Out of the Ruins (Titan Books, September 2021). Cover by Shutterstock

I’ve spent a lot of energy over the past few years decrying the death of paperback science fiction anthology. So when they do still occasionally appear, I’m inclined to celebrate them — especially when they’re as promising as Out of the Ruins, a collection of apocalyptic tales old and new from a stellar list of contributors: Samuel R. Delany, Ramsey Campbell, Lavie Tidhar, Emily St John Mandel, Carmen Maria Machado, Charlie Jane Anders, Nina Allan, China Miéville, Clive Barker, Paul Di Filippo, and many others.

I can’t find a complete list of the contents online — but I did find this review of a few of the highlights:

Atmosphere suffuses the standout pieces: wrecked ships and a lost Zora Neale Hurston novel collide in a remote seaside town in China Miéville’s tender yet ominous “Watching God.” A sideways poetry drives Nina Allan’s overwhelmingly kindhearted “A Storm in Kingstown,” in which a woman searches for a missing nun in her plague-struck Yorkshire estuary city. The grief of Alzheimer’s laces Ramsey Campbell’s “Reminded” as an app-reliant elderly couple scrapes together missing memories ahead of a dystopian driver’s exam. And Emily St. John Mandel’s gentle “Mr. Thursday” reconsiders time travel in glowing prose.

Read the complete review at Publishers Weekly.

Out of the Ruins was published by Titan Books on September 14. 2021. It is 307 pages, priced at $15.95 in trade paperback and $9.99 in digital formats. The cover is by Shutterstock.

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