Editor; Kris Dikeman and Avram Grumer, Managing Editors.

Alex Donald, Webmaster; David G. Hartwell, Reviews and Features Editor; Kevin J. Maroney, Publisher.

Staff: Ann Crimmins, Jen Gunnels, Lisa Padol, Heather Masri, Christine Quinones, Eugene Reynolds, and Jason Strawsburg.

Special thanks to Arthur D. Hlavaty, M’jit Raindancer-Stahl, and Eugene Surowitz.

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Copyright © 2013 Burrowing Wombat Press.

Fallout 3 versus The Omega Man, by Michael Andre-Driussi




The video game industry is a business environment where projects rival the cost/reward structure of motion pictures, and the consumer demand is commensurate. For one example, consider the dystopian novel The Hunger Games (2008). It was on the New York Times’s bestseller list for over 100 consecutive weeks and had sold an impressive 800,000 copies by February 2010.

The post-apocalyptic video game Fallout 3 (2008) sold 5.21 million copies in the same period.

I mention this only to impress the reader with the commercial/cultural value of video games, in the hopes of raising sufficient interest regarding my assessment of the science-fictional content in this popular game, “America’s First Choice in Post Nuclear Simulation” (as the advertising tagline had it).

March 2013 Editorial: And Boy Are My Arms Tired




It’s been a very hectic month, as March always is. As I write this, we are actually in the midst of the Work Weekend for the April issue, but because of the gigantic hole that the International Conference on the Fantastic in the Arts tears out of the month, we’re just putting the finishing touches on the March issue.