The End of the World: Stories of the Apocalypse

A sensitive introduction by Robert Silverberg sets the tone for 19 varied glimpses of humankind's ending, arranged thematically and ranging from the nuclear bang of Norman Spinrad's "The Big Flash" to the sad whimper of George R.R. Martin's poignant "Dark, Dark Were the Tunnels." Lester Del Rey's wrenching "Kindness" nods to the last living Homo sapiens while John Helfers's "Afterward" envisions a blue-whitebrown planet sterilized of human contamination. Orson Scott Card's "Salvage" and Nancy Kress's elegiac "Fools Like Me" eloquently humanize the inhuman and convincingly imagine the unimaginable. Even longtime SF fans who know many of these classic stories will be thrilled to have them all in one place, a moving and powerful reminder of humanity's capacity for self-destruction and powerful will to survive. (July)