The End is Nigh

The Apocalypse Triptych

By: John Joseph Adams, Hugh Howey, Scott Sigler

Narrated by: Mur Lafferty, Rajan Khanna, Kate Baker, Lex Wilson, Ralph Walters, Jack Kincaid, Norm Sherman

Length: 15 hrs and 7 mins

Publisher's summary

Famine. Death. War. Pestilence. These are the harbingers of the biblical apocalypse, of the End of the World. In science fiction, the end is triggered by less figurative means: nuclear holocaust, biological warfare/pandemic, ecological disaster, or cosmological cataclysm.

But before any catastrophe, there are people who see it coming. During, there are heroes who fight against it. And after, there are the survivors who persevere and try to rebuild. THE APOCALYPSE TRIPTYCH will tell their stories.

Edited by acclaimed anthologist John Joseph Adams and bestselling author Hugh Howey, THE APOCALYPSE TRIPTYCH is a series of three anthologies of apocalyptic fiction. THE END IS NIGH focuses on life before the apocalypse. THE END IS NOW turns its attention to life during the apocalypse. And THE END HAS COME focuses on life after the apocalypse.

Post-apocalyptic fiction is about worlds that have already burned. Apocalyptic fiction is about worlds that are burning. THE END IS NIGH is about the match.

TABLE OF CONTENTS: Introduction by John Joseph Adams | The Balm and the Wound by Robin Wasserman | Heaven is a Place on Planet X by Desirina Boskovich | Break! Break! Break! by Charlie Jane Anders | The Gods Will Not Be Chained by Ken Liu | Wedding Day by Jake Kerr | Removal Order by Tananarive Due | System Reset by Tobias S. Buckell | This Unkempt World is Falling to Pieces by Jamie Ford | BRING HER TO ME by Ben H. Winters | In the Air by Hugh Howey | Goodnight Moon by Annie Bellet | Dancing with Death in the Land of Nod by Will McIntosh | Houses Without Air by Megan Arkenberg | The Fifth Day of Deer Camp by Scott Sigler | Enjoy the Moment by Jack McDevitt | Pretty Soon the Four Horsemen are Going to Come Riding Through by Nancy Kress | Spores by Seanan McGuire | She's Got a Ticket to Ride by Jonathan Maberry | Agent Unknown by David Wellington | Enlightenment by Matthew Mather | Shooting the Apocalypse by Paolo Bacigalupi | Love Perverts by Sarah Langan.

©2014 John Joseph Adams & Hugh Howey (P)2014 John Joseph Adams & Hugh Howey

THE REIGNING KING OF ANTHOLOGY

WE'RE NOT DEAD YET
Adams is my favorite editor. He has a good sense of what I like, better than any other editor. I will admit there are a lot of losers in this for me. If you are not capable of skipping stories you know early on, your not going to like than stay away from this, or most anthologies. There were seven stories I liked a lot. Mathew Mathers had the best story in my opinion. There were also good entries from David Wellington, Hugh Howey, Ben H. Winters, Jack McDevit and Robin Wasserman. Four of the stories were okay and six stories that I skipped after figuring out early they were not for me. Some of the stories did not get me excited, but got me excited for the next entry in the series. Scott Sigler's story was okay, but sounds like it will get a lot better.

P.S. I know those of us who like anthologies are few, but I do hope that audible brings back the Science Fiction/Anthology category and that they keep it up to date this time. It would be so nice to be able to go to one place to find the anthologies I am interested in.

Amazing, couldn't put it down!

Where does The End is Nigh rank among all the audiobooks you’ve listened to so far?

This is one of my favorite audio books, and I have listened to quite a few. I prefer short story anthologies and every single piece in this book was a new gem.

What was one of the most memorable moments of The End is Nigh?

I loved that so many of these stories came at the apocalypse premise from unusual directions. Every time the world is going to end in a different way, and the character viewpoints are also very different so each new story brings a different perspective. Sometimes the protagonists are likely to live, sometimes they don't make it to the last paragraph. As a reader, the uncertainty makes each story exciting.

Have you listened to any of the narrators’s other performances before? How does this one compare?

It was great to hear famous podcast voices such as Mur Lafferty, Tina Connolly, Kate Baker, Jack Kincaid, Norm Sherman and others who consistently deliver clear, evocative story narrations - these are artists at the top of their craft delivering excellently edited performances.

