John Joseph Adams Books In Order

Publication Order of Wastelands Books

Publication Order of Harbinger Books

Publication Order of The Living Dead Books

Publication Order of Anthologies

John Joseph Adams (1976-) is a well-established American editor, critic and publisher of science fiction and fantasy books and anthologies. Little is known about his early life, but his success in the fantasy world has made him one of the prominent figures in the field of science fiction around the world. He is best known as the editor of the Best American Science Fiction & Fantasy. Adams’ interest in science fiction and fantasy won him international recognition and a number of awards. Barnes & Nobles called him “the reigning king of the anthology world”. He won the Hugo Award two times and he is a seven-time finalist for the World Fantasy Award. Apart from his being an editor of short science fiction, Adams runs the Houghton Mifflin Harcourt imprint of fiction and fantasy.

John Joseph Adams is the editor a wide range of books, magazines and anthologies in the science fiction genre. Through a selection of fascinating stories, he has succeeded to engage the reader in the realm of mystery and science fiction. The Best American Series, for instance, is a compilation of the finest pieces of short fiction and non-fiction from the world’s leading magazines and newspapers Thanks to its forceful and passionate content, the series quickly found its way to the hearts of science fictions readers and critics. The Wastelands series is a delving into the human heart, with much emphasis on raw human emotions. Famine, death, war, and pestilence are the series’ recurrent motifs of the apocalypse. Lightspeed is J. J Adams’ 2014 Hugo Award winner digital magazine. It is an entertaining magazine where different fantasy genres are brought together to take the reader into the realm of science fiction both in the near and far future. Nightmare is another horror magazine edited by J.J Adams, which presents the reader with a number of new and reprinted stories. In addition to short fiction, the magazine publishes nonfiction, podcasts and art in the fantasy genre.

The Best American Series, also known as Best American Science Fiction and Fantasy, is the premier source of the country’s best pieces of short fiction and non-fiction. The selection process of the series makes it one of the most respected and admired series in American fiction. For each series, the editor makes an extensive search for reading materials in newspapers, magazines, journals (both in print and online) and websites. He then comes up with the top forty stories published in science fiction and the top forty stories published in the fantasy genre. The list of these eighty stories is then forwarded to the guest editor who studies them blind and nominates the top twenty stories (equally divided between both genres) to appear in the following volume of the series. The sixty remaining stories appear on a list at the end of the volume under the title of “Other Notable Science Fiction and Fantasy Stories” of the year.

The 2015 volume of The Best American Series features prominent novelist Joe Hill as a guest editor. Hill is the writer of three bestselling novels: Heart-Shaped Box, Horns, and NOS4A2. In this volume, John Joseph Adams compiles ten notable science fiction stories by such renown writers as Daniel H. Wilson, Sofia Samatar, Cat Rambo and Susan Palwick. The volume features also ten fantasy stories by a number of bestselling authors, such as Neil Gaiman, Karen Russell, Sofia Samatar and Kelly Sandoval. The stories published in this volume are of diverse themes and literary merits. For instance, Alaya Dawn Jhonson’s A Guide to the Fruits of Hawai’i (originally published in The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction) is a vampire story. The story is remarkable in the way it departs from traditional vampire stories. Johnson offers the reader significant insight into the psyche of vampire victims. For the first time in the history of the genre, the victim (and the reader with him) is led to sympathise (and ultimately admire) the vampire.

Sophia Samatar is the only name who appears twice in the 2015 volume with two entries. The first entry is a story entitled “How to Get Back to the Forest” ( originally published in Lightspeed Magazine) is reminiscent of Margaret Atwood’s The Handmaid’s Tale. In addition to the forceful and compassionate style of the story, Samatar manages to keep the reader in suspense as to what actually is taking place. As much of the story is left untold, it is closer to the opening chapter in a long novel where the narrator gives a few hints to expose the reader to the events, the characters and themes of the story. However, while in the case of the novel the reader gets answers to the questions he asks; in “How to Get Back to the Forest” the majority of questions remain unanswered. Samatar’s second appearance in the volume is no less perplexing. “Ogres of East Africa” (originally published in Long Hidden) is an interesting combination of entries from the Ogre Encyclopedia and journal entries. This work by Samatar presents the reader with a world of endless possibility. Although “Ogres of East Africa” is engaging and entertaining, some critics saw in it an unsuccessful attempt to cram big stuff in a small space. The two entries by Samatar testify to the author’s concern to intellectually engage the reader with perplexing questions about the human psyche. By leaving many questions unanswered, Samatar makes the reader at the heart of the writing process. She assigns no definite meaning to her works. The meaning of the story is what the reader makes of it. The 2015 volume of The Best American Series exemplifies John Joseph Adams’ concern with the genres of science fiction and fantasy.

John Joseph Adams is a leading editor and anthologist in the field of science fiction and fantasy. Through his many anthologies of science fiction, his series and digital magazines, John Joseph Adams has consistently demonstrated a firm grasp of the genre. He constantly presents the reader with lists of bestselling authors of short fiction and non-fiction in the fantasy and science fiction genres. His exemplary success as an editor was enough to earn him a number of awards around the world. Whether in The Best American Series, Lightspeed or Nightmare, the reader is spoiled with a fine selection of works in the genre.