[review] Shards & Ashes, Short Story Collection Editted by Kelley Armstrong and Melissa Marr (2013)

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android, apocalypse, apocalyptic, asia, asian culture, book, book review, china, dystopian, romance, sci-fi, technology, young adult, young adult fiction

Shards and Ashes (2013)
by Melissa Marr (Editor), Kelley Armstrong (Editor), Veronica Roth, Kami Garcia, Margaret Stohl, Rachel Caine, Nancy Holder, Beth Revis, Carrie Ryan
Paperback ARC
Publication Date: February 19th, 2013
Publisher: HarperTeen
Buy a copy via Amazon.
Synopsis from Goodreads.

The world is gone, destroyed by human, ecological, or supernatural causes. Survivors dodge chemical warfare and cruel gods; they travel the reaches of space and inhabit underground caverns. Their enemies are disease, corrupt corporations, and one another; their resources are few, and their courage is tested.

Powerful original dystopian tales from nine bestselling authors offer bleak insight, prophetic visions, and precious glimmers of light among the shards and ashes of a ruined world.

My Thoughts:
I’m obsessed with dystopians, so coming across Shard and Ashes was like Christmas for me (despite the weird cover that made me think it was a paranormal anthology instead.) But I find that short stories can be hit or miss for me. On one hand they allow me to explore many different worlds, but on another hand sixty pages is sometimes not enough to develop a world or to make me invested in the characters (which explains why it took me a week to finish this one.) There were also moments were I felt some of these short stories were just leftover scraps, as if they were not fully fleshed out ideas. This made evident in the abrupt way some of these stories ended, as if the author had a host of great ideas, but ran out of steam halfway through. Of course, not ALL of the stories in this collection were like that. And despite the my disappointment in plot, all these different dystopian imaginings kept me turning pages.