About John Joseph Adams
John Joseph Adams is the assistant editor at The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction, and
is the editor of the forthcoming reprint anthology Wastelands: Stories of the Apocalypse (Night
Shade Books, January 2008).
He has written reviews for Kirkus Reviews, Publishers Weekly, and Orson Scott Card’s
Intergalactic Medicine Show and is the print news correspondent for SCI FI Wire (the news
service of the SCI FI Channel). His non-fiction has also appeared in: Amazing Stories, The
Internet Review of Science Fiction, Locus Magazine, Novel & Short Story Writers Market,
Science Fiction Weekly, Shimmer, Strange Horizons, Subterranean Magazine, and Writer’s
Digest.
He currently lives in New Jersey. Visit his site at www.johnjosephadams.com.
John Joseph Adams is the assistant editor at The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction, and
is the editor of the forthcoming reprint anthology Wastelands: Stories of the Apocalypse (Night
Shade Books, January 2008).
He has written reviews for Kirkus Reviews, Publishers Weekly, and Orson Scott Card’s
Intergalactic Medicine Show and is the print news correspondent for SCI FI Wire (the news
service of the SCI FI Channel). His non-fiction has also appeared in: Amazing Stories, The
Internet Review of Science Fiction, Locus Magazine, Novel & Short Story Writers Market,
Science Fiction Weekly, Shimmer, Strange Horizons, Subterranean Magazine, and Writer’s
Digest.
He currently lives in New Jersey. Visit his site at www.johnjosephadams.com.
John Joseph Adams -- March 8, 2008
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Our March Face the Fiction, with guest John Joseph Adams, was quite enjoyable and was a fun
night.
Todd started the ball rolling by making several announcements and hogging the microphone -
the power goes to his head. Todd announced the following:
1) the June weekend at Reality's Edge for the Bill Molendyk Charity Gaming Event. Exact dates,
times, details will follow shortly in a separate special announcement.
2) beginning in April, Drawing A Crowd moves to New Moon Comics in Little Falls.
3) beginning in April, we will have a new pre-meeting segment, Whispers from Beyond (7p). This
wonderful suggestion came from Kate Landis! Thanks to Kate.
4) locations for some upcoming Face the Fictions were indicated.
Todd reluctantly handed the microphone over to Steve S who gave a wonderful introduction for
our guest John Joseph Adams and we officially began the meeting.
John Joseph Adams was an engaging, informative and very at ease speaker. He quickly
realized this group has a lot of fun with each other and joined in.
Mr. Adams works for Fantasy & Science Fiction magazine, edited the anthology Wastelands,
edited the Pirate issue of Shimmer and also does interviews for SciFi.com. Busy man.
The meeting opened with our guest telling us about his beginnings - majored in English in
Florida, moved to New Jersey to look for a job in publishing, and Fantasy & SF magazine got
him. When asked about inspirations, John Joseph admits that his path to publishing started
with an interest in video games. It was the game Fallout that started his addiction for apocalypse
stories, and another game that started his fascination with pirates. Gotta admire a man who
admits his guilty pleasures, especially to this group!
Many questions were asked about the Wastelands anthology. We discovered that he did a lot of
reading about the genre before deciding what he wanted in the anthology. He differentiates
between apocalypse/post-apocalypse and the various ways these stories are handled. He
prefers the "hopeful ending" apocalypse. He discussed the concept of people not using
technology as being the ones who will be the survivors. He even gave a shout out to the SCA
(much to the delight of Ana & Brian). Can John Joseph endear himself or what! Thom, yet
again, had to offer his belief that the Flintstones are indeed a post-apocalyptic family. The order
of the stories in the book gave him some difficulty. He wanted a nice balance. He didn't want too
many of the darker stories together. He went mostly by feel, and tried to separate darker stories
with "lighter" ones for balance. The number of stories/words was a random pick. He felt 150,000
words would be easier for a first-time editor to pitch. He also admitted that Wastelands was
exceeding sales expectations - it's selling like mad and going into a third reprint! Pretty cool.
John Joseph also spoke about the Pirate issue of Shimmer. He told us he wanted a broad
interpretation of "pirate" for the issue - some historical pirates, but also contemporary, techno,
etc. for a nice range. He really liked that submissions for the Pirate issue were anonymous.
This way, you choose the story for the story.
We found out he is not a disciplined writer, as he put it, "the Internet is distracting!" He has to
have a deadline. He's a self-professed "movie snob" and feels that no movie stands out in the
apocalyptic genre. One of his favorite movies, 12 Monkeys, comes the closest to using good
elements of the apocalypse genre in his humble opinion. Someone brought up Doomsday. Mr.
Adam's response was funny, "yeah, I thought this might be good until I saw the crazy biker punks
- not good, not good. What is it with the biker punks in these movies?!" He also noted there has
been a resurgence of British apocalypse stories making the rounds.
We took a brief break, converged upon our guest pens & books in hand, he didn't even flinch!
When Todd corralled us back into our seats, John Joseph read from Wastelands for us. He
was asked what his all time favorite book was. With no hesitation, he said The Stars, My
Destination by Alfred Bester. He described it as a revenge story, hmm. Other good reads he's
enjoyed - Beyond Armageddon, Long Loud Silence, The Last Babylon, No Earth Abides and A
Canticle for Leibowitz.
Mr. Adams ended the meeting by telling us about his upcoming books. Coming in August is
Seeds of Change, an original anthology collection. In September/October brings us the
tentatively titled The Living Dead (he wanted to call it No Room in Hell but the powers that be
didn't agree. He guesses they felt it didn't scream ZOMBIE enough). Yes, this anthology is about
Zombies and we are all waiting for this one.
We cleaned up and headed over to Suburban Diner, with our guest, to continue the fun. Cool
guest that John Joseph was, we told him he had to pay, and he still came to the diner. We had a
great time at the diner and Paul took several photos. What didn't we talk about! You had to see
us trying to talk to each, about 20 of us ventured to the diner. I guess it's a good thing about that
many of us went home after the meeting - no way all of us would've fit. Next month brings a very
special guest, international best-selling author Lincoln Child!! We're not sure who's more
excited, Robin, the GM at Borders or us. Please join us next month for Lincoln Child.
The Stars, My Destination by Alfred Bester (1956; also called Tiger! Tiger!) is a classic. It's a
retelling of The Count of Monte Cristo in an interplanetary society in which teleportation is
commonplace.
P.S.: The post-armageddon novels Adams mentioned are: Alas, Babylon (1959) by Pat Frank;
Earth Abides (1949) by George R. Stewart; and A Canticle for Leibowitz (1960) by Walter M.
Miller, Jr.