Famine, Death, War, and Pestilence the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse, the harbingers of Armageddon these are our guides through the Wastelands.From the Book of Revelation to "The Road Warrior," from "A Canticle for Leibowitz" to "The Road," storytellers have long imagined the end of the world, weaving eschatological tales of catastrophe, chaos, and calamity. In doing so, these visionary authors have addressed one of the most challenging and enduring themes of imaginative fiction: the nature of life in the aftermath of total societal collapse.Gathering together the best postapocalyptic literature of the last two decades from many of today s most renowned authors of speculative fiction including George R. R. Martin, Gene Wolfe, Orson Scott Card, Carol Emshwiller, Jonathan Lethem, Octavia E. Butler, and Stephen King" Wastelands" explores the scientific, psychological, and philosophical questions of what it means to remain human in the wake of Armageddon. Whether the end of the world com