Any additional comments?

John Joseph Adams compiled a GREAT set of stories in this anthology. I can't wait for the next book in this series to be released!

Good concept; muddled audiobook execution

Is there anything you would change about this book?

I came to this book cause I listen to John Joseph Adams' Lightspeed podcasts. Who did this production? As an anthology the stories I managed to listen to, are good. The editor knows what he's doing. His selections are historically dynamite. The writing is solid. But as a listening experience I don't think there was a guiding hand, it felt patched together, because the reading styles and effects are all over the place, which made it horrifyingly distracting in most cases.

What was your reaction to the ending? (No spoilers please!)

Never made it to the end. I'm buying the book.

How did the narrator detract from the book?

Who are these readers? I listen to lots of podcasts and short stories. And there's always inconsistencies in talent. But this is an audiobook. I'm assuming this was a new production, not a grab bag podcast. The ClarkesWorld narrators did well in this one (Kate Baker?) drawing me in, but where were the Lightspeed folks? There were tremendous inconsistencies in style and talent levels. You've got Jack Kincaid doing over-the-top Radio Style, and then You've got fake-oh FX effects of God's Voice in the middle of a woman's narrative; then what I call "Barnes and Noble" author-type-reads which are barely comprehensible. Who are these people? Genre fiction needs the best; we're picky. ;0) We get spoiled by productions like Cascadia and Ender's Game Alive, and RipOff and World War Z and V-Wars. Howey is certainly capable of demanding a certain level of production, no??? He's one of the big boys now, no? Sigler and Mur were good, but they're veteran readers. The rest? Yikes.

Did The End is Nigh inspire you to do anything?

I don't want to be unkind here. But I jumped around, listened to the first minutes of each story; only a few pulled me in; the rest I skipped. Didn't feel I was in good story-teller hands. Didn't make it to the end. I plan to buy the book and read it. Maybe. The authors were not well served here. Variety's good when the narrator supports the story; but when they detract ... not good.

Any additional comments?

Seems from what he says in the intro that John Joseph Adams, the anthologer had a good grip on arc and concept on paper; but no follow through on the production. I was disappointed in the Hugh Howey narrator choice on a previous audio and thought I'd try this one cause of Adams does a great job on Lightspeed, but was once again let down by the casting. Makes one wonder who was in charge here. If anyone.

Some great stories, some wretched performances

Would you recommend this audiobook to a friend? If so, why?

I would recommend fans of apocalyptic fiction stick to the written versions of this anthology. The performers often detracted from the generally compelling and sometimes surprising stories. The inclusion of extradiegetic sound effects in all stories was distracting and intrusive.

What was your reaction to the ending? (No spoilers please!)

The majority of the stories were satisfying in their own right. The same writers are meant to continue most of the pre-apocalyptic narratives in this volume through the experience of the apocalypse and the aftermath in two forthcoming volumes. While the concept is unique and somewhat interesting, it seems more like a stunt after listening to all the stories in "The End is Nigh". The best stories in the book ("Wedding Day", "Dancing with Death in the Land of Nod", and "Goodnight Moon") are gems, and the less-interesting offerings ("Agent Unknown", "Spores") did not leave me looking for more time in their fictional worlds. John Joseph Adams has edited a number of memorable anthologies with some of the best short fiction I've read, but I think the rules driving the Apocalypse Triptych project could result in a less satisfying package.

What didn’t you like about the narrators’s performance?

Jack Kincaid's work was painful, littered with solecisms and extraordinarily awkward pacing, particularly when reading dialogue. The use of multiple narrators for Ben Winters' "Bring Her to Me" was a distracting and draining folly. Several of the readers were unable to convey the emotion or pacing of their stories.

If you were to make a film of this book, what would the tag line be?

Why ask why? The End is Nigh.

Any additional comments?

Audible versions of John Joseph Adams' other anthologies would be welcome.

Get Ready

Would you say that listening to this book was time well-spent? Why or why not?

Absolutely. Another wonderfully edited anthology of stories by John Joseph Adams.

What did you like best about this story?

Stories about the world’s end should prompt the reader to ask tough questions. How do you pick who gets to survive? At what point is it okay to give up on survival? Is society worth saving in the first place? To what lengths would you go to survive? Do you deserve to survive if you’re the reason the world has ended in the first place? Along with all of these questions, The End is Nigh highlights a wide variety of social issues, including same-sex marriage, global warming, euthanasia, genetic manipulation, human medical testing, and eating disorders, to name a few. The End is Nigh tackles these questions head on, and frequently the resulting answer is appropriately unsettling.

