The End is Nigh (The Apocalypse Triptych #1) by Various Authors

From Goodreads

Famine. Death. War. Pestilence. These are the harbingers of the biblical apocalypse, of the End of the World. In science fiction, the end is triggered by less figurative means: nuclear holocaust, biological warfare/pandemic, ecological disaster, or cosmological cataclysm.

But before any catastrophe, there are people who see it coming. During, there are heroes who fight against it. And after, there are the survivors who persevere and try to rebuild. THE APOCALYPSE TRIPTYCH will tell their stories.

Edited by acclaimed anthologist John Joseph Adams and bestselling author Hugh Howey, THE APOCALYPSE TRIPTYCH is a series of three anthologies of apocalyptic fiction. THE END IS NIGH focuses on life before the apocalypse. THE END IS NOW turns its attention to life during the apocalypse. And THE END HAS COME focuses on life after the apocalypse.

THE END IS NIGH features all-new, never-before-published works by Hugh Howey, Paolo Bacigalupi, Jamie Ford, Seanan McGuire, Tananarive Due, Jonathan Maberry, Robin Wasserman, Nancy Kress, Charlie Jane Anders, Ken Liu, and many others.

My thoughts

I have for some time now been a fan of dystopian stories that take us away from our day to day life and into alternative worlds, that are not always make believe but can often be set around our normal life and existence. 

I grabbed a copy of this book from Kindle Unlimited.  This is the first in a trilogy of three themed books of short stories, set around the end of the world and what may happen.  Some of the Authors are well known and others have had work published but not to such great acclaim as the well known authors.    

Excerpt from Wedding Day by Jake Kerr.

'I am filled with more happiness than I knew was possible as the love of my life will be safe and this wonderful amazing person who has filled my life with such joy will not have her light go out due to the cruelty of the heavens or fate or whatever has decreed that life is now nothing more than a lottery she will she will live she will live.'

In my eyes life has always been a lottery, it's the luck of the draw what happens to us on our journey on this Earth.   Some of what happens to us we can plan for and other things happen that we may never have expected to happen to us.  Just keep an eye on that lottery ticket that you get and make the most of life every day as you never know when that lottery ticket may fail.  

I really enjoyed reading this collection of short stories, the subject of the stories varies greatly from gentle romances to horror themes.  Some will remain with me for a while as they made me think about the issues that they were dealing with and how I may have dealt with things if I had been the character that the story was centred on .  

I am looking forward to reading the next in this Apocalypse Triptych series The End is Now.