Summary: Welcome to the second episode of Last Short Story. This month Ian Mond and I are joined by Not if You Were the Last Short Story on Earth co-founder Tansy Rayner Roberts to discuss Ellen Datlow Terri Windling's After: Nineteen Stories of Apocalypse and Dystopia. As part of the pre-season for the podcast, we continue to refine the format. This time we accept that we're not going to get through nineteen stories, however fine they may be, in an hour podcast, so we restrict ourselves to discussing these six stories, all of which rank amongst the year's better stories, and several of which are clearly amongst the best: "The Segment," Genevieve Valentine "Valedictorian," N.K. Jemisin "Blood Drive," Jeffrey Ford "The Easthound," Nalo Hopkinson "Fake Plastic Trees," Caitlin R. Kiernan "The Marker," Cecil Castellucci These aren't the only good stories in the book, by any means, but in the collective opinion of the podcast panel they easily justify the time spent reading the book. Next month: The Future is Japanese, Nick Mamatas Masumi Washington eds
