I am a permanent resident alien in the United States; as such, I can’t vote in Presidential elections, but that doesn’t stop me from caring about the system. I have gotten frustrated by listening to people in the states indicate basically a desire for a strong person of their political persuasion (whatever that may be) who could basically cow the opposition and enact all the neat rules that those people think are right and could turn the country into a Utopia. I think it’s a dangerous belief.
I remember teaching a class here in the mid-West to college students, a large majority of them opined that it was God that put the president who was in office at the time there, and should keep him there for as long as God needed. I asked how that was different from the divine right of Kings in Europe and why bother with a democracy then? They had no answer for me.
ABOUT THE AUTHORS
TED KOSMATKA is the author of the acclaimed novels The Games and Prophet of Bones. His short fiction, which has been published in magazines such as Asimov's, The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction, Subterranean, Lightspeed, and Nightmare, has been reprinted in several best-of-the-year anthologies, translated into a dozen languages, and performed on stage and Indiana and New York. He's been nominated for both the Nebula Award and Theodore Sturgeon Memorial Award, and is co-winner of the 2010 Asimov's Reader's Choice Award. He is a video game writer at Valve where he's been writing for the game Dota 2.
JAY LAKE is the award-winning author of ten novels and five collections. He is also the author of more than 300 short stories, which have appeared in magazines such as Realms of Fantasy, Asimov’s, and Interzone. He is a winner of the John W. Campbell Award for Best New Writer, and was a first place winner in the L. Ron Hubbard Writers of the Future contest. He’s also a multiple Hugo, Nebula, and World Fantasy Award nominee. His latest books are Kalimpura and Love in the Time of Metal and Flesh.
K.D. WENTWORTH (1951-2012) was the author of several novels, including the collaborations with Eric Flint, The Course of Empire and The Crucible of Empire. She was also the author of more than seventy short stories, which have appeared in magazines such as The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction, Realms of Fantasy, Weird Tales, and elsewhere. She was also a three-time finalist for the Nebula Award.
BLAKE CHARLTON is the author of two fantasy novels, Spellwright and Spellbound, with a third volume in the series—Spellbreaker—forthcoming. This story marked Charlton’s debut as a fiction writer. In addition to writing, he is also a resident physician in internal medicine at the University of California, San Francisco’s School of Medicine. He recently wrote about being a doctor, a dyslexic, and a writer in an op-ed piece that was published in the New York Times.
KEN MACLEOD is the author of novels such as The Execution Channel, The Night Sessions, The Restoration Game, Cosmonaut Keep, and Newton's Wake, among others. He is the winner of the Prometheus Award, the Sidewise Award, the BSFA Award, and the Seiun Award, and has been a finalist for the Hugo Award, Nebula Award, and John W. Campbell Memorial Award. His most recent novel is Intrusion.
JEREMIAH TOLBERT has published fiction in Lightspeed, Fantasy Magazine, Interzone, Ideomancer, and Shimmer, as well as in the anthologies The Way of the Wizard, Federations, and Polyphony 4. He’s also been featured several times on the Escape Pod and Podcastle podcasts. In addition to being a writer, he is a web designer, photographer, and graphic artist. He lives in Kansas, with his wife and cats.
MARK BUDZ is the author of four novels, including Clade and Idolon, which were both finalists for the Philip K. Dick Award. His most recent novel is Till Human Voices Wake Us. His short fiction has appeared in Amazing Stories and The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction.
NNEDI OKORAFOR is a novelist of African-based science fiction, fantasy and magical realism. Her novels include Who Fears Death (winner of the World Fantasy Award for Best Novel), Akata Witch (an Amazon.com Best Book of the Year), Zahrah the Windseeker (winner of the Wole Soyinka Prize for African Literature), and The Shadow Speaker (winner of the CBS Parallax Award). Her children’s book Long Juju Man is the winner of the Macmillan Writer’s Prize for Africa. Her compilation of short stories, Kabu Kabu, science fiction novel Lagoon, and young adult novel Akata Witch 2: Breaking Kola are scheduled for release in 2013 and 2014. Nnedi holds a PhD in Literature and is a professor of creative writing at Chicago State University.
TOBIAS S. BUCKELL is a Caribbean-born speculative fiction writer who grew up in Grenada, the British Virgin Islands, and the U.S. Virgin Islands. He has written several novels, including the New York Times Bestseller Halo: The Cole Protocol, the Xenowealth series, and Artic Rising. His short fiction has appeared in magazines such as Lightspeed, Analog, Clarkesworld, and Subterranean, and in anthologies such as Armored, All-Star Zeppelin Adventure Stories, and Under the Moons of Mars. He currently lives in Ohio with a pair of dogs, a pair of cats, twin daughters, and his wife.