The menu of characters is similarly varied: con men; cult members; tech-savvy teenagers; scientists with OCD; artists; unfaithful husbands; computer hackers; grandmothers; and astronauts (astronauts who are also grandmothers). Good people doing good things, good people doing horrible things. Horrible people doing horrible things, horrible people doing good things.

Additionally, I was very pleased with the character diversity, whether it was with regard to ethnicity, gender, or sexual orientation. Women written by men and men written by women.

The strongest stories in this collection are anchored by these strong, complex characters and issues and tack on the utter destruction of everything as a side note. My honorable mentions are:
- “Wedding Day”—Follows a same-sex wedding that is left too late, and the resulting conflict around the characters' ability to save legal family members.
- “Removal Order”—Brings us a responsible teenage girl trying to care for her terminally ill grandmother as the world burns around her.
- “Spores”—Introduces one of the more unique characters I’ve met in the apocalypse; a laboratory scientist with severe OCD who is tasked with surviving the outbreak of a genetically engineered fungus. (This story also gets my award for most disturbingly icky plague.)
- “The Fifth Day of Dear Camp”—Imagine the guys from the SNL “Bill Swerski’s Superfans” sketches encountering an alien invasion while hunting in the woods. Lovable, but deadly.

Any additional comments?

I listened to the Jake Kincaid-produced audiobook as my primary reading experience and found this experience to be fairly hit or miss. A number of the performances were so overly emoted as to be practically unlistenable. In the case of “The Balm and the Wound,” I found the interpretation of the main character to be completely off. (Would you follow a spiritual cult leader, if he sounded like mob lackey from The Jersey Shore?) On the flip side, the accents in “The Fifth Day of Dear Camp” were performed very admirably and added nicely to the story. And, those stories that were treated more as unacted narrations were generally well done.

Some memorable stories mixed with trash

I have enjoyed enough anthologies to realize that not all short stories (and not all narrators) are equal. This anthology is no different. While most stories are above average, a couple fall short in quality of narrative and narrator to bring down the overall quality of this collection, ever so slightly.

Pre-dystopian anthology

This book is a collection of multiple authors' ideas on what life was like on the cusp of a pre-dystopian event. Very different stories from chapter to chapter. Hugh Howey's name is what brought me to buy this book (I love everything he's ever written).
Some of the stories were fantastic. Some I had to fast-forward through due to either an unpolished narrator or an uncaptivating storyline. I did discover a few new exciting authors to follow by listening to this, which is fab.
I don't think I'll follow up with the second in the series because I enjoy being drawn into a story for hours at a time too much to become a regular reader of anthologies.

Boring and painful to listen to

Most of the stories I managed to get through, which were about six, anyone could have written. They are poorly written and don't cover any new in apocalyptic fiction. The narration is poor and hard on ears. The narrator is actually annoying to listen to and I do not recommend this book to anyone interested in apocalyptic fiction.

Mostly good, looking forward to the other 2

Some stories in this compilation are better than others, just like in any compilation.
Some I really hope will carry over into a next compilation in the Apocalypse Triptych.

