Severina's Reviews > Best Tales of the Apocalypse

Spoiler alert: these are not the best tales.

By assigning each of the 14 short stories a score out of 5 and then using the average, this book scored a dismal 2 stars.

At it’s best is The All Night One-Stop Apocalypse Shop by Derek J. Goodman,, a super fun story where convenience store night clerks Caleb and Gloria deal with ghouls, vampires, zombies and potential end-of-the-world scenarios on the regular while the rest of the world remains oblivious. Loved this one.

Also good was Restore From Backup by JF Gonzalez and Michael Oliveri, where data crunchers are somehow holding worldwide illness at bay… until someone messes with the code. And Pigs and Feaches by Patrice Sarath,, about a new and deadly Alzheimers variant, was sad and poignant and beautifully written.

Unfortunately, those were the exceptions. I rated six of the 14 stories as 1 star. The worst of these was Kelmscott Manor: In the Attic (my note for this says “?? pretentious time machine twattle”) and America is Coming! by Dario Ciriello, in which, get ready for it, America breaks away and floats around the planet, careening into other land masses and destroying them, but two Italian guys manage to maneuver close enough in their rubber boat to jump aboard and I CAN’T MAKE THIS SHIT UP.

So yeah. I’m sorry for those couple of great stories that got buried in this mess.