ABOUT THE EDITOR
John Joseph Adams is the editor of John Joseph Adams Books, a science fiction and fantasy imprint from Houghton Mifflin Harcourt. He is also the series editor of Best American Science Fiction and Fantasy, as well as the bestselling editor of more than thirty anthologies, including Wastelands and The Living Dead. Recent books include Cosmic Powers, What the #@&% Is That?, Operation Arcana, Press Start to Play, Loosed Upon the World, and The Apocalypse Triptych. Called “the reigning king of the anthology world” by Barnes & Noble, John is a two-time winner of the Hugo Award (for which he has been a finalist twelve times) and an eight-time World Fantasy Award finalist. John is also the editor and publisher of the digital magazines Lightspeed and Nightmare, and is a producer for WIRED’s The Geek’s Guide to the Galaxy podcast. He also served as a judge for the 2015 National Book Award. Find him online at johnjosephadams.com and @johnjosephadams.
ALSO EDITED BY
JOHN JOSEPH ADAMS
If you enjoyed this book, you might also enjoy these other works edited by John Joseph Adams:
ANTHOLOGIES
THE APOCALYPSE TRIPTYCH, Vol. 1: The End is Nigh (with Hugh Howey)
THE APOCALYPSE TRIPTYCH, Vol. 2: The End is Now (with Hugh Howey)
THE APOCALYPSE TRIPTYCH, Vol. 3: The End Has Come (with Hugh Howey)
Armored
Best American Science Fiction and Fantasy 2015 (with Joe Hill)
Best American Science Fiction and Fantasy 2016 (with Karen Joy Fowler)
Best American Science Fiction and Fantasy 2017 (with Charles Yu)
Best American Science Fiction and Fantasy 2018 (with N.K. Jemisin)
Brave New Worlds
By Blood We Live
Cosmic Powers
Dead Man’s Hand
Epic: Legends of Fantasy
Federations
The Improbable Adventures of Sherlock Holmes
HELP FUND MY ROBOT ARMY!!! and Other Improbable Crowdfunding Projects
Lightspeed: Year One
The Living Dead
The Living Dead 2
Loosed Upon the World
The Mad Scientist’s Guide to World Domination
Operation Arcana
Other Worlds Than These
Oz Reimagined (with Douglas Cohen)
A People’s Future of the United States (with Victor LaValle) [Feb. 2019]
Press Start to Play (with Daniel H. Wilson)
Robot Uprisings (with Daniel H. Wilson)
Seeds of Change
Under the Moons of Mars
Wastelands
Wastelands 2
The Way of the Wizard
What the #@&% is That? (with Douglas Cohen)
NOVELS and COLLECTIONS
Beacon 23 by Hugh Howey
Shift by Hugh Howey
Dust by Hugh Howey
Bannerless by Carrie Vaughn
Sand by Hugh Howey
Retrograde by Peter Cawdron
Machine Learning: New and Collected Stories by Hugh Howey
Creatures of Will and Temper by Molly Tanzer
&n
bsp; The City of Lost Fortunes by Bryan Camp
The Robots of Gotham by Todd McAulty
The Wild Dead by Carrie Vaughn
The Spaceship Next Door by Gene Doucette
In the Night Wood by Dale Bailey
Creatures of Want and Ruin by Molly Tanzer
Break the Bodies, Haunt the Bones by Micah Dean Hicks
The Chaos Function by Jack Skillingstead
Upon a Burning Throne by Ashok K. Banker
Gather the Fortunes by Bryan L. Camp
The Unfinished Land by Greg Bear
The Chosen One by Veronica Roth
Visit johnjosephadams.com to learn more about all of the above.
COPYRIGHT INFORMATION
Anthology © 2008 John Joseph Adams.
Originally Published by Wildside Press LLC.
This edition published by John Joseph Adams.
“Introduction” © 2008 by John Joseph Adams.
“N-Words” © 2008 by Ted Kosmatka.
“The Future by Degrees” © 2008 by Joseph E. Lake, Jr.
“Drinking Problem” © 2008 by K. D. Wentworth.
“Endosymbiont” © 2008 by Blake Charlton.
“A Dance Called Armageddon” © by 2008 Ken MacLeod.
“Arties Aren’t Stupid” © 2008 by Jeremiah Tolbert.
“Faceless in Gethsemane” © by 2008 Mark Budz.
“Spider the Artist” © 2008 by Nnedi Okorafor.
“Resistance” © 2008 by Tobias S. Buckell.
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