1912: ‘A Woman Alone With Her Soul’ by Thomas Bailey Aldrich

Hertzsprung-Russell rating: F10^-5

Available in: The Book Of Fantasy

A woman is sitting alone in a house. She knows she is alone in the whole world: every other living thing is dead. The doorbell rings. That’s not a synopsis – that’s the whole story (the Coles Notes are ‘Woman. Alone. Doorbell.’) Writing of this brevity was common in the early twentieth century, when a single piece of typewriter paper cost more than a pair of spats. Spats, in turn, cost so much that people would fight over them in the streets. These disagreements were called ‘spats spats’ and could easily escalate into full-blown spattles.

1963: ‘’Tis The Season To Be Jelly’ by Richard Matheson

Hertzsprung-Russell rating: A10^-3

Available in: Button, Button

In a radioactive, post-apocalyptic America (where, in addition to red states and blue states, there are now incandescent green states), a clan of mutant backwoods hillbillies go about their daily lives, which involve foraging for food and having body parts fall off. So, basically, if you live in the American South and there’s a nuke war, you’re really no worse off than you were before.

1977: ‘The Dust Of Evening’ by Robert Crais

Hertzsprung-Russell rating: O/B5

Available in: 2076: The American Tricentennial

A bad story about badass post-apocalyptic bikers hunting each other down in the badlands of America. Do I feel slurping on my scrotum? Cuz this story sucked the bag. It’s written in that ‘weird-for-the-sake-of-weird’ style that was passed off as creative innovation in the 1970’s, but is really just shallow, non-linear storytelling that leaves the reader dazed and confused with none of the benefit of a murky violin bow guitar solo. It’s just bag-suckin’ bad, is what it is.

1987: ‘The Courage Of Friends’ by Paul Edwards

Hertzsprung – Russell rating: A10

Available in: Friends Of The Horseclans

In a post-apocalyptic America (NOTE: It was something the Democrats did) a young boy befriends a telepathic warhorse. Kinda like ‘Old Yeller’ with a mind-reading horse instead of a pyrokinetic dog. The two of them grow to love each other, and the boy eventually rises up against his village’s oppressive neo-feudal overlord by asking his equine BFF to trample said warlord to death. Proof that having a horseshoe up your ass isn’t always good luck.

1958: ‘Shark Ship’ by C.M. Kornbluth

Hertzsprung-Russell rating: G/K10^6.5+

Available in: A Mile Beyond The Moon

C.M.K. doesn’t seem to have a bad writing bone in his body; not a punny tibia or hackneyed distal phalange to be found. ‘Shark Ship’ begins as a story about a future civilization living at sea, and ends up touring the abandoned slums of New York City. Like a Nazi slipping on a banana peel it’s all at once scary and hilarious, and proves that the Jew-run banana peel industry is still very much a threat.

1949: ‘Let The Ants Try’ by Frederick Pohl

Hertzsprung-Russell rating: A/F1

Available in: Alternating Currents

After a nuclear holocaust, a dude goes back in time to prehistoric days to try and change history, but returns to find ants ruling the world. And said ants fuckin’ kill him. D’jever notice that, post WWII, everyone was terrified of ants? If I had a nickel for every mid-20^th century scifi story that posits a future where ants rule the world, I’d have thousands of sugar-standard-based ant dollars I could use to buy a 20,000-room anthill right beside a picnic basket. I’d just sit on my thorax all day while my centipede butler brought me cookie crumbs. That’d be the life.