Chloe Woods

Into the Ruins brings its four year run to a close with a final issue featuring a number of old friends offering new visions of our future. From a time in which any semblance of compromise is an excuse for ostracization, to one in which the dreams of escape into space clash with the harsh realities of making a living during decline; from one man's journey to escape alcohol and discover a new life, to another man's nightly remembrance of a former life through the final broadcasts of a big city radio station; and onward to a mid-twenty-first century ranch in eastern Washington and the sudden murder that threatens to tear it apart: these stories once again bring to life futures not driven by apocalypse or utopia, but by the erratic and grinding changes most often brought by the real world. Wrapping up with a review of the new graphic novel 10 Billion, and the exciting announcement of a new deindustrial fiction magazine by Nathanael Bonnell, this issue serves as a fitting close to Into the Ruins, as well as a promise of many newly imagined futures to come.

This new issue of Into the Ruins brings with it surprises, new adventures, and at least one familiar landscape-all brought to us by writers old and new. Alistair Herbert returns one more time to the world of "The Change Year" and "Archive" to bring his triptych of the future to a close. Brian Koukol weaves us a delightful tale of the future in which the old world is brought back to life in a surprising way. Chloe Woods takes us to a light house at the edge of the sea and the dangerous visitors who come knocking, while Kyle E. Miller shows us a locked and frozen land of winter. Finally, in an exciting first for this magazine, John Michael Greer's stellar deindustrial science fiction story, "Winter's Tales," is brought to vivid, visual life in comic form by Marcu Knoesen and Walt Barna. Couple these stories with a tight and compelling letters section and an essay from Hannes Rollin on what the role of religion, superstition, and magic should be in deindustrial science fiction, and you have yourself one of the more fascinating issues of Into the Ruins yet brought to life.

In the second issue of Into the Ruins, we continue to explore the emerging sub-genre of deindustrial science fiction. John Michael Greer debuts a new column on the sub-genre while five new and compelling stories weave future scenarios devoid of spaceships and interstellar space travel and instead focus on a future defined by natural limits, energy and resource depletion, industrial decline, climate change, and other consequences stemming from the reckless and shortsighted exploitation of our planet-and the ways humans will adapt, survive, live, die, and thrive within such a future. These stories show a wide variety of possible futures for humanity, from a distant civilization that cycles through the same ebb and flow of peace and warfare we find littered throughout human history, to a melancholic meditation on our fast-changing world set in 2020 that feels eerily familiar to today; from a love story set in a less energy-intensive time, to a haunting encampment at the edge of dry and dusty ruins; and on again to an adventurous and amusing attempt to deliver a key new manuscript on the herbal treatment of spinal meningitis to a distant library. These stories inspire a wide range of emotions, from meditative reflection on the predicament of our times to delight at unexpected adventure-all while offering readers fascinating tales utterly different than what science fiction normally provides.