About the girl at the end of the world

Covers 2 Book 2
Covers 2 Book 2

There was supposed to be an introduction to Girl, I wrote it but I never sent it to the formatter with the rest of the book. I just wasn’t sure I wanted to share it yet. Now Book 1 is out, Book 2 is almost finished and I think perhaps this is a better place for it. The apocalypse can happen to anyone & I never saw it coming.

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‘It’s all over and I’m standing pretty
In this dust that was a city
If I could find a souvenir
Just to prove the world was here.’
Nena – 99 Red Balloons

‘The Girl at the End of the World’ is undoubtedly the most personal collection for me that Fox Spirit has done. Maybe that is why I let it get totally out of hand. It was supposed to be one volume of around 20 stories, it’s now two volumes and because there were too many great ideas for covers each volume gets two cover options as well. A total of over 40 stories but I have no regrets, it was hard cutting the submissions down even that much.

The brief was ‘pre, during, post and personal apocalypse’. I wanted a wide range of interpretations and I got them! From the kick off with James Bennett’s ‘Antichristine’ to the far future sci-fi finish I hope it is obvious to readers that although you may find the odd zombie shambling among the pages there is a lot more scope to the end of the world than just natural disasters (which also feature) and the walking dead. There is some humour in there, in particular Carol Borden’s ‘Sophie and the Gates of Hell’ made me laugh out loud while reading through the submissions. The volumes include some wonderful treatments of traditional themes like the post apocalyptic urban survivor stories and some less well trodden routes are also explored. There was no genre specified for these volumes, so you’ll find fantasy, horror, sci-fi, crime and genre-bending playfulness within these pages. There are authors who will be familiar to regulars at Fox Spirit as well as plenty of names that are new to our tables of contents.

Why these books are so personal to me, why this project was inevitable really from the moment Fox Spirit was registered as a publisher is two-fold. One is my own love for these sorts of heroines: Ripley, Sarah Connor, Resident Evil’s Alice and of course Buffy the Vampire Slayer to name a few. Women and girls fighting for their own survival, to hold back the end of the world and in some cases just to be normal and live in the world again for a moment. The same love for these characters and for exploring what goes into their survival that led to the collaborative project ‘The Girls Guide to Surviving the Apocalypse’ stayed with me once that came to an end. It just took a little time to work out what I wanted to do with it.

It was more than that though. Fox Spirit would never have happened if my world as I knew it hadn’t ended. When I realised that my marriage was never going to work I had to let go of the shared life we had planned and suddenly I had no idea what my future was going to look like. It was a painful, frightening and sometimes just numbing experience. I got to spend some time as a zombie, mostly looking for my own brain rather than eating anyone else’s. A lot of the time I was just trying not to fall apart, to keep going every day and then I started to put myself back together and move on. It was while I was moving on from that I ended up agreeing to do ‘Nun and Dragon’ and through that Fox Spirit emerged. I am very fortunate that so many of my close friends, of the people who propped me up through it all are writers and artists and let’s be honest about it, a bit insane.

‘Sorry to barge in. I’m afraid we have a slight apocalypse.’ – Rupert Giles BTVS

 

The Girl at the End of the World Vol 1

The end is nigh!

The first volume (city cover as shown) of Girl at the End of the World is now available via amazon worldwide. The alternate ‘girl’ cover and ebooks will be going live over the next few days so keep an eye out!

Cover 1 Book 1
Cover 1 Book 1

Volume 2 is due for release at the end of July.

It’s the end of days. The sky is falling, the seas are burning and your neighbour is a zombie. It’s brutal out there. It’s every man for himself and these heels are going to have to go; you simply can’t run in them!

Across two volumes, The Girl at the End of the World offers forty-one striking visions of the apocalypse and the women and girls dealing with it. From gods to zombies, from epic to deeply personal, from the moment of impact to a future where life is long forgotten; bestselling authors and exciting new writers deliver tales you’ll still remember when holed up in a fallout shelter with one remaining bullet and a best friend with a suspicious bite mark on their neck.

The two volumes feature a number of new and established authors including Adrian Tchaikovsky and best selling crime novelist James Oswald.

 

Girl at the End of the World – Vol 2

and here are the covers and listings for volume 2.

I am crazy excited about these books and can’t wait to see the finished covers!

TGATEOTW_1b

TGATEOTW_2a_3

 

2,1 Dawn of Demons Eric Scott
2,1 Shirtless in Antarctica Justin Brooks
2,1 The Girls from Humanji Adrian Tchaikovsky
2,1 The Sharks of Market Street Michael Ezell
2,1 The Weed Wife C Allegra Hawksmoor
2,1 Under the Green Witch Colin Sinclair

2,2 The Winter After Michael Nayak
2,2 Girls Day Out Bruce Lee Bond
2,2 Hope Street Dylan Fox
2,2 I was Here Anne Michaud
2,2 Savage Times Paul Starkey
2,2 The Thirteenth Hour Michael Trimmer

2,3 Bunker Buster Alec McQuay
2,3 Halcyon High Gita Ralleigh
2,3 The Dragons Maw Cheryl Morgan
2,3 The eternal quest of the girl with the corkscrew hair David Turnbull
2,3 The Unbroken Line Kim Bannerman
2,3 Were Stars to Burn Kara Lee
2,3 Vanquish N.O.A Rawle

Girl At The End of The World – Vol 1

Each of the ‘Girl’ books will be split into three loose sections as well as available with two cover options.

Here are the rough sketches from the artist for Vol 1 along with the contents, broken into sections but not yet an exact running order.

TGATEOTW_1a

TGATEOTW_2a_1

 

1,1 Antichristine James Bennett
1,1 Change of Address Rob Harkess
1,1 Coming Back Tracy Fahey
1,1 Skin James Oswald
1,1 The Borrowed Man James S Dorr
1,1 The End of the Garden Catherine Mann
1,1 The Ending Plague Andrew Reid
1,1 The Wife of Watsorous Nathan Lunt

1,2 A Sailor Girl Goes Ashore Margret Helgadottir
1,2 Blueprint for Redwings Ruth E J Booth
1,2 Demon Runner Dash Cooray
1,2 Little Daughter Dayna Ingram
1,2 Rolling in the Deep Cat Connor
1,2 Sophie and the Gate to Hell Carol Borden
1,2 The Glaciers Stone Alexander Danner
1,2 The Last Rushani Jonathan Ward

1,3 In the Absence John Perkins
1,3 Only So Far Adam Rodenberger
1,3 Saint Salima Alex Helm
1,3 Somebody to Play with Geraldine Clark Hellery
1,3 The Beast Within Christian D’Amico
1,3 Zompoc in Nashville K.A.Laity
1,3 All things Fall Chloe Yates