{"id":204182,"date":"2025-09-06T05:24:18","date_gmt":"2025-09-06T05:24:18","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/204182\/"},"modified":"2025-09-06T05:24:18","modified_gmt":"2025-09-06T05:24:18","slug":"stand-and-deliver-writers-riff-off-of-king-classic-with-post-apocalyptic-visions-books","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/204182\/","title":{"rendered":"‘Stand’ \u2014 and deliver: Writers riff off of King classic with post-apocalyptic visions | Books"},"content":{"rendered":"

Stephen King\u2019s \u201cThe Stand,\u201d<\/a> originally published in 1978, is beloved by his \u201cConstant Readers,\u201d but has never really made a leap off the page.<\/p>\n

Two TV miniseries in 1994 and 2020 both flopped, but while fans wait to see what happens with a movie adaptation in development, they can turn instead to \u201cThe End of the World As We Know It,\u201d a collection of 34 short stories set in the world King created.<\/p>\n

King himself<\/a> blessed the project (he wrote the introduction) and the nearly 800-page collection was edited by Christopher Golden and Brian Keene, both accomplished writers of fantasy and horror books, comics and graphic novels.<\/p>\n

The stories are written by a few authors you might recognize (Richard Chizmar, Joe R. Lansdale, Caroline Kepnes, Meg Gardiner) and many you won\u2019t. What they all have in common is a true affection for the world of \u201cThe Stand.\u201d<\/p>\n

All are set either during or after the events of King\u2019s novel, which tells an epic story of good vs. evil following a super-flu that kills more than 99% of people on earth.<\/p>\n

There\u2019s one featuring astronauts aboard a stranded space shuttle, suddenly without a Mission Control to guide them home.<\/p>\n

There\u2019s another told from the point of view of an African Painted Dog, no longer contained in his zoo enclosure and bewildered by the smell of rotten human meat everywhere.<\/p>\n

They\u2019re not all absurd, though.<\/p>\n

There\u2019s real heart in a lot of them, like \u201cCame the Last Night of Sadness\u201d by Catherynne M. Valente, which introduces readers to Fern Ramsey, a teenager born after the events of \u201cThe Stand,\u201d who has learned \u201cYou can do fine as long as you know how to read and have a knife, a map, a fishing pole and a bicycle \u2013 as long as you know how to fix the last two.\u201d<\/p>\n

A great many reference either Mother Abagail or Randall Flagg, the two characters representing good and evil in \u201cThe Stand.\u201d<\/p>\n

One I particularly liked was \u201cGrand Junction,\u201d set 30 years after the end of \u201cThe Stand\u201d as a thriving community in the Colorado title town begins to feel threatened by stories of bad things happening in nearby Telluride.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe seasons, the rain and snow and sun, day and night and back into day, the feelings in our heart chasing each other \u2013 it\u2019s all a cycle,\u201d writes Chuck Wendig, expanding on the \u201cLife is a Wheel\u201d theme King refers to often in his writing. \u201cAnd good and evil are on that cycle. \u2026 Righteousness rules. And then the wheel turns on its axis. Goodness softens. Weakens. \u2026 Evil gathers at the edges. Just outside the firelight, waiting for its chance.\u201d<\/p>\n

Readers unfamiliar with \u201cThe Stand\u201d should read King\u2019s opus first, of course, but when you\u2019re done, \u201cThe End of the World As We Know It\u201d makes a fine coda.<\/p>\n

Copyright 2025 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed without permission.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Stephen King\u2019s \u201cThe Stand,\u201d originally published in 1978, is beloved by his \u201cConstant Readers,\u201d but has never really…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":204183,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[31],"tags":[1022,36029,112653,171,3607,67,132,68],"class_list":{"0":"post-204182","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-books","8":"tag-books","9":"tag-books-and-literature","10":"tag-end-world-know-review-stephen-king","11":"tag-entertainment","12":"tag-fiction","13":"tag-united-states","14":"tag-unitedstates","15":"tag-us"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/115155688882813174","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/204182","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=204182"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/204182\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/204183"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=204182"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=204182"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=204182"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}