“When you first started your research, were you surprised to find that an authoritative anthology of Post Apocalyptic fiction really wasn’t out on the market? Have you formulated any opinions on why that is?
I wasn’t surprised that there wasn’t such an anthology–because there was one–but I was surprised that there was only one. The one I’m talking about is a book called Beyond Armageddon, edited by Walter M. Miller, Jr. and Martin H. Greenberg. But it came out around 1985, and it was the only anthology of its kind (not counting other similar anthologies, such as Armageddons, which is focused on apocalyptic rather than post-apocalyptic fiction).
Wastelands was put together as a kind of spiritual successor to Beyond Armageddon. I basically picked up where that left off. I purposely avoided duplicating anything that had already been reprinted in that book, and chose most of the stories from Wastelands from the time period following publication of Beyond Armageddon (though there are a few stories that pre-date it).”
4 out of 5
