The Ways We End: Six Tales of Doom by Ann Christy
My rating: 4 of 5 stars
The bland cover of The Ways We End (at least of the ebook edition) is unfortunate because it may turn away potential readers and they would miss out on a terrific collection of stories by Ann Christy that depict apocalyptic scenarios that deviate from or subvert the usual zombies/nuclear war/alien invasion tropes. Even the author’s notes at the end of each story are a delight, conveying the infectious joy Christy had in both writing the stories and their reception.
All six stories are well worth reading and are best without spoilers, so here’s some quick takes, in order:
“A Cottage of Hunger” puts together a rules-following protagonist, her quite mad mother and a lost teenage girl in a world where the sun is permanently blotted out in the sky. It raises interesting questions on how far some people might go to preserve a sense of order, believing they are doing the right–the proper–thing.
“The Mergans” is a story set in the far future, where descendants of Earth have formed a galactic “Peace Force” that uses its military might to intervene in corrupted cultures of planets colonized from seed ships, mostly by blasting everything to smithereens. The particular culture in “The Mergans” is especially ghastly in its treatment of women, but its liberators may not be quite what they seem, either.
“The Mountains of Five” follows the journey of a 12-year old girl exiled from her village and forced to find her way through a dystopian landscape. I found this story particularly evocative, its spare prose perfectly capturing both the spirit of the titular girl, Five, and her dangerous journey. There is a twist ending of sorts, but the astute reader will likely see it coming. It doesn’t make the story any less effective, though.
“The Bridge.” As Christy notes, this is a quick little “spooky campfire” story and it works nicely for what it is, but it is the slightest of the stories collected here. Still, trolls.
“Rock or Shell” is a time travel story that hints at larger mysteries while never fully revealing them, leaving the reader with a sense that there is a lot more to this depiction of a mist-like realm where thought alone can send someone off into nothingness, erasing them from time and space. Dashes of humor lighten the constant undercurrent of tension.
“A Mother So Beautiful” is probably the darkest and most disturbing tale of the collection. It eschews the body horror of “The Mergans” in favor of telling the story of a sociopath whose mother attempts to stamp out aggression through genetics and achieves horrific success. Watching the world disintegrate from the eyes of a profoundly unstable person is something that will stay with you well after the story ends.
Overall, a fine collection of doom, where some hope or happy endings are (usually) at hand. Recommended.
