Beyond Armageddon [Hardcover]

Rh Value Publishing (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: August 16, 1987

In Beyond Armageddon, the distinguished science fiction writer Walter M. Miller Jr. (1923–96) and the famed anthologist Martin H. Greenberg have together collected stories that address one of the most challenging themes of imaginative fiction: the nature of life after nuclear war. The twenty-one stories in this collection, by masters such as Arthur C. Clarke, Poul Anderson, Ray Bradbury, J. G. Ballard, Robert Sheckley, Roger Zelazny, and Harlan Ellison, explore a variety of possibilities of “life after.” These richly imagined stories offer glimpses into a future no reader will soon forget. Miller’s incisive introduction and a thought-provoking and irreverent commentary are included. New to this Bison Books edition is a postscript to the introduction provided by Martin H. Greenberg.

(20080117)

--This text refers to the Paperback edition.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Miller, whose novel A Canticle for Leibowitz is a landmark of post-holocaust SF, opens this anthology of SF stories on nuclear war with a provocative and challenging introduction: he suggests that the bomb would be safer with Qaddafi than Reagan. This properly unsettles the reader for the following 21 imaginations of disaster. Arranged in a rough future chronology, they include such classics as J. G. Ballard's apocalyptic "Terminal Beach," Stephen Vincent Benet's vision of a ruined New York in "By the Waters of Babylon," Ray Bradbury's nostalgic "There Will Come Soft Rains" and Harlan Ellison's fierce "A Boy and His Dog." Where most seek metaphors of devastation, the less well known stories are sometimes grittier, for example, Lucius Shepard's "Salvador," on a possible future Vietnam, Jim Aiken's nasty "My Life in the Jungle" and Poul Anderson's 1946 "Tomorrow's Children," the only story here to mention the effect of nuclear winter and the story that deals most pragmatically and tragically with the human consequences of radiation-induced mutations. Altogether, a thought-provoking, varied and well chosen anthology. October 31
Copyright 1985 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

Review

“In these troubled times, the University of Nebraska Press has rendered a great service in reprinting this 1985 anthology of life in the aftermath of cataclysmic (usually nuclear) war. . . . Walter M. Miller, Jr. came out of self-imposed retirement long enough to put together this extraordinary volume. . . . . One of the most compelling anthologies of short fiction, post-holocaust SF or otherwise, ever assembled.”—Home Planet News

(Home Planet News ) --This text refers to the Paperback edition.

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Hardcover
• Publisher: Random House Value Publishing (August 16, 1987)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0517655616
• ISBN-13: 978-0517655610
• Average Customer Review: 3.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (9 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #10,397,469 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

37 of 46 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars This must be a mistake..., April 20, 1999

By 

Babytoxie (Dallas, TX USA) - See all my reviews

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: Beyond Armageddon (Hardcover)

Yes, the book is out of print, but when I ordered it, the page said that it was still available, and I received it in 2 days. Hmmm... There's good and bad to this collection of 21 stories of nuclear devastation. *Bad* - Walter M. Miller's lengthy, rambling, and ultimately pointless foreword and story introductions, and the abundance of typos (did anyone proofread this?). *Good* - The selection of works. Bradbury, Ellison, Clarke, Zelazny, Pangborn, and many others. Plus, it includes one of my personal favorites, "By the Waters of Babylon" by Steven Vincent Benet. The cover is intriguing, as well... looks like Stanislaw Fernandes?

19 of 24 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars The ultimate apocalyptic short story collection, January 18, 2003

By A Customer

This review is from: Beyond Armageddon: Twenty-One Sermons to the Dead (Paperback)

This anthology contains the very best of apocalyptic/post-apocalyptic short fiction, including such hard-to find classics as Harlan Elison's "A Boy and His Dog". Other personal favorites are Norman Spinrad's "The Big Flash", Edgar Pangborn's "A MAster of Babylon", Stephen Benet's "By the Waters of Babylon", William Tenn's "Eastward Ho!", Lucius Shepard's "Salvador" and... it's all there, really. Include an interesting and to-the-point foreword by editor Walter M. Miller (author of "A Canticle for Leibowitz"), and you've got the ultimate treat for a fan of post-apocalyptic fiction.
(Note: Published in the UK as "Beyond Armageddon: Survivors of the Megawar" Robinson, 1985)

13 of 16 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars Not so hot, September 25, 2009

By 

W. Jason Gilmore (Columbus, OH) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Beyond Armageddon (Paperback)

Rarely do I post a negative review, however I found this book to be a huge disappointment. Having recently read a number of great post-apocalyptic novels such as "One Second After", "Wastelands: Stories of the Apocalypse" (a *fantastic* compilation), and "The Road", I was eager to find more and so picked this up at my local library. After a great first story, my interest quickly waned due to what appears to be a hastily compiled collection of stories, some seemingly having fairly little to do with armageddon (I'd classify some of them as simply having a rather bleak storyline).

Add the editor's almost incomprehensible political rantings into the mix, and you have a book I suggest avoiding.