A collection of stories about the end of the world. Some are pretty inspiring, as the survivors build a new world from the ashes of the old. Sometimes the End occurs because of human stupidity, sometimes alien invasion, sometimes natural disasters, and sometimes people deliberately destroy the world to make room for something new. Gregory Benford's A Desperate Calculus has people who deliberately bring the end closer, in hopes that the survivors can stop the final End which is creeping nearer, and includes an interesting type of code involving anagrams of famous mathematical sequences. A Message To The King of Brobdingnag by Richard Cowper draws its title from a line in Gulliver's Travels: "He gave it for his opinion that whoever could make two ears of corn, or two blades of grass grow upon a spot of ground where only one grew before; would deserve better of Mankind, and do more essential service for his country, than the whole race of politicians put together." Raccoona Sheldon's The Screwfly Solution ends with the horrifying sentence "I think I saw a real-estate agent." If you want to know how that sentence can be horrifying, read the story. ... The World, as We Know't by Howard Waldrop explores the world-ending potential an old scientific theory would have had if it had been true. This book also includes Larry Niven's classic Inconstant Moon, which I have copies of in several more anthologies.

Books edited by Gardner Dozois:
The Good Stuff
Nanotech
Armageddons
Magicats!
Magicats II

Other books with stories by these authors:
New Destinies edited by Jim Baen
After The King edited by Martin H. Greenberg
Redshift edited by Al Sarrantonio

Released on Friday, November 01, 2002 at Broun Hall in Auburn University, Alabama USA.

Left in the computer lab on the first floor (room 125, I think), to the left of machine "leo" (leftmost computer in second row from front), about 2pm.