My rating for individual stories:
The Balm and the Wound by Robin Wasserman - ✪✪✪✪✪ - very enjoyable take on an 'End times' cult scam.
Heaven is a Place on Planet X by Desirina Boskovich - ✪✪✪✪✪ - bitterly clever great short story.
Break! Break! Break! by Charlie Jane Anders - ✪ - no recollection whatsoever.
The Gods Will Not Be Chained by Ken Liu - ✪ - cyber-meh.
Wedding Day by Jake Kerr - ✪✪ - as entertaining as watching someone's wedding video. I was hoping for the comet by the end of the story.
Removal Order by Tananarive Due - ✪ - something to do with an epidemic, not particularly memorable story.
System Reset by Tobias S. Buckell - ✪ - something to do with hackers, I think.
This Unkempt World is Falling to Pieces by Jamie Ford - ✪ - no recollection whatsoever.
BRING HER TO ME by Ben H. Winters ✪✪✪✪✪ - i really hope for the continuation of this story
In the Air by Hugh Howey ✪✪✪✪✪ - Silo Trilogy side story
Goodnight Moon by Annie Bellet - ✪✪✪ - Astronauts facing certain death.
Dancing with Death in the Land of Nod by Will McIntosh - ✪✪✪✪ - very well done 'epidemic isolation victim' short story.
Houses Without Air by Megan Arkenberg - ✪ - meh.
The Fifth Day of Deer Camp by Scott Sigler - ✪✪ - protagonist chanced to be away from civilization during the alien attack. Ok, but predictable.
Enjoy the Moment by Jack McDevitt
Pretty Soon the Four Horsemen are Going to Come Riding Through by Nancy Kress
Spores by Seanan McGuire - ✪✪✪✪ - predictable but well written
She’s Got a Ticket to Ride by Jonathan Maberry - ✪✪✪✪✪ - great approach.
Agent Unknown by David Wellington - ✪✪✪✪✪ - zombie genre for science nerds.
Enlightenment by Matthew Mather - ✪✪✪✪✪ - absolutely horrifying and very believable story.
Shooting the Apocalypse by Paolo Bacigalupi - ✪✪✪✪ - good take on a quite possible water crisis and already-existing revolting sensationalistic reporting.
Love Perverts by Sarah Langan - ✪✪✪ - an apocalypse lottery.

THE END IS NIGH

What other book might you compare The End is Nigh to and why?

This is similar to JJA's anthology Wastelands, though I believe Wastelands to be superior. That being said, this anthology is a good fix for you apocalypse junkies. I am also very much looking forward to the continuations of some of these stories in the next anthology that Hugh and John are doing: The End Has Come.

A very enjoyable start to the Apocalypse

The first book in a trilogy of short series based around the apocalypse. This book concentrates on before the apocalypse (whatever it will be).

There were some really high calibre stories in this anthology. The following are all my 4 stars and above. Rarely do i get this many high ratings in an anthology.

“Heaven is a Place on Planet X” by Desirina Boskovich
“The Gods Will Not Be Chained” by Ken Liu
“Wedding Day” by Jake Kerr
“In the Air” by Hugh Howey
“Spores” by Seanan McGuire
“She’s Got a Ticket to Ride” by Jonathan Maberry

As always where will be some stories that do nothing for me. The following were all rated 1.

“Removal Order” by Tananarive Due
“Love Perverts” by Sarah Langan.

There were a couple of 2 stars as well, but the rest were inbetween.

The narration was generally of high calibre. There was 1 bad narration (Removal Order) and this could have impacted on my verdict for the 1 star.

Looking forward to the second book, which i will read/listen to nearer the release of the third book.

Triptic Triumph

This and its sister books are a complete triumph - I was concerned that I might not like the short story format but it works soooo well.
One or two of the books are a little weak but others are incredibly good and I think what works and doesn't will vary between readers but this series is definitely worth every penny.

Is this a joke?

Incredible. I've honestly listened to some bad audio books, terrible even but this, this has stolen that crown. I didn't just want my credit back, I wanted the time I spent trying to listen to these awful stories back.

Between the terrible writers beating you around the head with "progressive" messages as subtle as a brick through the window and the laughably bad writing I honestly didn't think literature could fall so low. I didn't think you could make something as simple as impending doom so utterly boring but here we are. As for the narration, the first story while leading to a damp dull ending had a decent narrator but oh boy does it get worse very quickly, just sliding down further into the abysmal over the remaining fourteen hours.

I mean I did get one plus I guess. I now have a list of authors to never read or listen to an audiobook of.

Like a box of chocolates

Some stories are brilliant while others are meh…I won’t say which ones are which as one man’s treasure is another man’s rubbish, and other adages… might follow up with book two will wait and see as I’ve still got a couple left to listen to. Narration has been okay so far bar one story.

Didn’t really enjoy this

Can’t say I enjoyed this. Too abrupt, sometimes the narration was great sometimes not. I doubt I’ll buy a collection of shorts again. Definitely not fulfilling.

A great collection

All I can say is that this is a great collection of tales somewhere great some were not
There is something for everyone that likes this this type of story's and I'm sure that like me you will discovery some new writers
to listen to.

Really thought provoking , excellent narrations.

Really good mix of stories. Love the fact some stories continue in the next book. Excellent narrations.

Great shorts

Perfect for when you don't want a full scale book but just want a quick story fix